Don’t tase my subdomain, Google!
Cutts did not say that in those words, of course.
He talked to Tedster at PubCon first, then Tedster posted about it in WebmasterWorld, then Tedster posted a clarification. Here’s the latest I have found there:
This change will NOT mean that it’s 100% impossible to rank subdomain urls in addition to urls from the main domain. The current plans are to make it harder to rank a third url, then even harder to rank a fourth, and so on with an increasing “damping factor”.
So this change will NOT mean that it’s 100% impossible to rank subdomain urls in addition to urls from the main domain. The current plans are to make it harder to rank a third url, then even harder to rank a fourth, and so on with an increasing “damping factor”.
But basically the title is right - for those of you who were using subdomains to get additional rankings and branding in Google SERPs, those days will soon be over.
At first, I like the idea. Very often I have come across subdomain after subdomain ranking for stuff. You can find a few examples of this in SEORoundTable.
From what Matt Cutts has said, it looks like Google is moving in that direction. So at some point, we can expect to see only 2 results max from every site. So they may either be a result from the subdomain or from the main domain in whatever combination Google thinks fit.
Fine by me. But this confuses me a bit as a webmaster. One of my plans for my site goes out the window immediately. Not panicking or anything, but Google messes up often. And while they are planning this rollout, I would be stupid to end up being collateral damage.
See, I had this plan that I would create a few subdomains on this site. For example, you are now reading this in a subdirectory, but it is a blog, and I wanted to create similar stuff that I can create a brand that is a bit different from the main site with a subdomain and all that. You can see one I have here - f1.dancewithshadows.com. This is a Digg clone where I wanted to develop a Formula One racing social news site. Still connected to the mothership, but separate at the same time.
Similarly, I wanted to offer some subdomain blogs to bloggers. I have a friends, who were interested.
But what happens now? Let’s take the tough scenario.
Say my blogger writes something on his blog in the subdomain. I have something that tangentially touches upon it on my main site. On account of higher age and trust, there is a good chance that my tangential page would outrank my blogger-friend on his subdomain. Would he like it? Nah.
In an ideal scenario - from my point of view as a webmaster - I would have preferred if both of us had relevant pages, both of us would rank. I am not sure of this anymore.
Sure Google would rank two URLs. But that is what they say now - they are not that super at implementing exactly what they want, and things go wrong. In the ideal Google world, he would rank and I would rank too. 2 URLs. Sweet.
In the real world, probably he would rank when I should, and I would rank when he should.
So its time to sit back and wait.
If there is one thing I have learnt in all these years, it is to act like Google is a mad cop with a taser. And me, the guy in the towel.
P.S. There is a discussion over at Sphinn on this.
