Opinion seeking about domains vs subdomains in SEO

[greggy]

I am seeking to understand if search engines treats subdomains as a complete website or as a page of the main domain name. I have a website http://portalshops.com and users get web portals using subdomains eg http://greg.portalshops.com . Would each subdomain be seen a a link of the main domain name or as an independent website linking to portalshops.com? Does subdomains increase ranking in terms of sites linking back to the main domain? Please contribute

[ihelpyou]

Welcome to the forums Greggy! :hi:

Very tricky stuff.

There is no right answer.

I would never put a client site on my domain. It means your client portals don't have their own website.... it's all yours. Those subs won't get any link benefit and they won't be able to get into any major directories either. You mention if they will help 'your' main site? I would hope not as that should not be your focus or concern.

I would tell the portals to buy their very own domain name and have their own website.

[strangerrr]

SE see subdomain and domain as completely different sites ...
any links between subdomains to domain is backlink because they will be seen as external link ....

These has been discussed several time ... try search and read there is lot to learn .. and still if u have any doubt then you can ask your questions ....

[Jim_Hedger]

Assuming you are looking at this from an SEO perspective, you should think about how search engines compare sites associated with each other.

As someone interested in SEO, you should be offering your clients a product with great value. My first question is: Do your clients (the ones with websites that are actually sub-domains of your URL) share a similar topic or theme to their sites, aside from being your clients?

If they do, then perhaps sub-domains wouldn't be a bad idea. If they do not, then I strongly suggest sub-domains are a bad idea for them.

I am 99.997% sure that contextual relationships between sites associated with each other through links or in this case, through the sharing of the same TLD, will become a MASSIVE factor at Google and MSN in the coming year. (The real launch date of MSN search is still somewhat unknown but I think it is coming sooner than later.)

If you are looking for an optimization benefit for your clients by artificially increasing their link densities through the use of sub-domains, they MUST be about related topics or there is absolutely zero seo value (and the technique crosses the border between seo and spam-eo).

Besides which, I think you could probably make stronger revenues by helping your clients register and manage their domain names. There is good business to be had by highly ethical hosting firms if they offer SEO related services to their clients. (please note, there is also awful business experiences to be had with unethical hosting firms and SEO, so beware). This marketplace is becoming so complicated, we owe it to our clients to make everything as simple as possible.

[greggy]

Thank you very much Jim. Wow.. It sound like I have a lot to learn about SE. I agree with youabout letting my customers have a full domain and have their sites optimized. They all have similar contents. However, the landing page is a shopping portal and the rest of the pages are not so content rich. Do you have any input about this?

Also, I am confused between banner links and text links in reciprocal linking. Does robots treat text better than graphics, eg banners? Please see what i mean in subdomain's link to us page ( http://greg.portalshops.com/link_to_us.php)

[Webmaster T]

Originally posted by Jim_Hedger
If you are looking for an optimization benefit for your clients by artificially increasing their link densities through the use of sub-domains, they MUST be about related topics or there is absolutely zero seo value (and the technique crosses the border between seo and spam-eo).What proof is there this is true? I don't see this when I look at Google. I see the opposite any link from any site has some value and I believe this being the case it isn't spam it's taking what a stupid algo gives you, which is what good SEO is about!

Don't hate the player, hate the game!

I'm not saying I'd do it, I don't, but, I don't think it is spam because I understand those with less knowledge take a shorter view then I do. I agree last year about this time there was some merit to what you say but now... no way Google is out to lunch on this one and it definitely degrades the results for consumer goods. Other SE ignore them but with Google being all about the links I'm re-considering my linking criteria.

[Webmaster T]

IMG or text a link is a link however text links will likely have better text then the alt in a banner depending on the options you have when purchasing a banner. I have yet to see a program that enabled you to put a value in the alt of the banner.

[greggy]

Thank you all. I am hearing you loud and clear. I appreciate your contributions

[Jim_Hedger]

Yeah, in many ways you are right T.

I'm wrote above after spending a few hours reading other SEO's opinions on the massive Google spidering of the past four to six weeks. At this point I think people should be really cautious in using techniques that so close to the line.

In this specific case, as the only relationship between sub-domains is the seller, I don't think it is a good idea. If this was the portal for a larger shopping mall that too would be a good idea. From my read of his site and product, it looked more like a free-for-all and that he was seeing if that would offer any SEO benefit.

[ihelpyou]

For example: These forums had 6 googlebots, yes 6, crawlers in here at "one" time the other day. I've never seen more than two at a time before. My guess is that the new spam filters they talked of one year ago or so are set to be either tested or actually in place.

Let's see what sites are dumped in the next 6 months. :)

[greggy]

Originally posted by strangerrr
SE see subdomain and domain as completely different sites ...
any links between subdomains to domain is backlink because they will be seen as external link ....

These has been discussed several time ... try search and read there is lot to learn .. and still if u have any doubt then you can ask your questions ....

I think now we are talking here. I have used several resources in this research and seems people have differing opinions about subdomains but one thing seems to be common. That subdomains are treated as seperate websites and may not help much in SE ranking. But there is someone who sent me an email with a rather radical opinion about the forth-coming google trend that we are expecting....-That despite the fact that both domain and subdomain are treated as seperate sites, there is a possible issue with IP addresses. Both of them share similar IP address. His opinion is that in the next google technology which is just around the corner, subdomains might be seen as form of spam in a way. Though am not very aware of what he meant by spam, I find the issue of IP address as a possible trap robots wouldn't fail to see.



About each subdomain having silmilar content, with the domain.com, will this not make the both subdomain and domain be treated as one website?

:cheers:

[ihelpyou]

That email was full of it. Period.

[Quadrille]

I cannot see any harm coming from subdomains, even if G does start paying closer attention to IP addresses; sharing the same server won't matter, it's issues like content and links that do - and that's true whether they are subdomain/domain or domain/domain issues.About each subdomain having silmilar content, with the domain.com, will this not make the both subdomain and domain be treated as one website?Having duplicate content will matter - again, the subdomain thing is not the issue, it appies whatever - usually, G's response is to list one and ignore the other, and not necessarily the one you'd choose!

Best to not duplicate content, as there may be other measures planned (or happening, without publicity). Google hates duplication, loves uniquity.

To summarise, the issues you've raised are important, but for all of them, a subdomain will be treated as if it's just another dot.com - so far as anyone knows.

The big issue with subdomains is that they can be a cheap way of having a second domain (depending on your server arrangements), but they can be confusing for visitors if you run them side-by-side with the core domain.

They are probably most useful when you have a fairly generic domain, with logical, related but non-overlapping subtopics - eg western.movies.com / horror.movies.com - but problematic if they overlap - eg actors.westerns.com and directors.westerns.com - simply because the site navigation can become a nightmare (for people as well as robots).

please note:
1. sites above probably don't exist, just e.g.'s
2. just my thoughts on subd's; others may likely disagree.