Subdomain vs. Subdirectory: Which Is Better?

When you’re looking to add a new feature or section to your website, the technical side of this decision often depends on one question: should it be a subdomain or a subdirectory?

The answer is that it depends.

In this post, we’ll take a look at the differences between a subdomain and a subdirectory, when you might choose each one, and how your choice can impact SEO.

What Is a Subdomain?

A good way to describe a subdomain is a website within a website. It’s an extended part of a domain name that’s typically built to serve a different purpose than the main website. It lives under the domain of your main website.

For example, a website might create subdomains for different features on the site like this:

In many cases, a subdomain serves a very different purpose than the main website and is often powered by a different backend system.

For example, in the structure above, the shop subdomain might be powered by Shopify, the blog might be working off of WordPress, and the support subdomain might be supported by Zendesk.

And what about “www”? Is it also a subdomain?

Yes, "www" is also a subdomain. In the case of www.blog.example.com, adding the "www" would be a subdomain of blog.example.com. It's optional and often used as a convention for web services. Technically it's just another subdomain, and a site can function without it.

Why Do People Use Subdomains?

Subdomains are often created for specific purposes that are different from the main website. Here are some common reasons why you might see them.

Targeting Different Regions

Some subdomains are set up to target different regions. For example, Yahoo.com has subdomains for the UK (uk.yahoo.com), India (in.yahoo.com), and Canada (ca.yahoo.com).

In this case, a subdomain works well, because the content and target audience for these websites is different. They need to be operated as separate websites, but the subdomain allows them to all remain tied to the core brand.

Creating Different Content, Design, and Branding

Sometimes, websites split off a subdomain because the content not that closely related to their core business or brand. In this case, being under the same domain may not make sense.

Google has a number of different products under subdomains that look very different and are separate from its core business as a search engine, such as news.google.com and support.google.com.

You're more likely to see subdomains with larger brands. They tend to have more offshoots, as well as the resources to maintain these separate sites.

Managing Ecommerce Stores

Ecommerce stores often sit under a subdomain. Part of the reason for this is technical - many ecommerce platforms don’t have the robust content functionality a business may want for the rest of its website. It can also make it easier for users to visit the shop directly if shopping is their main goal.

Providing Customer Support and Services

It's common for larger companies to put their help or support center under a separate subdomain, like support.company.com.

As we saw with ecommerce stores, there’s a technical reason for this as well. It can be easier to map a subdomain to the help support software being used. It’s also an easy web address to present to customers who are seeking support.

Hosting a Dedicated Blog

You’ll see many websites with their blog under a subdirectory. While there are lots of arguments against this choice (more on that later), it can make sense when a company plans to make enough content that it’ll essentially become a separate website.

For example, consider Hubspot. Hubspot sells software products for inbound marketing, sales, and customer service. They are best known for their CRM platform. They also have a blog under a subdomain at blog.hubspot.com that gets more than 10 million visitors per month.

In this case, the separate subdomain gives Hubspot’s content an opportunity to chart its own path as a content marketing engine, while Hubspot’s root domain is focused on product information and sales. You can learn more about subdomains in our piece that looks at domain vs. subdomain.

How to Make a Subdomain

In many cases, you’ll create a subdomain through your hosting provider. You can do this by going into the cPanel for your website and entering the domain you want to create.

Because this process is specific to your web hosting platform, it’s important to find specific instructions for its backend or reach out to support for help.

You can find our top picks for the best web hosting services for customer support for more guidance. You may also want to check out some of the key features you should consider when choosing a web host.

Subdomains and SEO

When it comes to SEO, there’s a lot of debate around subdomains. While Google itself has said for years that it views and crawls them the same way, a subdomain is also, technically, a separate domain. That means that it might not share the benefits of the main website like a subdirectory, especially all the backlinks that may be pointing to your main domain.

While Google says it can recognize a subdirectory as part of the main site, we also know that it crawls and indexes subdomains independent of the root domain. You can see this clearly in Google Search Console, where subdomains have to be verified and tracked separately. For this reason, a subdomain also has the potential to compete with the main domain on keywords if you’re not careful.

Plus, subdomains just make managing, tracking results, and reporting on data more complicated, especially if you’re dealing with multiple subdomains. You’ll need to adjust settings to crawl domains and subdomains with SEO tools, and you’ll have separate reporting for the subdomain through Google Search Console. To understand all this better, you might want to read a bit about how Google's organic search bot works.

