Subdomain or Subdirectory opinions please

TerryMeshon

Junior Member

Jan 16, 2013

194

36

• Jun 17, 2013

• #1

So im doing a directory website, but my area covers several smaller towns and villages.

Im wondering your opinions on what you think is best:

1. www.mainarea.com/new-york/restaurants/papa-johns

or

2. newyork.mainarea.com/restaurants/papa-johns

I am also going to do a forum, so wouls that be better as a sub domain or subdir?

 

F

Feather

Registered Member

Apr 17, 2013

75

20

• Jun 17, 2013

• #2

The first one sounds/looks better in my opinion. For the forum I would say that /forum or /community is a little bit better than forum. or community. but it works with both for the later.

 

ExpressFans

Elite Member

Dec 11, 2011

1,751

639

• Jun 17, 2013

• #3

Seeing as the sub-directory wold have even more directories "/restaurants/"

The best thing that would work for you would be creating a sub-domain for each city.
This way you'll have a completely new folder to work on where you can include all other directories.

 

TerryMeshon

Junior Member

Jan 16, 2013

194

36

• Jun 17, 2013
• Thread Starter Thread Starter

• #4

What would the structure of the urls look like then if I did for each city? like option 2?

 

carlikito

Regular Member

Dec 28, 2009

350

217

• Jun 17, 2013

• #5

For the forum, go for a sub domain as is a totally different platform.

As for the cities, I think directories will be easier to manage and you will get all the seo benefits to the domain instead of diluting it to the subdomains.

 

TerryMeshon

Junior Member

Jan 16, 2013

194

36

• Jun 17, 2013
• Thread Starter Thread Starter

• #6

Ok thanks for your input!

 

masterjani

Elite Member

Jr. VIP

May 10, 2011

6,104

534

• Jun 17, 2013

• #7

If you are planning to keep it safe, then go for subdomains for each city, as the updates affecting the main domain might not affect subdomains. If you are using sub directories and something goes wrong, it will affect whole site.

 

Raffy

Regular Member

Nov 30, 2012

211

646

• Jun 18, 2013

• #8

I'm actually testing the difference between subdomains and subdirectories right now using 2 nearly identical database sites to see if google treats them differently. So far more pages have been indexed on the subdomain although that could just be coincidental at this point. When I get more results I'll likely start a thread.

One thing to keep in mind is that if you use subdomains you'll have to generate a seperate sitemap for each subdomain. For that reason I think it's usually better to use subdirectories for convenience.

 

TerryMeshon

Junior Member

Jan 16, 2013

194

36

• Jun 18, 2013
• Thread Starter Thread Starter

• #9

Please let us know your results. Im still undecided but leaning toward subdirectories...

maybe a noob question, but with Subdomains, do I install a new WP install on each sub and theoretically then I can have different themes on each subdomain too?

 

M

moromete

Junior Member

Jul 19, 2008

183

153

• Jun 18, 2013

• #10

Go with subdomains. You can promote each domain separately and also you are much safer when/if google will hit your website. Your main domain and some subdomains may loose their rankings but other subdomain will survive and still bring you traffic.

 

Raffy

Regular Member

Nov 30, 2012

211

646

• Jun 18, 2013

• #11

TerryMeshon said:

Please let us know your results

Click to expand...

Will do.

TerryMeshon said:

maybe a noob question, but with Subdomains, do I install a new WP install on each sub and theoretically then I can have different themes on each subdomain too?

Click to expand...

I use custom built sites so I'm not sure exactly how it's done in wordpress but I know you'll only need to install WP once. You need to add a CNAME record to your DNS to allow wildcard subdomains which will look something like *.domain.com then configure the web server to route the requests to the subdomains. I know that's kinda vague, hopefully someone else with experience in WP can explain it better.

moromete said:

Go with subdomains. You can promote each domain separately and also you are much safer when/if google will hit your website. Your main domain and some subdomains may loose their rankings but other subdomain will survive and still bring you traffic.

Click to expand...

That's true but only if you don't interlink AT ALL which means you miss out on the SEO benefits of interlinking. If your domain is linking to your subdomains and one of your subdomains get penalized all your pages share the penalty. May not matter depending on the site you're making but it's something to keep in mind.

 

M

moon612

Junior Member

Oct 21, 2010

100

1

• Oct 9, 2013

• #12

directory because its going to show better with google