Using subdomains on a large website

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Using subdomains on a large website

realmaverick

12:56 pm on Mar 13, 2012 (gmt 0)

For a while I've wanted to take advantage of subdomains. Our website is large and contains hundreds of thousands of pages.

The niche is mobile phones. I want to create a sub domain for each of the brands we support. This would allow us to have brand specific home pages, customised menus and tightly knit silos. It will definitely improve the user experience. Talking to my members, they like the idea.

It will mean though, a lot of moved content and thus many 301's.

I've no experience with this and so I'm not sure how Google will react.

tedster

1:49 am on Mar 14, 2012 (gmt 0)

Surely you can successfully reorganize your site - especially if it is, as you say, good for your visitors.

The first mistake I see people making in setting up a lot of 301 redirects is forgetting to change ALL their existing internal links. Same goes for any XML Sitemaps. In other words, don't just think the redirects will take care of it - Google will hate you ;(

The second mistake I see is having something technically wrong when the changes launch. If you have to make a second round of massive changes after the first round is already crawled, there can be hell to pay. So set up a test site, and test the bejezzus out of it before you go live. Get it right the first time.

Planet13

2:11 am on Mar 14, 2012 (gmt 0)

I just have to ask one thing; would it possibly be better to set up unique root domains for each phone?

On the other hand, about . com uses lots of subdomains and they seem to be doing quite well...

realmaverick

10:05 am on Mar 14, 2012 (gmt 0)

Tedster it would be tested the crap out of. And yes all links, except for external would be changed to reflect the new setup.

Planet13 I have also been considering this. Though it would be a much bigger job.

A competitor managed to outrank us by having a sub domain for every product page. They come from nowhere to number 1 for thousands of product pages bluewidget.example.com which to me, is ridiculous but it seems Google disagrees.