Put Blog inside website or outside the website? Help us settle a dispute?

[bj]

Ok - I am going to throw a wrench in the works of this thread - let me know if I should create another thread... What are your thoughts on using a CNAME entry to point keyword.yourdomain.com to a Blogger account "yourdomain.blogspot.com" versus using ftp publishing with Blogger to actually host the blog on our server?

Do I lose any SEO benefit or authority by using the CNAME entry and letting Blogger host it? Do the search engines view this the same because of the url being used in links or the the host location matter?

In this particular case the blog has not been started yet, so I'm not worried about loss of authority, but I want to build this right from the beginning so that our site has the most benefit possible from the beginning from the content generated in the blog.

If you want to do it right from the beginning, in the way that's going to give you the most google juice and give you the most flexibility and security going forward, install wordpress or movable type on your own hosting. Blogger is an amateur blog tool, first of all, and allowing someone else to control your content by hosting it on their server is asking for trouble. Google has been known to just disappear blogs. Putting it on hosting that you pay for, and being able to back up the whole database every time you add content, is optimal. That way if there's ever a problem you can be back up and running in minutes, instead of crying and moaning here on the forum about your blog being trashed.

WP and MT also have a lot more tools for marketing your blog than blogger does.

[inertia]

Originally Posted by Jayson

I want to build this right from the beginning so that our site has the most benefit possible from the beginning from the content generated in the blog.

The idea of your blog is to improve the SERPs/traffic for your main sales site. So the blog should be hosted on the same domain and be well linked to the rest of the site.

One reason would be, well... ask, which is easier to acquire, an external IBL or a link from yourself?

If you host the blog externally then you are limiting your main site to links from one other domain. Google groups links from one domain and discounts them, hence the reason that 5000 forum posts wont bring you much benefit. With the blog on your main domain all the various links which your blog attracts will directly benefit your main site, instead if being filtered through another domain. What would you rather have?

I'd recommend Wordpress with the seo addon! Works a treat and when you ping G he picks the posts up within minutes.

[kevsta]

the only thing i would add to the discussion that hasnt already been covered (and argued about )

..is that if you use domain . com/blog/ arrangement (edit lol @ there always being a site of this name when youre trying to use examples, clever domain choice by domain . com )

.. and you have the site and blog interlinked correctly you can make the blog posts appear as sub pages of the main site pages in the SERP, hence allowing brand new content to rank with the authority of older established site pages.

this doesnt appear to be possible, (or at least easy anyway) with blog. domain. com setup from our testing.

[SEO]

Originally Posted by kevsta

the only thing i would add to the discussion that hasnt already been covered (and argued about )

..is that if you use domain . com/blog/ arrangement (edit lol @ there always being a site of this name when youre trying to use examples, clever domain choice by domain . com )

.. and you have the site and blog interlinked correctly you can make the blog posts appear as sub pages of the main site pages in the SERP, hence allowing brand new content to rank with the authority of older established site pages.

this doesnt appear to be possible, (or at least easy anyway) with blog. domain. com setup from our testing.

I have one particular website with half a dozen subdomains. They don't rank as subpages, they rank as separate websites. Earlier this year I had 10 of the top 30 positions in Google for a particular keyword using subdomains. I think you would be very hard pressed achieving something similar using subfolders. With a domain and subdomains it is quite easy to get main site + subpage ranking as well as subdomain + subpage ranking (i.e. Instead of having 2 of your sites pages on the first page of Google you can have 4 by using a subdomain).

[kevsta]

Originally Posted by SEO

I have one particular website with half a dozen subdomains. They don't rank as subpages, they rank as separate websites. Earlier this year I had 10 of the top 30 positions in Google for a particular keyword using subdomains. I think you would be very hard pressed achieving something similar using subfolders. With a domain and subdomains it is quite easy to get main site + subpage ranking as well as subdomain + subpage ranking (i.e. Instead of having 2 of your sites pages on the first page of Google you can have 4 by using a subdomain).

isnt that pretty much google's definition of spam though? i'd be looking at just taking the top 2 positions

not denying its possible, just wouldnt be the way i would go

[SEO]

Originally Posted by kevsta

isnt that pretty much google's definition of spam though? i'd be looking at just taking the top 2 positions

not denying its possible, just wouldnt be the way i would go

Google doesn't see it as spam unless it is spam. If each subdomain serves its own purpose and has unique content it's not spam is it? Google themselves do the exact same thing:
google - Google Search
As do NASA:
nasa - Google Search
Disney:
disney - Google Search
And Ebay:
ebay - Google Search

I always look at what the big boys with heaps of money are doing. They pay Big money to find out what works best for them with regard to SEO. They are not going to continue with something that doesn't work. I think these guys know what they're doing.

