WordPress Installations – Subdomain, Root, or Subdirectory

Whether you are a Fortune 500 company or planning on managing a blog from your parents basement, you need to know the installation options for self-hosted blogging platforms like WordPress. Installation options for a blogging platform include installing your blog at the root of its own domain, in a subdirectory of an existing domain, or in a subdomain of an existing domain.  If you feel a little bit intimidated after reading these techno jargon associated with the introduction of this post, don’t be as I will clarify the pros and cons of each of these by the time you are done reading.

I will start by explaining the difference between a domain, a subdomain, a subdirector.  Next I will provide some insight as how do each of these effect your blog in the eyes of the major search engines like Google. I will evaluate the factors for making your blog installation decision.

Definitions

The following are a few common definitions to facilitate our discussion:

Domain

• Definition: “The first-level set of domain names are the top-level domains (TLDs), including the generic top-level domains (gTLDs), such as the prominent domains com, net and org, and the country code top-level domains (ccTLDs). Below these top-level domains in the DNS hierarchy are the second-level and third-level domain names that are typically open for reservation by end-users that wish to connect local area networks to the Internet, run web sites, or create other publicly accessible Internet resources.” (source: Wikipedia)
• Example: http://how-to-blog.tv or http://www.orangecaster.com (note: the subdomain shows up between the http:// and the domain name in the second example.)
• Page Rank: Though Google tracks page rank at the actual “web page level” a domain can be considered the equivalent of your social security number on the web as all pages and page rank are generally associated with a domain. (see below for more details)

Subdomain

• Definition: “The Domain Name System (DNS) has a tree structure or hierarchy, with each node on the tree being a domain name. A subdomain is a domain that is part of a larger domain, the only domain that isn’t also a subdomain is the root domain.[1] For example, “mail.example.com” and “calendar.example.com” are subdomains of the “example.com” domain, which in turn is a subdomain of the “com” top-level domain (TLD)”. (source: Wikipedia)
• Example: hhttp://blog.macsales.com/ (note that How-To-Blog.TV has no “www” meaning our blog doesn’t even have the common subdomain of www associated with it.)
• Page Rank: Since each subdomain is treated as a different domain, subdomains will not share page rank with the website. However you can link between the website and subdomain and leverage your page rank this way.  It does take time for the “link juice” to pass.
• Search Engine Results: Again each subdomain is considered its own website so your search engine results could include one to two results for each subdomain right? Wrong, Google now treats subdomains the same as folders for their search results. (source: SEO Round Table

Subdirectory

• Definition: Folder, directory, catalog, or drawer, in computing, is a virtual container within a digital file system, in which groups of computer files and other folders can be kept and organized. (source: Wikipedia)
• Example: http://www.orangecaster.com/social-media (our general marketing blog at Orangecast is installed in a subdirectory)
• Page Rank: Since the subdirectory shares the same domain name, the page rank is distributed to it from the rest of the website.
• Search Engine Results: Matt Cutts explains what Google calls host crowding in this post on subdomains and subdirectories. The basic idea is that in most cases Google will only show two results from one hostname. Since the subdirectory will sit at the end of the hostname it will compete with the rest of your website to be one of the two results.

Where Should You Install Your Blog?

The ultimate place for you to install your blog is either in its own domain or a subdirectory of your existing website.  Installing a blog in its own domain is preferred when you want to:

• Differentiate the brand of a blog from your existing website.
• Utilize external hosting that is separate from your corporate or small business infrastructure.
• Get search engine results that are in addition to the two results you already get from your business website.

A subdirectory installation is preferred when you want to:

• Leverage the existing search engine page rank of your website in order for your blog to achieve quicker visibility.
• Increase the overall health of your website by having a subdirectory that has fresh content on a consistent basis.
• Make your blog an extension of your business brand.

* warning: if your existing website is “www.mycompany.com” and you install WordPress at “www.mycompany.com/blog”, WordPress’ default settings don’t include the “www” and when a visitor or a search engine visits your blog, your URL will change from http://www.mycompany.com to http://mycompany.com/blog which is a BAD THING.  You can change this in general settings of WordPress under “WordPress Address (URL) and Blog Address (URL)”.  We will address this in a future post.

A subdomain is the least preferred installation location for a blog.  The reason is that it doesn’t provide any of the benefits of either option above.  In essence, you will have the brand of your company but the search engines will treat it as a completely separate site.  You will have to build their trust which will take time.  Still, when you want to associate your blog with your company brand, subdomain installations solve for one very tough problem–incompatible hosting.

In many cases a corporate or small business website will be built on technologies such .NET or they will be hosted within an IT department that doesn’t support the technologies required for WordPress.  Subdomain installations literally allow you to “point” to hosting that is physically and in many cases geographically separate from the infrastructure where your website is located.  I’ll give an example.  Let’s say that you built an eCommerce website using Homestead which is a popular small business eCommerce service.   Let’s say your domain is www.myonlinestore.com.  Homestead won’t support installing WordPress from within their hosting.  You sure aren’t going to move eCommerce platforms on the account of wanting to install a blog.  You can acquire compatible hosting at GoDaddy or Media Temple, for example, and point a subdomain to those.  It would look like myblog.myonlinestore.com .  Contact your hosting provider and/or registrar for more details on how to accomplish this.

Conclusion

Dedicated domains and subdirectories installations of self-hosted blogging software are easier to create and manage, and generally provide faster traction with search engines. If you choose a subdirectory installation, it requires that your hosting supports your blogging software. If your hosting does not support your software and you do not want to manage your blog under its own domain for branding reasons, a subdomain installation will be your best bet as it allows you to use hosting that is separate from your website infrastructure. Subdomain installations do have some short term drawbacks with search engines but if your blog is good you will overcome this.

Regardless of your decision, start a blog.  It is a great way for individuals and companies to get into search engines and social media alike in a much more dynamic way that your Web 1.0 website.

Tagged as: Blog, blogger, blogging, Folder, Subdirectory, Subdomain, Subfolder