It’s one of life’s greatest mysteries (well almost) “where should I put my blog?”
Basically, there are three options (this assumes your blog is supporting your site, not a stand-alone blog, like this one:)
- In a subfolder (www.yoursite.com/blog)
- As a subdomain (blog.yoursite.com)
- On a separate site (www.somewhereelse.com)
While there are advantages and disadvantages to each, and the advantages of one are usually the disadvantages of the others, one of them clearly wins – the subfolder.
Let’s discuss each so you understand the rationale:
1. In a subfolder (www.yoursite.com/blog)
Advantages:
- Links to the blog “count” as links to your site. Since building links is a major task, why do it more than once?
- Traffic to your blog “counts” towards your site for traffic measurement rankings (and advertising calculations)
- It’s a logical place to put it, people who guess may just get it right
- Domain names are easier to communicate (don’t have to explain the different addresses for your blog versus your site)
Disadvantages:
- Harder to split off the blog if traffic overwhelms the servers
- Links from the blog to the site are counted as “internal” links by the server, making them less valuable than if they were “external” links if one of the other two options was selected
2. As a subdomain (blog.yoursite.com)
Advantages:
- Links to your site from your blog are counted as external links by some search engines
- Easier server management, as the blog can be isolated to its own server in high-traffic situations
Disadvantages:
- Subdomains are counted as totally separate domains by most search engines, meaning that any links to your blog posts don’t count towards your site as a whole, hurting your overall search engine rankings
- People naturally (stupidly) want to put www. in front of everything. Unless your server experts perform voodoo, www.blog.yoursite.com won’t generally work
3. On a separate site (www.somewhereelse.com)
Advantages:
- Links to your site from your blog are counted as external links by some search engines
- Easier server management, as the blog can be isolated to its own server in high-traffic situations
- Opinions on the separate site can be more easily isolated from your main site, giving more freedom of discussing more topics (industry trends, etc.)
Disadvantages
- Links to your blog don’t count towards your site total
- Customer confusion – where is your blog and why does it have a separate URL?
Given the advantages and disadvantages cited above, why do I say that subfolders are the obvious winner? Simple, links.
Probably the hardest part of building online traffic is building incoming links. They’re vital for search engine rankings, and unless you plan to buy traffic to your site forever, you need to maximize every opportunity to gain incoming links.
Purposely creating a situation where the value of your links is reduced is illogical at best, stupid at worst.
Which reminds me of the chant that I hear my friend Ed Dale repeating over and over “Get more links”
Not a bad mantra, try meditating to that sometime!
The next time you hear someone ask where should we put our blog, tell them the answer’s simple – chant “get more links,” then put it on a subfolder!
Agree, disagree? Make your argument by commenting below.