SEO best: advertising subdomain, folder or straight url?

[mgstudent]

Quick Qu.

If I have a forum website (just like this one) that has sections for different cities, I want to make it easy for visitors to go directly to their city section on the forum.

Therefore, I could do it in the usual 2 ways:

1. www.domain.com/city

2. city.domain.com

However, because of the nature of vBulletin forums, I would have to simply forward the url above to the less attractive http://www.domain.com/forums/forumdisplay.php?f=43 which would equate to the city forum specified.

Ok this QU. is less quick than I thought.

Here goes:

when I have banner adverts or text links all over the internet (on directories, in articles or on other message boards) what is the best way to link back to each city section?

1>

<a title="City Discussion Forums" href="http://www.domain.com/city">domain.com/city</a>

2>

<a title="City Discussion Forums" href="http://city.domain.com">city.domain.com</a>

3>

<a title="City Discussion Forums" href="http://www.domain.com/forums/forumdisplay.php?f=43">city</a>

I would usually use the complete url as in (3) with a relevant city word as the anchor

However, it would be nice if the effect of people knowing the subdomain or folder got out so that they would know to substitute the city for another one, to arrive at the other cities' forum pages. Plus when they each tell their friends, it's nice that they just say city.domain.com etc.

I'm trying to figure out whether when search engines come across links like this (ie. subdomains that are forwarded using a .htaccess forwarder or other) whether they frown upon them, or do anything at all. I'd really like the most benefit of course.

Plus I'm worried that the search engine for some reason will come across city.domain.com and either won't be directed fully to the index page (because this isn't a true subdomain, it is only a subdomain for the purposes of vanity/ease of use, but then the user would get diverted back to the original domain ie. http://www.domain.com/forums/forumdisplay.php?f=43 which also has no reference to the city in there)

Any thoughts on this appreciated

:o

[Acroplex]

Domain.com/city will allow for the entire Domain.com to benefit from search engine placement. Using subdomains fragments it.

[Lord Brar]

Yes, subdomains are considered as a separate domains. Though if I were redirecting, I'd rather LINK to the forumdisplay.php OR buy vbSEO and create static links for forums.

[mgstudent]

Thanks Acroplex,

Do you think that there is any harm in using folders then.

For example with using a "city" folder as outlined above, I only know how to do this by using a .htaccess file inside that folder with the following redirect code:

Redirect /city/ http://www.domain.com/forums/forumdisplay.php?f=43

Will search engines visit domain.com/city and follow this type of redirect and still give full credit to the landing page? (even though the folder 'city' is empty apart from the .htaccess)


Regarding the subdomain useage I guess that I need to think about whether or not I need credit to go to the main domain as well or if I could build up enough respect for each of the subdomains, in which case they might be able to be strong enough on their own (however I would still be using this same type of redirect and I'm not sure if there's a better way to do it)

Originally Posted by Lord Brar

Yes, subdomains are considered as a separate domains. Though if I were redirecting, I'd rather LINK to the forumdisplay.php OR buy vbSEO and create static links for forums.

Thanks Lord Brar, I had thought of using vbseo as well. Just heard that it can cause problems with some things. Maybe the hacks that I'm using or something else. Can't remember but there was a reason that I didn't buy it in the past.


I would also tend to link to the actual real URL but I would like to advertise in a simple format for each city
(eg/ city.domain.com or domain.com/city)

Thanks for advice

[aZooZa]

vbSeo is your friend here. Subdomains are not. vBSeo for vB takes all the voodoo out of URL rewriting.

[fpforum]

i also agree. you will certainly wanna use domain.com/city for seo purposes. at the same time, it's still easy for member's to remember, domain.com/city is not very hard to forget!

[mgstudent]

thanksguys, appreciate the comments.

[webd]

I recommend not linking to URLs that do 301 redirects. Link to the final destination URL.

Some search engines (e.g., MSN) do not handle redirects well, even 301 redirects.

[Acroplex]

The proper redirect is a 302 - a permanent redirect.

[webd]

Originally Posted by Acroplex

The proper redirect is a 302 - a permanent redirect.

301 = Permanent Redirect
302 = Temporary Redirect

MSN Live Search does not handle either type well.

[Acroplex]

My mistake on the number, but yes - a permanent redirect is perfectly acceptable by Google.

MSN Live Search? There are other search engines?

[webd]

Lately Google has been slower in picking up 301 redirects. MSN can bring significant traffic on large sites, even if it is just a small percentage.

I would avoid internally linking to 301 redirects. Better to link to the final destination URL.