If you’re converting customers across subdomains, like bringing in traffic through your blog and sending it to your root domain to convert, this cross-domain tracking is also trickier. Tracking conversions within the same domain is generally much simpler.

What Is a Subdirectory?

If a subdomain is a website within a website, then a subdirectory is a folder under the root domain of your website. That’s why it’s also referred to as a subfolder. You can see this structure on Softailed as well. Our subdirectory structure looks a bit like this:

One of the benefits of subdirectories is that they can provide a nice site structure that organizes content and makes it easier for users to navigate. If these folders are well organized, they can help people - and Google - understand your site structure.

That said, too many layers of subfolders can become a nightmare, confusing both crawlers and users. After all, while a clear URL string with a couple of subfolders provides a bit of a trail, a really long one becomes long and confusing.

Why Do People Use Subdirectories?

There are some compelling reasons to host content under a subdirectory. Let’s take a look.

Streamlined Management Under a Single Domain

Because a subdirectory is essentially a folder within your main domain, it’s much less hassle to manage compared to a subdomain. You can focus on creating a great user experience across additional pages, which allows for greater agility.

Simplified Tracking and Analytics

Subdirectories make tracking visitor movement and conversion pathways easier, as they are tracked within the same domain in Google Analytics. This clear organizational structure also helps assess the performance of specific content areas, like a /blog/ subdirectory compared to a /faq/ section.

Enhanced User Experience

Subdirectories help facilitate the creation of a clear URL and site structure that people intuitively understand. This helps them navigate a website more easily. For example, on Softailed, we have a subdirectory at /blog/, and then additional subdirectories under that based on topic area, like /blog/category/web-development. This provides a trail for people to follow.

How to Make a Subdirectory or Subfolder

This change typically happens through your website builder. On WordPress, this is as easy as adding a new Page. You can continue to add additional pages as subfolders under each “Parent” page by adding additional pages and selecting that same parent. But, depending on how many levels you want in the URL, you may need to adjust your Permalinks under Settings.

Visit your website builder’s website or help menu to determine how best to set up your subdirectory.

If you’re looking for a website builder, check out our list of best website builders.

Subdirectories and SEO

Hosting content under a subdirectory can be beneficial because whatever content you put there gets to piggyback on the authority and backlinks your domain already has. So, in theory, it can help ensure that you maintain the benefit of all your backlinks, because they are consolidated under your root domain.

This is one of the key reasons why many SEOs argue that subdirectories are better for SEO.

Subdomain vs. Subdirectory: Which Is Best for SEO?

Now that we’ve had a close look at subdomains and subdirectories, let’s dive into how to make the decision between choosing one over the other.

Google has said for years that it:

1. Crawls, indexes, and ranks subdomains the same way it does for root domains.
2. It can tell that a subdomain is connected to a root domain and does not see them as separate.

Even so, many SEOs say their experimentation with subdomains and subdirectories shows that subdirectories may outperform subdomains in terms of SEO, even when the content is exactly the same.

In fact, SEOs have been trading case studies and examples on this topic since at least 2010, continuing up to the present day.

However, while these case studies are exciting and compelling, a traffic growth chart doesn’t tell the whole story. Understanding why these case studies show growth after moving from a subdomain to a subdirectory - or vice versa - likely involves other relevant factors.

Patrick Stox at Ahrefs did a great job of debunking a couple of these in 2021. What you’ll see is that the factors driving growth under a subdirectory - at least in the case studies he examined - could not be fully attributed to the change to a subdirectory in itself.

That said, one of the key points that often changes for the better when a subdomain is moved to a subdirectory is internal linking. This suggests that the value of linking across a subdomain may not be as high as linking within the same domain. Plus, the move to a subdirectory may precipitate some linking in general, and there’s lots of good evidence out there to show that internal linking is associated with higher search traffic.

Plus, it's important to note that if you already have content on a subdomain, moving it presents a risk in itself.

Subdomain or Subdirectory? Key Things to Consider

While subdirectories often come out on top for many reasons, that doesn't necessarily mean they’re the best choice for your specific needs. The right option depends on your website or business goals. To help you decide, here are some key factors to consider.

