Google and MSN Loving Subdomains & SEO
Subdomains seem to be thriving at the moment in Google and MSN search results, as in some instances they carry on the weight, value and authority of their root domain – while enjoying its own self definition of a separate entity and site in its own right.
Barry Schwartz points to a thread at Search Engine Watch Forums discussing the subject:
Subdomains work very well at the moment. No doubt about that. I can take a prominent, old, domain, set up a brand new subdomain, add one link from the original domains front page, throw up whatever content I want and within days have plenty of traffic. These days it seems that almost all linkpop value from the original domain is transfered – and I see this happening in both MSN and Google.
While throwing “whatever content I want” on a subdomain and getting results in ranking and traffic may not be a good long term approach, it’s working right now. Barry adds that it may take the search engines longer than sooner to take care of this loophole; ‘However, subdomains in general, will continue to be an important part of site structure. So the search engines simply can not do away with them.’
One technique which could be applied for long term search rankings is the use of subdomains to launch services and distinct parts of sites or networks which are relevant to the root site and its mission.
One recent example are all of the new services that John Scott has been launching at V7N.com. V7N has put together two new blogs; the SEO Blog and the Technology Blog; along with a new directory at directory.v7n.com.
I spoke with Scott a couple of weeks ago about his new services on subdomains and V7N is enjoying the same treatment for its new offerings on subdomains that Mikkel is on SEW Forums, the only difference is that I would expect John’s subdomain sites to be more of a long term approach, as the content is fresh and in-line with the V7N mother site and the motivation behind the subdomains is more for branding and URL recognition purposes than SEO alone.
