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http://www.mattcutts.com/blog/subdomains-and-subdirectories/ http://www.mattcutts.com/blog/subdomains-and-subdirectories/ Read his blog. Matt Cutts is a Google

by aristus 18y ago

http://www.mattcutts.com/blog/subdomains-and-subdirectories/ http://www.mattcutts.com/blog/subdomains-and-subdirectories/ Read his blog. Matt Cutts is a Google engineer who spends his time answering these kinds of questions. The poor bastard. Unless SEO is your career, don't spend too much time on this stuff. Really. I've seen too many people latch onto SEO like it was eternal salvation with a side of ice cream. Then they descend into endless, almost Talmudically obscure discussions over 302 Found vs 303 See other. Don't waste your life trying to divine the minute thoughts of God/Google. Just be good. Produce good & original content, link appropriately, make sure your site is fast, and watch your 404s. Get that stuff right and you are 90% ahead. It's your job to do things that people, real people, will enjoy. It's Google's job to connect people with what they want. Never forget that. Never try to short-circuit the user to directly please Google.

dejb 18y ago
I think it is a mistake to pretend that the world is perfectly just and to ignore the mechanics of how various systems work within it. Many websites receive more than 50% of their traffic from google and so their rankings can count for a lot. It would be great if google's results were a perfect reflection of utility but that isn't always the case. So, at least defensively, many sites need to consider the impact of their actions on their search results. In agree that 'being good' should be the core of your strategy but ignoring other factors is naive.
- aristus 18y ago
  This is a good point -- keep aware of trends. But once you are into details of "subdomain vs subdirectory" for your blog, the returns are far below the benefit for the vast majority of sites. Those kinds of differences only help in the case of a photo finish. If you are really unsure about some minor SEO trick, flip a coin and instead try to shave 100 milliseconds off of your latency. Google is not run by Dungeon Masters. It's not a trap. A search engine will only pay attention to some feature that distinguishes websites if it helps them improve the quality of results. And its in their interest to communicate the features they pay attention to.

by aristus 18y ago

dejb 18y ago

I think it is a mistake to pretend that the world is perfectly just and to ignore the mechanics of how various systems work within it. Many websites receive more than 50% of their traffic from google and so their rankings can count for a lot. It would be great if google's results were a perfect reflection of utility but that isn't always the case. So, at least defensively, many sites need to consider the impact of their actions on their search results. In agree that 'being good' should be the core of your strategy but ignoring other factors is naive.

aristus 18y ago
This is a good point -- keep aware of trends. But once you are into details of "subdomain vs subdirectory" for your blog, the returns are far below the benefit for the vast majority of sites. Those kinds of differences only help in the case of a photo finish. If you are really unsure about some minor SEO trick, flip a coin and instead try to shave 100 milliseconds off of your latency. Google is not run by Dungeon Masters. It's not a trap. A search engine will only pay attention to some feature that distinguishes websites if it helps them improve the quality of results. And its in their interest to communicate the features they pay attention to.