Keyword Cannibalization

Keyword cannibalization can be a real issue for subdomains. If different subdomains are competing for the same keyword, this can limit the performance of the root domain, the subdomain, or both. Pi Datametrics has some good case studies of the effect of keyword cannibalization on subdomains. These cases studies are a bit older, but I have also seen keyword cannibalization from a subdomain in the wild on sites that I have worked on.

According to Matt Cutts, a longtime engineer and representative at Google, subdomains used to be a bit of an SEO trick.

Because Google considered subdomains as separate sites, some websites chose to make a number of subdomains in order to take up more real estate for the same keyword. In other words, subdomains were being abused in order to game Google.

That hasn’t been the case for some time, as Google now recognizes subdomains as part of the main domain. Even so, that still means multiple pages could end up in competition.

For example, suppose that you have a main domain at fashionsite.com where you rank highly for “best women’s winter jackets.” If you also have a shop at shop.fashionsite.com, you’d have to be careful not to build a product page around that same keyword.

Indexing and Ranking

While Google says it treats subdomains and subdirectories the same, many people who work in search engine optimization disagree. According to Joe Amaral, the founder of Anthem Software, he’s seen subdirectories get crawled and ranked in weeks, while subdomains can take months.

Again, that doesn’t mean that a subdomain is the wrong choice, necessarily. But if the content you are planning to create could just as easily reside in a subdirectory, you’ll likely have an easier time getting it indexed and ranked.

Topical Authority

Topic authority happens when a website creates a substantial number of high-quality pages around a single or related topic. Deciding between a subdomain or subdirectory can have an impact here. In fact, if the topic area strays far enough from your key topic, it might make more sense to create a whole new domain, according to Adam Gingery, the COO at Majux Marketing.

For example, while working with a law firm that practiced both personal injury and criminal defense, Gingery’s team noticed that content performance in both areas was stagnating. They theorized that if each content category had its own site, it would perform better.

Instead of using subdomains, the team launched a new website on a separate domain for criminal defense and migrated the relevant content. Within two months, both sites saw substantial increases.

Gingery has also seen growth by adjusting file structure in subdirectories to better organize content. So, instead of:

• /city-personal-injury
• /city-car-accident-lawyer
• /city-medical-practice

He went with:

• /city
• /city/car-accident
• /city/medical-practice

This also produced better traffic and rankings.

What does this mean for you? How your site is organized and how closely related the content is can affect how Google understands and ranks your website.

Since it's not entirely clear how Google views a subdomain in relation to the root domain, it's important to carefully consider how this might impact your site. If you have a lot of content that could be better organized, using subdirectories properly could improve your site’s traffic and user experience.

Context

One of the risks of using a subdomain is that it can become disassociated from your primary domain. However, in the right situation, this can also be a positive thing. For example, Disney has several subdomains. While the main domain, disney.com, focuses on the company’s core offerings - like movies and theme parks - there are also many subdomains.

For instance, princess.disney.com is specifically targeted at Disney princess fans. Given that they are a large subset of Disney's audience, it makes sense to present them with unique menus and offerings tailored to their interests.

Disney also has subdomains like cars.disney.com for its most popular movies. This subdomain strategy allows them to build out a broader set of features for specific subgroups and provide a better user experience for those seeking information, movies, or merchandise in these areas. Additionally, because the Disney brand is so strong, keeping these as subdomains closely tied to the main site makes sense.

Resources

One key reason NOT to choose a subdomain is that it's more resource-intensive. You’ll need to consider:

• Design
• Back-end system (CMS, e-commerce platform, etc.)
• Strategy (including SEO and how it will complement or hurt the main domain)
• Implementation

For smaller sites and companies with a smaller budget, the complexity that a subdomain can entail makes a subdirectory a better choice in most cases.

Plus, some extra SEO efforts are typically required to get a new domain to rank because it lacks the backlinks and authority of the main site. Companies like Disney have all the resources to ensure each subdomain gets the attention it needs. Not all companies have that luxury.

The Bottom Line: In Most Cases, Subdirectories Win Out

Subdirectory vs subdomain? In most cases, a subdirectory is better for SEO because they are simpler to create and better tied to your main site. In other words, don’t create a subdomain unless you have a good (business) case for doing so and the resources to implement it correctly.

Your web hosting provider can help you implement changes to your website structure. It’s important to note that some web hosts may have limits on the number of subdomains you can manage under your plan.

You can learn more about what’s out there by checking out our top picks for best web hosting services. We also provide detailed information on the features each service provides to help you make the best choice for your business.