Understanding Subdomains and Subdirectories
Posted: Wed Feb 12, 2025 8:51 am
One of the biggest debates in the SEO community is between subdomain and subdirectory advocates.
Which is better for SEO? Is there really a difference? If a blog is hosted on a subdomain, should it be migrated to a subdirectory? What is Google's position on this?
These are some of the many questions that often come up on social media in the SEO community and for which the answers given vary.
In this guide, we want to clear the air and help you put the “subdomain vs. subdirectory” debate to rest. We’ll dive into the technical SEO considerations you need to take into account and outline when it makes the most sense to use them.
More specifically, we will look at the following points:
Before we look at which one is better for SEO, let's first quickly see the technical difference between subdomains and subdirectories.
A subdomain is essentially a child element of the usa telegram data parent domain. It is sometimes used to host:
Blogs
E-commerce stores (when part of a larger site)
Internationalized supports (different sites to target different markets)
Separate mobile sites
Quotation forms
Note that in the subdirectory (also called a subfolder) example, the /blog/ element is located in the main domain. It is part of the main site yourdomain.com like any other page. It is just another page on that site.
While a subdomain sits outside the main domain; it sits inside its own partition of the domain. In this example, it is used to host a blog.
A subdomain will always be located before the root domain when looking at the URL while a subdirectory will always be located after .
If you don't know how many subdomains your site currently uses, or if it only uses one, you can use the Site Audit tool to view the structure of your site, including any subdomains.
When configuring the tool, make sure that "including all subdomains" is selected in the crawl box.
Which is better for SEO? Is there really a difference? If a blog is hosted on a subdomain, should it be migrated to a subdirectory? What is Google's position on this?
These are some of the many questions that often come up on social media in the SEO community and for which the answers given vary.
In this guide, we want to clear the air and help you put the “subdomain vs. subdirectory” debate to rest. We’ll dive into the technical SEO considerations you need to take into account and outline when it makes the most sense to use them.
More specifically, we will look at the following points:
Before we look at which one is better for SEO, let's first quickly see the technical difference between subdomains and subdirectories.
A subdomain is essentially a child element of the usa telegram data parent domain. It is sometimes used to host:
Blogs
E-commerce stores (when part of a larger site)
Internationalized supports (different sites to target different markets)
Separate mobile sites
Quotation forms
Note that in the subdirectory (also called a subfolder) example, the /blog/ element is located in the main domain. It is part of the main site yourdomain.com like any other page. It is just another page on that site.
While a subdomain sits outside the main domain; it sits inside its own partition of the domain. In this example, it is used to host a blog.
A subdomain will always be located before the root domain when looking at the URL while a subdirectory will always be located after .
If you don't know how many subdomains your site currently uses, or if it only uses one, you can use the Site Audit tool to view the structure of your site, including any subdomains.
When configuring the tool, make sure that "including all subdomains" is selected in the crawl box.