Why work so hard for the first 2 positions in Google when you can just as easily have the first 4 positions?

[kevsta]

Originally Posted by SEO

Google doesn't see it as spam unless it is spam. If each subdomain serves its own purpose and has unique content it's not spam is it? Google themselves do the exact same thing:
google - Google Search
As do NASA:
nasa - Google Search
Disney:
disney - Google Search
And Ebay:
ebay - Google Search

I always look at what the big boys with heaps of money are doing. They pay Big money to find out what works best for them with regard to SEO. They are not going to continue with something that doesn't work. I think these guys know what they're doing.

Why work so hard for the first 2 positions in Google when you can just as easily have the first 4 positions?

well that's a well delivered answer. doesnt leave me anywhere to go does it? i suppose as long as the content is both good and unique then youre right. its just that generally when i come across one individual with ten out of the top 30 positions for one keyword, thats not usually the case.

[sohel08]

Personally, I prefer blog.companyname.com because it provides a logical separation that it is a separate site, while still giving more pages on examplecompany.com for google to index.

[inertia]

I read the reports last xmas of google treating sub-domains as sub folders. I noted it and in several situations it has influenced work that I've done. I noticed a couple of months ago that Google still lists all their subdomains as if they were seperate sites. First thoughts were, why wouldnt they? Its their search engine? But allsorts of companies occupy the first results page with sub domains, so blatantly google were talking crap.

Originally Posted by SEO

I have one particular website with half a dozen subdomains. They don't rank as subpages, they rank as separate websites. Earlier this year I had 10 of the top 30 positions in Google for a particular keyword using subdomains.

What keyword was it? My next thought was that all the sub domains would only be returned for a company name or domain search.

[kevsta]

Originally Posted by inertia

I read the reports last xmas of google treating sub-domains as sub folders. I noted it and in several situations it has influenced work that I've done. I noticed a couple of months ago that Google still lists all their subdomains as if they were seperate sites. First thoughts were, why wouldnt they? Its their search engine? But allsorts of companies occupy the first results page with sub domains, so blatantly google were talking crap.



What keyword was it? My next thought was that all the sub domains would only be returned for a company name or domain search.

haha dont think people usually give away their best keywords in public that easily.. nice try

[inertia]

Originally Posted by kevsta

haha dont think people usually give away their best keywords in public that easily.. nice try

lol. I had no ulterior motives then my friend! Let me guess... fitness holidays?

[Terry Van Horne]

IMO, there are surely cases where the change to the subdomain being part of a larger site had no affect, in fact it may help the site by providing deep links. I believe these would be cases where the sub wasn't a link scheme. What I don't think is good is the same site having more than 2 listings!
2 listings is more than enough the rest is just a waste. If your site can't navigate to all sub domain pages unless all are in the SERP then IMO, you will at some point have a big problem and it won't be 30 listings in the SERP it will be 2 and a bunch of orphaned pages. I wouldn't assume the status quo is necessarily what Google expects for sub domains getting into the listings. IMO, the 2 listing policy is one of it's aces in the hole over Yahoo! and M$ results.

[kevsta]

lol was talking about him not me. & no thats just a hobby now, and it actually ranks a bit too well, cant be arsed to deal with all the enquiries

[inertia]

Well, take someone on! Ive got a few mates in ibiza for the season...

[AVC]

I think if you have a great site already you can just keep your blog on your domain and do much better.

blogs.abcnews.com/ (toolbar PR = 5)

If your site has no or very low PR or is not ranking well already and has a small amount of pages indexed you would be better to start a new site.

Stay away from sub-domains on a blog network because you will be held back by professional spammers on the same domain.