Forum in a subdomain?

[use-IP]

Is it a big problem that my forum is in a subdomain?

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[Michael Biddle]

Hello Phil,

vBSEO can be used on a subdomain.

[use-IP]

I guess when VBSEO does all the url rewrites it will then create a sitemap to help the search engines?

As the forum is not the root domain, and there is already a sitemap for the main site in the root domain - how does the VBSEO generated sitemap get managed and presented for a forum in a subdomain?

[use-IP]

Is there any disadvantage to running forum and VBSEO in a subdomain?

[Michael Biddle]

I guess when VBSEO does all the url rewrites it will then create a sitemap to help the search engines?

As the forum is not the root domain, and there is already a sitemap for the main site in the root domain - how does the VBSEO generated sitemap get managed and presented for a forum in a subdomain?

The sitemap generator is an additional addon (free).

Is there any disadvantage to running forum and VBSEO in a subdomain?

I would not think so. It is all personal preference.

[briansol]

I disagree.

Unless your forum is a different 'product' from your main .com, it doesn't belong in a sub directory.

read more: subdomain vs subdir?

[use-IP]

Hmmm - interestingly grey area

Brian, you are obviously convinced that a forum is better placed in a sub-directory, but in the thread that you pointed me to dutchbb follows-up your post with an equally compelling argument for a subdomain.

I know nothing, I am just a site owner, trying to get to grips with SEO and make a working site effective. The forum is in a subdomain right now because that's where the pro web builder put it.

I have definitely still got my 'L' plates on, and am just testing my understanding - because if it needs to be changed then now is the time to do it.

If I go back to my query about sitemaps, I can see an advantage through having the forum in a subdomain of having a clear & separate sitemap for the forum, separate analytics, separate webmaster tools, effectively a separate site to manage, monitor and control.

By placing it in a directory it will effectively be deeper in the site. I have seen that deeper takes longer for the search engines to find and index when they crawl.

Also, I'm sure that I have read guidelines that say balanced site structure is best; root directory containing say 5-8 directories, each containing say 6 sub-directories, each containing say ten pages (probably unreal, but maybe an ideal?). So, putting your forum which will hopefully grow to thousands of pages into part of that ideally balanced structure can't be great for SEO, crawling, indexing .....

And to go back to the sitemap query again - sub domain means one big sitemap for one domain, with your thousands of forum pages competing for crawl/index attention with the pages on the main site.

NB in my case the main site is a Magento ecommerce website which is databse driven and creates thousands of pages of its own.

Apologies for long post, just trying to nail it.

[briansol]

does the forum support or integrate with what you sell in the cart?

if so, i would NOT use a subdomain.

[use-IP]

The forum supports the ecommerce site only in so far as they are both the same topic.

No real integration - a few links in the forum to product pages mentioned in discussion.

[briansol]

i would put the store in /root and the forums in root/forums