Where your website lives can make a HUGE difference for ranking in search engines.

Here's what I mean. You have domains, subdirectories, and subdomains:

You probably have your primary site on a domain. But what if you have multiple sites tied to the primary? Which is better: a subdirectory or a subdomain?

This conversation gets complicated fast, with both branding and technical concerns in play. BUT, from a purely SEO / ranking perspective, it's usually a MUCH better choice to build related child sites off the main site as subdirectories, NOT subdomains.

About a decade ago we built a blog for a Fortune 500 company on its own separate domain. Their (very savvy) SEO team wanted to pull it onto the main company domain so the blog and main site could feed each other. The options were subdirectory (.com/blog/) or subdomain (blog.domainname.com). Subdomain would have been easier technically, but they insisted that for ideal SEO it had to be a subdirectory.

They were right. We moved it to .com/blog and the ranking potential skyrocketed. The blog had a far easier time ranking because it inherited the domain strength of the main site. The main site also benefited from all the external links now pointing to content under its own roof.

This applies to all kinds of company microsites: a specific product line, division, child company, you name it. If it makes sense strategically and SEO matters, go with a subdirectory. It can be a 2-5x difference in ranking and traffic.

When assessing the domain architecture across multiple sites in an organization, strongly consider a subdirectory approach. It could give you a major competitive edge and keep you from diluting your SEO potential.

Here's a paragraph from a good CloudFlare post on the subject.

"The subdirectory strategy concentrates your keywords onto a single domain while the subdomain strategy spreads your keywords across multiple distinct domains. In a word, the subdirectory strategy results in better root domain authority. Higher domain authority leads to better search rankings which translates to more engagement."

Still confused? We're always up for chatting and helping someone navigate big moves with big consequences.

Good explanation of the SEO ramifications: https://www.embarque.io/post/subdomain-vs-subdirectory Technical POV: https://blog.cloudflare.com/subdomains-vs-subdirectories-best-practices-workers-part-1/
Multilanguage perspective: https://www.weglot.com/guides/subdirectory-vs-subdomain