subdomains or folders

[wilfredw]

Our site primemaths.co.uk was originally designed to target students revising for 11+ and common entrance maths. We have been accumulating maths resources for gcse maths and the new functional maths for adult numeracy. My questions

1. Should I use subfolders for these new target markets e.g gcse.primemaths.co.uk or even gcsemaths.primemaths.co.uk (would there be a problem with maths being used twice in a name?)

2. Or use www.primemaths.co.uk/gcse

3. Or redesign the whole site and have different maths revision channels (would mean changing the slogan ) and then having a 11+ Channel, GCSE Channel or even a special channel for SirEarl (Maths for Kent Pensioners )

Thanks for your feedback and insights in advance.

 

[oldeagleeye]

I like using sub domains Wilfred but your hosting company may limied them and I believe there may be some advantages in using the same directories on the main site such as a shared template or picture folder. Not sure about the using the same word twice. That is one for the SEO boys. Rob

 

[AndyBlack]

Sub domains are treated as a new site compared to the root domain. This can have it's advantages, and maybe it's disadvantages. It really depends on how you want to structure or links all of these up.

See what other opinions come along.

Andy

 

[SearchData]

Hi WilfredW.

It sounds like you'd be best going down the subdirectory route with this one, setting a clear folder structure for each type of exam revision you offer:

yoursite.co.uk/gcse/
yoursite.co.uk/a-level/
yoursite.co.uk/blah-blah/

I'd alsso recommend putting all the content for each specific exam type within that folder:

yoursite.co.uk/gcse/
yoursite.co.uk/gcse/revision/
yoursite.co.uk/gcse/revision/english/

Take some time to plan it out. From what we can make out, Google prefers subdirectories unless the content is extremely different:
mattcutts.com/blog/subdomains-and-subdirectories/

Hope that helps.

I'm sure you'll get some more feedback from the other guys too.

------------------------------------------------------------------------
SearchData-co-uk | Competitive Intelligence for SEO

 

[Kneoteric_eSolutions]

Sub domains are treated as a new site compared to the root domain. This can have it's advantages, and maybe it's disadvantages. It really depends on how you want to structure or links all of these up.

See what other opinions come along.

Andy

True. Google would view a sub domain as a different site altogether. Which would mean that you would not get any advantage of the authority/standing already established by the website in search engines. It would, however, also mean that if anything goes wrong (God forbid) with the mail domain the sub domain remains shielded.

On the other hand, a sub directories would help you leverage the benefits (Google Juice) of the main website. An excerpt from Matt Cutts blog

"My personal preference on subdomains vs. subdirectories is that I usually prefer the convenience of subdirectories for most of my content. A subdomain can be useful to separate out content that is completely different. Google uses subdomains for distinct products such news.google.com or maps.google.com, for example. If you’re a newer webmaster or SEO, I’d recommend using subdirectories until you start to feel pretty confident with the architecture of your site. At that point, you’ll be better equipped to make the right decision for your own site."

You can read the entire post here.

 

[Birmingham]

i'd usually go for subdomains.

fact is, search engines are slow to catch on to this seo trick. they give more weight to subdomain homepages than to subdirectory homepages. one day, maybe in a year or three, google will grant them equal value, but google haven't eveolved this far yet.

 

[seocomp]

If you link internal than subdomains are equal to folders.

 

[Isabella_Smith]

I like subdomain for my websites, however ppl don't use it. I think birmingham has mentioned the cause. If I am not mistaken subdomain helps in SEO marketing as well.

 

[JustOneUK]

Totally depends on the site. I have a site split into subdomains and it's a lot harder to manage and promote. Given the choice again I'd go with folders and then focus on building links, especially to inner pages.

If your site is going to be quite small I'd stick with folders.

regards
James.

 

[edmondscommerce]

you can use folders for your file structure but use subdomains for your URL structure by using wildcard subdomains and a bit of PHP.

I like this approach

To clarify:

You have your server set up to accept anysubdomain.mydomain.com and point all requests to the same document root

so www.mydomain.com and subdomain.mydomain.com both point to the exact same page.

Then what we do is use PHP (or mod_rewrite alternatively) to spit out different content based on the value of the subdomain in the URL

hope that makes sense