Just when you thought John Mueller of Google was done responding to sub-domain SEO questions – well – now we have a new social platform – so… John said on Mastodon when he would go with subdomains versus posting the content on the main www.
John wrote on Mastodon that he would go with a subdomain over a www when he thinks the content on the subdomain can live on its own off of the www. He said “my way of thinking with regards to subdomains is that it depends on what you’re trying to do. Is it content that’s meant to be tightly connected to the main site? then put it on the main site. If you want the content to stand on its own, then a subdomain is a good match.”
He also shared that there are technical considerations to think about outside of SEO. He said “There’s also the technical side-effect of subdomains sometimes making things a bit more complicated: verification in search console, tracking in analytics, DNS, hosting, security, CSPs, etc.”
Later on in that thread, John added “To be clear, I think it will affect rankings of the new content, but ultimately it depends on what you want to achieve with it. Sometimes you want something separated out, sometimes you want to see something as a part of the main site. These are different situations, and the results will differ.”
So – that is the latest from a Googler on to go with subdomains or stick with your www for portions of your site.
For more on what Google said on subdomains and SEO, just search this site for [subdomain] – I’ve covered it so many times.
Oh, one more thing from Mastodon to add – the link points to here:
Forum discussion at Mastodon.
