Subdomains, like subdirectories, are generally extensions of the main domain name that organize sessions for the same website.
These subdomains consist of a word that is placed before the main domain name (where the “www” is usually found).
How do subdomains work?
A subdomain is a separate area, but connected to the main domain. The best way to prove this is with an example:
Imagine that we want to set up a store to sell shirts.
If we wanted, we could place our website as: agenciaseology.com/tiendasl/ in which case we would have a site that coexists with the rest of the content of our website, or in other words, a subdirectory.
However, if we wanted to divide our website and have the store live independently of our content to have a team specialized in the sales of that store, it would be better to use a subdomain of the type: agenciaseology.com
Hosting is usually pretty lenient when it comes to the number of subdomains that can be used on the same website. Of course, a website with 100 subdomains is pointless, so I never look at it.
What is a subdomain used for?
Subdomains have multiple uses that relate to your needs when it comes to strategically planning your website based on the goals you want to achieve.
Each element plays an important role in subsequent subdomains and, in general, in the overall architecture of the website.
The uses we give to subdomains could be divided into two:
Usage for functionality: When thinking about the design of a website, you need to consider what the browsing experience will be like for your users. This is most evident when you have instances of transactions or services offered by the same brand, but they are not related and should be separated. Let’s take an example that we have already used: Google. If we look at this search engine, we realize that it uses subdomains for each of its services since.
Google.com itself is specifically designed to be a search engine
The fact that this is only designed to do searches how to build telemarketing data tells us that if we put something else that is not aimed at it, it could harm the user experience. Can you imagine seeing your company’s emails while looking for an ice cream shop near you? So, for each of the services that are from the same brand but are not related to each other, we save a subdomain and not a subdirectory.
Use for SEO: When we talk about search engines and the rankings we occupy in them, it is important for each business and therefore, there are several things to take into account when implementing a subdomain.
When you want to split content by region
If you need to target a specific geographic area and have a lot of content, we recommend splitting it into subdomains to avoid over-saturating your main domain with content. Of course, each subdomain helps target geo-specific keywords and can link to different regions, thus avoiding cannibalism as well. The perfect example of this is Wikipedia, who uses subdomains for each of the languages they target.
Separate sections from each other
This is a bit of what we already talked about in ary mahafeno ny filany na tsia the previous section. Subdomains are recommended when a forum, store or specific area of a website is not necessarily separate from the main area, but does not represent the same user intention. Examples of this are.
Each one addresses a different section and purpose within the same website. In other words, what you really need to take into account is what to target and how to have good web optimization in terms of user experience.
Benefits of subdomains
Planning is an important part of working with a website. If you want to know what your website is doing and what you want to achieve with it.
What you can achieve with this is that:
- Avoid URL conflicts.
- You can have different CMS on your subdomain.
- Anything you do on the subdomain will not affect your main domain.
- Search engines autonomously index the subdomain.
- You can vary the keyword so that it continues to rank better.
- It allows you to segment a particular country or market.
- Because it’s independent, you can have a different team working on the subdomain.
- If there are any, Google penalties only affect one section. This means the subdomain or domain.
- main, never both.
Ultimately, what really comes next is the purpose of your website or how you want to divide what you want on your website.
Look at Google. There is Google.com, our preferred search engine and where we take our daily queries.
The case of Google is that you will have a subdomain for each service, that is, with Google you will find:
- Mail.google.com for Gmail.
- Drive.google.com for Google Drive.
- Support.google.com for support service.
As you can see, each of the services is different agent email list from the search engine service, so having a subdomain like google.com/gmail would have no value or meaning.
Preliminary considerations for creating a subdomain.
It is important to keep in mind that planning a website must always be present and to do so, you must know each of the elements to consider for correct configuration and use.
Pick the Right Name
When it comes to names, there really isn’t a rule that prevents you from calling your subdomain but you can understand how it doesn’t have much versatility. Names should be short and should convey the purpose of the subdomain right away.
Similar appearance to the main domain
Regarding appearance, you should keep in mind that, although the subdomain is an independent section, it is NOT a new page. The design gives a lot to say about your brand and should follow the same guidelines as your main domain, the same navigability. The only thing different should be the content you offer there.
International SEO strategy
When preparing a good SEO strategy that you want to internationalize, you will have to consider what will suit you best. To segment by country/language, you can use a subdomain or a Hreflang tag. If you want to configure a Hreflang tag correctly, it would be more versatile to use subdirectories instead of subdomains.
Subdomain Analysis in SEO Audits
If you don’t want to make common mistakes in SEO audits, you should include your subdomain in your audits, since when analyzing your website, the tools usually only take the main domains.
Subdomains or Subdirectories.
This is a debate that we constantly have within the world of web development and more so within the world of SEO, since the impact of using one over the other is significantly huge to make a mistake by choosing the wrong one.
So, let’s first see what Google says about it: “For Google, a Subdomain is the same as a Subdirectory…” “(…)Unless you have strong reasons to split the content, I would prefer to have everything as close together as possible”
Google treats them both as a crawler and as a ranking factor, but when we look at your strategy’s efforts in isolation, we see that, depending on what you want, you can lean towards one or the other.
How to set up a subdomain correctly?
A subdomain is a section independent of your main domain but related to it that replaces the “www” on your website with a word that identifies what that section is about.
Setting up a subdomain is a topic that varies depending on your website and is very helpful for websites that, for one reason or another, need to have a separate section of their website for more detailed and specialized work.
For example, you might want to keep your brand’s store separate so that people with sales experience can better manage it than those who handle technical support.
The generic steps to configure a subdomain are as follows:
- Enter the administration panel of your hosting.
- Find the “domains” section and select the one you want to configure.
- We create a “CNAME” type record
- You will fill in the following fields that depend on your hosting.
Each hosting is different but the steps are the same.
