Subdomains for Local Directory Sites?
Earlier this week, my column on “Domaining & Subdomaining in the Local Space – Part 1” went live at Search Engine Land. In it, I examine how a number of local business directory sites are using subdomains with the apparent desire to get extra keyword ranking value from them. Typically, they will pass the names of cities in the third-level-domain names (aka “subdomains”). Some sites doing that include:
- CitySearch
- Craigslist
- Local.com
In that installment, I conclude that the subdomaining for the sake of keyword ranking has no real benefit.
This assertion really can be extended out to all other types of sites as well, since the ranking criteria that the search engines use is not limited to only local info sites. Keywords in subdomains really have no major benefit.
SEO firms used to suggest that people deploy their content out onto “microsites” for all their keywords – a different domain name to target each one. This just isn’t a good strategy, really. Focus on improving the quality of content for each keyword, founded on its own page, and work on your link-building efforts (quality link-building, not unqualified bad-quality links). Tons of keyword domains or subdomains is no quick solution for ranking well.
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Posted by Chris of Silvery on 04/26/2007
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Filed under: Local Search Optimization, Search Engine Optimization, SEO, Site Structure, URLs Domain Names, Local Search Optimization, local-search-engine-optimization, local-SEO, SEO, subdomaining, subdomains
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