Difference between Subdomain and Subfolder

Subdomains and subfolders have a huge role to play in a website. Knowing and understanding these two help in structuring your web page. However, not all people are familiar with these two terminologies. What is a subdomain and a subfolder? Are there any differences between the two?

Subdomain

Every website in the World Wide Web has a subdomain. In the URL www.facebook.com, “www” is the subdomain. Subdomains can be customized depending on one’s goal: creating different categories for an existing website or creating a new website which is different from an existing main website. Different businessmen have taken advantage of subdomains. Here are some reasons why subdomains are good for a website. 

• When a business plans to be on different locations or regions, using a subdomain is recommended. Say for an example, you are a salon opening on different cities in your country, using the name of the city where these branches are located makes it easier for your business to be found online. http://www.hairwonderfulhaven.com stands as your main website while http://newyork.hairwonderfulhaven.com can be a possible subdomain site.

• Introducing your products and services online is possible with the use of subdomains. When search engines crawl on the web, finding your website is much quicker since the product or service has been made as its subdomain. For instance, a company who is selling shoes for women can use boots.steponus.com, flats.steponus.com or loafer.steponus.com as subdomains to lead customers directly to the shoes that they want.

• There are some websites that caters to different nationalities. The use of subdomains depending on which language the users choose is a good advantage to gain more customers to the website.

Subfolder

Also called as subdirectory, a subfolder is an extension of the main domain. Basically, it is a folder added to the domain or subdomain name. A subdirectory can be of use as one can put images and information on different pages separately. Why do some websites have subdirectories? 

• Having a subdirectory frees your main page from any advertisements. The main page will solely be a welcoming page to the customer on what products or services you have. Putting a subdirectory for the selling of goods organizes the look of your main page.

• A subdirectory’s inbound links can provide more ranking value. With this, the page gets more authority and link juice that also fuels the main domain. 

• It is easier to organize. The content can be placed on different subdirectories; thus, managing the content of the website is less challenging.

What is the difference between these two?

 • Subfolders are generally linked to your main domain. However, subdirectories are independent.

• Subfolders are great to use when separating content in the website. Subdomains are best for businesses that are from different locations as they can easily be indexed on search engines with their cities used as the subdomain.

 • Subdomains can be used to record traffic from PPC ads and the like. Subfolders do not have this advantage.

In optimizing a website, using both can be of great advantage. Subdomains put a step forward in mapping while subfolders on separating content. Whether using subdomain or subdirectory, the important is monitoring the traffic the website gets to increase its ranking on search engines.