Blog hosting: subdomain vs subfolder

subdomain vs subfolder for a blog

What is the SEO impact of using a sub-domain for a blog?

Okay, this is one of the most debated topics in the world of SEO. Most SEO experts simply say to go for a subdirectory-based blog. But I'm afraid it's much more than that.

This is what Google's John Mueller says:


In this video, John states that

Google web search is fine with either subdomains or subdirectories.

and

We do have to learn how to crawl[subdomains] separately, but for the most part, that's just a formality for the first few days.

This is what Ahref's blog says:

Many SEOs believe that subdomains are treated as separate domains, but the truth is more complicated. Anyone that incorporates subdomains as a main part of their site will likely have them treated the exact same as a subfolder would be treated.

Source: https://ahrefs.com/blog/subdomain-vs-subfolder

Some of the biggest companies use sub-domain for their blogs

https://blog.hubspot.com

https://blog.logrocket.com

https://blog.sezzle.com

https://bytes.swiggy.com

https://blog.paytm.com

And all of them do heavy content marketing! Their blogs rank pretty well in the search.

What about the case studies then?

Most of the case studies have two things in common.

  1. Blogs were switched to a subdirectory after few months
  2. Major changes were made to internal linking or merging properties. 

And because of these reasons, we can't conclude that the migration solely caused the increase in rankings. Again, please read ahref's blog post.

Superblog got your back

You can use Superblog on a subdomain or subdirectory

Whatever approach you choose, Superblog got you covered. Superblog is a blazing fast blogging platform. It is auto optimized for search. Your blog will automatically pass Google Lighthouse and Core Web Vitals audits.

Want an SEO-focused and blazing fast blog?

Superblog let's you focus on writing content instead of optimizations.

Sai Krishna

Sai Krishna
Sai Krishna is the Founder and CEO of Superblog. Having built multiple products that scaled to tens of millions of users with only SEO and ASO, Sai Krishna is now building a blogging platform to help others grow organically.

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Superblog is a blazing fast blogging platform for beautiful reading and writing experiences. Superblog takes care of SEO audits and site optimizations automatically.