Does subdomains back-links helps root domain SEO?
I'm building a saas app where whenever a user creates an account he/she gets a subdomain like user1.example.com or user2.example.com.
I was wondering if my root domain example.com will benefit from potential back-links which these user generated subdomains will get?
If not, would I be better off with example.com/u/user1/ url structure instead?
Also, if I go with sub-folder route (instead of subdomain) is there any thing else I should also consider?
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Interesting question!
Re-read the question and realized I misinterpretered it and gave an unhelpful answer, updating my answer @imfaisalkh sorry about that!
I'm curious, what is the value that these user-generated urls will get you? Are you creating a blogging platform? Or some other platform for creators? How do you envision the users getting backlinks?
In either scenario, subdirectory or subdomain, Google will see them as extensions of your domain so the real value comes down to what makes the most sense from an organizational standpoint and what type of content is being created by these users.
Search Engine Journal ran a good article showing that subdomains don't hurt your SEO as Google is smart enough to tell they are part of the same domain.
Thanks for your reply. I'm building a cloud-based job board plateform where users can create there own job board which will be hosted on a subdomain or subfolder.
Ideally, I would like to host it on a subdomain since it looks more intuitive, however, I was concerned about SEO aspect.
The users can create job-board about any industry and I was hoping to get any SEO benefit from backlinks generated to these sites.
Gotcha makes sense, thanks for the clarification!
From the SEO perspective, the domain is what Google sees so different subdomains will be seen as extensions of the site so you're fine there. It used to be that subdomains were treated differently, but Google has been saying they see them as the same site for a few years now.
Seeing as users will be creating their own boards, which I imagine will contain individual job postings, I can see how the subdomain option seems more intuitive and attractive.
Given that, it's more a question of what you want to build/support and what users will want. SEO-wise you should be fine either way.
I would go with the second example and avoids sub-domains if possible. You want to concentrate as much authority on one domain without it being distributed on many sub-domains.
That's the short answer to your question.
Will this help? It really depends on what exactly are you building and if it would make sense to index users' profiles.
It helps search engine optimization software to find more users of the INternet interested in the products or services you are promoting. This is why I like SEO. SEO gets you more clicks on your add, compared to other types of Internet promoting. I started to use it a year ago, on my online shop with clothes, and I started to have more customers. Most of all, it helped me move ahead of the competition because many websites have the same point where they buy clothes in large quantities and then resell it at a higher price.
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This comment was deleted 3 years ago.
Google does not treat subdomains as new domains (great writeup from Search Engine Journal). It used to be that they did, however Google is pretty smart now and has come out and said that they view subdomains as an extension of the site similar to subdirectories.
Now, what Google says and what Google does are two different things but most agree it's not something to worry about for SEO as much as whether it makes sense and is worth it from the effort required to implement.
In theory this is correct... In practice I've seen so many case studies where migrating from a subdomain to a subdirectory led to better rankings that I'd still go with subdirectories 🙂
Interesting! Got any handy? I'd love to review them.
Here you go!
Ahhh fascinating, thanks for sharing!
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User experience-wise, I would say that subdomains make more sense since these are more intuitive.
No problem, it used to be that way (subdomains treated as different sites) but over the past few years Google took a big shift there.