Subdomain or Subdirectory- Which Ones for You?
On December 16th, 2008 Adam wrote on the subject of SEO.
One question many site owners make as their website grows- “should I use a subdomain or a subdirectory to place my blog in?â€.
This common question isn’t limited to just blogs– news sections, articles, careers sections… any grouping of content will at some point cause the question.
For those who don’t know- ‘news.google.co.uk’ is an example of a subdomain, where “news†is the subdomain of “google.co.ukâ€.
A subdirectory is a folder within a domain- e.g.- ‘google.com/analytics/’ where “analytics†is a subdirectory (or folder) within “google.comâ€.
While these may appear relatively similar, subdomains and subdirectories have different uses for a site, as well as different effects in a pages ability to rank in search engines.
Generally, search engines will allow pages within subdirectories to rank easier in comparison to pages within a subdomain. This reason being subdirectories inherit more authority from the domain name, whereas pages within subdomains inherit less authority from the domain (thus being treated similar to an external domain, although still receiving some of the authority from the main domain.)
So if subdirectories inherit more authority from a domain, why do companies choose to use subdomains?
Subdomains are used to segment a large amount of content on a site by a specific topic. If the number of pages are relatively high for a section (e.g. hundreds of pages), it may be logically better to place these pages within a subdomain rather than a subdirectory.
Otherwise, we recommend keeping within the content within the domain (i.e. using subdirectories)- this will make it easier for pages to rank better in search results as these pages inherit more authority from the main domain.
Multiple Domain Names- More Harm than Good?
On December 12th, 2008 Adam wrote on the subject of SEO.
One common misconception many site owners make is the assumption that:
more websites = more traffic = more sales.
Logically, this may seem like a good idea- after all, two hands are better than one, five are better than two, right?
When it comes to domain names and search engine optimisation- this couldn’t be further from the truth!
Sadly, many site owners with limited SEO knowledge make this assumption- either, pointing many other domains to their existing site or copying their existing site and hosting it separately with other domain names. Both methods don’t work, and are likely to get your existing site penalised, causing less traffic and less sales. Why?
Search engines use links to crawl pages within and outside of a site. If links point to a page on a domain name, search engine robots will crawl that page. However, having multiple domains pointing to a site allows search engines multiple entrances to the same content, effectively presenting the same page multiple times.
E.g. if www.mysite1.com points to the same server directory as www.mysite2.com, search engines can see the same single page through more than one source- and if not correctly managed (using 301 redirects) duplicate content problems will occur which will result in the sites receiving a decrease in rankings and potentially a ban from search engines altogether.
In the second instance, by hosting the same content on multiple sites the duplicate content issue is also present, resulting in a drop and a possible ban for all duplicate sites (including the original site) in extreme circumstances and probable indexing issues.
How Can Multiple Domains Provide Any Value?
Having multiple domains can provide your site with additional value if managed correctly. For branding purposes, companies may purchase premium domain names which can potentially provide additional direct traffic from searchers typing in the URL directly.
For example, searchers for “cables†may directly type into their address bar “cables.comâ€, providing this site with additional direct traffic.
Other large corporations buy the localised versions of their domain name, partly to protect their brand and largely to help with usability.
For example, hp.co.uk provides the UK index page for HP, while HP also own hp.com, and hp.com.au, to name a few.
How is it then that large companies are able to use multiple domains and not get penalised in search engines? The answer is, these domains are managed correctly and redirect these domains to the appropriate pages on the server. By using a ’301 Permanently moved’ redirect, these domains point to a single page on the server, therefore minimising duplicate content issues.
i.e. when someone types in hp.co.uk, a request is made to the HP server, where the server then identifies this request and directs the visitor to the UK main page on the universal site, therefore not duplicating the content on the page as search engines see the same file on the same server, be it through hp.co.uk or through http://welcome.hp.com/country/uk/en/welcome.html
Should You Consider Using Multiple Domains?
If you are a large corporation and if this will help the usability of your site then consideration of multiple domains should be made. However, if your brand is not internationally known and if there is no main benefit and no potential direct traffic, we strongly advise against it. Remember- very few people are going to directly type in ‘this-is-my-nice-branded-domain.com’ or ‘thisismynicebrandeddomain.com’- domains such as this example will bring little (if any) direct traffic from the domain name, and whilst they may look good for additional branding, they provide no real support to your current sites domain.
Interflora Suing M&S and Flowers Direct over AdWords
On December 10th, 2008 Adam wrote on the subject of Online Marketing,Pay Per Click.
After reading some interesting posts over at Holistic Search and Brand Republic, one of the largest florist chains worldwide is suing Marks & Spencers and Flowers Direct for using the Interflora brand name to trigger AdWords ads for their competitors.
Google updated their policy on brand name keywords and trademark terms that trigger competitor’s adverts to display back in May. Previously, competitors could not bid on other brand names to display their ads, but since Google updated their policies on brand name keywords and trademarks, competitors in various industries have been using competition brand names to trigger their adverts.
It has been reported keywords include “Interfloraâ€, “Intaflora†and “Inter-flora†which have been used to trigger the display of competitors adverts.
Interflora’s argument is that the actions of Marks & Spencers and Flowers Direct are a breach of trademark law, as marketing director Michael Barringer stated:
“The Interflora brand is extremely valuable and we will not tolerate competitors taking advantage of it and infringing our right.â€
However, both M&S and Flowers Direct are abiding by the Google Terms of Service- no mention of the band is made within the advert itself and is now somewhat of a common practice across industries, as a spokeswoman for Marks & Spencers was quoted saying they are “extremely surprised by Interflora’s course of action†adding it was industry-wide practice and not unlawful.
