Subfolders and subdomains

What is the best way? Why?

I participated in discussions about the use of subdomains and subfolders.

Suppose I want to create a new section on my website dedicated to selling honey.

I do not produce or sell honey, this is just an example. Although a friend of mine has bees and produces his own honey, it tastes good 😋

The "Dear" section of the site will be very large and will have its own application for managing e-commerce.

I can add it to my website in two ways. The first is to use subfolders, as shown below:flaviocopes.com/honey.

The second is through the use of subdomains, for examplehoney.flaviocopes.com.

The third option is to use your own domain name, for exampleflaviohoney.com. But let's concentrate on preserving the original domain.

Subdomains make things easier to manage: you have your own completely independent application or CMS or anything else, if you are using CI/CD, you can store it separately in its Git repository or you can Host it separately on your own host.

I think this is the ideal solution when you use external services like Shopify, because they allow you to use subdomains.

On the other hand, subfolders are more complicated, because unless you come up with a creative approach on the server side (which means you need to manage your own server), all the code must be placed under the original code that manages the main domain.

However, this has a huge advantage, you can move the benchmark to a subfolder method:Search Engine Optimization.

Google has not officially confirmed it, but treats the subdomain as a completely different site from the main domain.

honey.flaviocopes.comWill not inherit the "juice" of SEOflaviocopes.commight have. Having many subdomains will dilute domain authority on multiple subdomains instead of concentrating them in the main domain.

This reason alone can justify the useflaviocopes.com/honey.

From a brand point of view, I personally don't think there is a difference. For a large project, it is better to have a separate domain, logo and design. But, for example, if this is just an idea or something you want to experiment with, and you don't spend time and effort to establish a separate domain, then the subfolder or subdomain approach will work.


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