Subdomain VS Subfolder/Folder (For a forum/community) - Does it affect SEO at all?

[ryanjkita]

I have seen many a debate on whether to use subdomains or subfolders and what has the best SEO involved with it. I plan on calling my forum on one site "community" and am debating on either community.mysite.com or mysite.com/community/

In terms of SEO, which is tecnically "better" if any?

In terms of user-friendliness, which works best for easy of use on the user?

 

Any insight and advice is much appreciated!

Wasn't sure if this should be posted in the general SEO forum or here (because I am using IPB). Apologies if it's in the wrong topic!

[Phun]

There's lots of comparisons out there, but for SEO purposes i would recommend you keep it in a folder. Google says there are no SERP benefits between the two, but multiple tests by different people and instances have proven that subfolders win.

[NeoN]

I personally prefer subdomains. however , I don't really think it makes any difference it's just up to you to decide how the url would look like

Edited June 3, 2014 by NeoN

[DragonVoid]

I prefer a folder as I think it looks better. As for the question at hand. I don't think it really matters whether you have it in a sub domain or in a folder.

[ryanjkita]

There's lots of comparisons out there, but for SEO purposes i would recommend you keep it in a folder. Google says there are no SERP benefits between the two, but multiple tests by different people and instances have proven that subfolders win.

 

Thank you for your quick and informative answer. While googling I found that a lot of people report that SEO and Google bots seem to work better with Subfolders mainly because subdomains are often treated as its "own site" and therefore may carry a different ranking than the main site. Whereas folders leech onto and usually always have the same ranking score as the main site. 

 

I prefer a folder as I think it looks better. As for the question at hand. I don't think it really matters whether you have it in a sub domain or in a folder.

 

While I do prefer the look of subdomains with certain things (like forums.blahblah.com rather than blahblah.com/forums) I do think in my specific case folder is going to win this time. Thank you for your response

[Tony]

The question(s) in this support topic have been answered and the owner has been able to solve the problem. Because of this, the support topic has been closed and moved.

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