Interestingly, there has been no mention of Interflora or any other company suing Google over the use of trademark terms in AdWords for allowing this to happen.
This is not the first report of companies suing over the use of their trademark terms on Google AdWords either, as Dominic Farnsworth (a partner at Lewis Silkin) commented:
“There are a lot of legal letters flying around in the background at the moment and many disputes are being resolved without the need for legal proceedingsâ€.
This poses an interesting situation for advertisers and search agencies- how long is it before competitors terms cause a lawsuit against your company or client, or how many more examples are needed before Google considers refining their policies? As Google have recently allowed the advertising of gambling and alcohol related sites, it appears they are expanding their policies to get even more from their advertising revenue—could this be Google’s solution to the current economic downturn? Let us know your comments.
Your Product Pages- How Copying The Manufacturers Description Harms a Site
On December 9th, 2008 Adam wrote on the subject of SEO.
If you own or operate an e-commerce website, chances are your competition may supply the same products you do. While competition is great, there are certain considerations you should make regarding the content on your product pages to beat your competitors.
Every product page should have great descriptions of the product, as well as inviting and well-presented professional photography to entice and attract searchers into making a purchase. However, one common mistake many e-commerce sites make is copying the descriptions written by the manufacturer.
Lets take the Apple iPhone product page as an example:
From the official product page, searching for the first sentence “With its beautiful 3.5-inch widescreen display and Multi-Touch controls, iPhone is also one amazing iPod†in Google returns 13,500 pages!
This shows there are hundreds of pages using the default description as the description on their pages- causing lots of duplicate content in Google’s index.
Why is This a Problem for You?
Duplicate content is a large problem search engines face. Search engines do not want to display pages in their results which contain the same content as another, as this can affect their credibility in delivering the closest possible results to which the searcher is looking for.
In addition, search engines do not want to waste their time indexing content which is provided on another site, so may skip a duplicated page, and are likely to skip an entire site if too many duplications are found. This not only has an effect on the new product page but also has a knock-on effect to other pages already indexed- penalising your site.
And this example is just for one product- supposing you sold other Apple products and copied the description from the manufacturers product pages? This means a large amount of the text on your product pages is copied.
This causes a problem for your site in search engines, as duplicate content is a major problem which search engines can and will penalise your site for!
So how can you avoid this problem? The ideal solution is to not copy the manufacturers description to begin with. Instead, creating your own product descriptions is far better- not only can you tailor it more specifically to your customers needs and desires (thus getting you a better conversion rate), but this also gives search engines more unique content to crawl when indexing your page.
If however it is essential to copy the product description from the manufacturers site, ensure you add additional unique content to the page- and don’t forget to reference and link to the manufacturers page.
By applying this small change, search engines are less likely to penalise your site for duplicate content, giving you a better chance of outranking your competitors, along with other on-page and off-page optimisation techniques!
Footer links vs Breadcrumb Navigation
On December 5th, 2008 Adam wrote on the subject of SEO.
I read an interesting post over at SEOmoz regarding footer link optimisation last week, and after stewing it over for a few days (and finally getting the time to) I’ve decided to share my thoughts on footer link navigation, and more importantly- how you can improve the internal link structure of your site (and hopefully see the results in search engines!)
For those who don’t know, footer links are a common method for linking pages to other pages within a site. Placed at the bottom of the page, footer links link to some of the popular pages of a site- like this fine example from ebay-
The advantage is search engines will potentially crawl these links more often as they will come across them more often, thereby noticing any changes made to these pages and follow the links on these category pages to pages deeper within the site.
This in principal is a great idea- take a category page for example, which lists all of the products within that category. If you add a product to that category and place a link to the product on the category page, if that category page is linked from other pages in the footer links, chances are search engines will crawl the category page and follow the link to the new product page (in principal anyway).
The problem is search engines do not have as high a regard for footer links (or any links towards the bottom of the page) as they do to links towards the top of the page. Because of this, footer links are no longer as effective as they once were (but this doesn’t mean they are redundant, yet).
My thoughts are how long is it before footer links become worthless? In my opinion, footer links do little for visitor navigation anyway- when was the last time you scrolled to the bottom of the page to find out where in the site you are, or to find other pages which might be of interest?
My take on this is this- in time, footer navigation will have little effect to the internal link structure of a website in the eyes of search engines. Enter breadcrumb navigation!
For those who have no idea what it is, breadcrumb navigation is a form of navigation placed towards the top of a website (either in a vertical or horizontal format) which uses hyperlinks to show the depth of the current page within the site, allowing easier navigation to previous (higher level) pages. Here’s a great example from The Financial Times.
Users and search engines can easily identify related pages and can work backwards to higher level sub-category and category pages.
The beauty of breadcrumb navigation over footer links for SEO purposes is breadcrumb navigation is at the top of the page, therefore having a higher regard than footer links in the eyes of the search engines, as well as being useful for site usability (a visitor is more likely to click a breadcrumb link than scrolling to the bottom of the page and clicking a footer link).
Breadcrumb navigation is also better for larger sites with hundreds of pages, as dynamically generating breadcrumb links is relatively easy to achieve (remember to avoid doing this in JavaScript- search engines have difficulty in indexing JavaScript). By using keyword rich anchor text for breadcrumb links, search engines will be able to get a better understanding of the pages content, as well as being able to traverse links up and down the site, improving the accessibility for search engine spiders.
I’m not suggesting everyone rushes out and does away with footer links- footer links are still an effective method of internal linking. However I am suggesting you look into implementing breadcrumb navigation in your site if you haven’t already done so, especially dynamic sites with 100+ pages. Having the two is not likely to hurt your rankings (although this is dependent on the number of links already on the page) and you are likely to find an improvement in the number of indexed pages over time by implementing breadcrumb navigation.
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