If you’ve ever wondered whether to park your blog on blog.yoursite.com or yoursite.com/blog, you’re not alone. This debate has raged for over a decade, and in 2026, it’s still causing headaches for marketers, developers, and business owners. Here’s what you need to know: the choice between subdomains and subfolders affects everything from how search engines perceive your site’s authority to how you manage SSL certificates and CDN configurations.
This article will walk you through the technical realities, SEO implications, and infrastructure requirements that should guide your decision. We’ll explore how search engines actually treat these structures, what happens to your link equity, and the nitty-gritty of implementation. By the end, you’ll have a clear framework for making this choice based on your specific situation—not just outdated SEO folklore.
While predictions about 2026 and beyond are based on current trends and expert analysis, the actual field may vary as search algorithms evolve and new technologies emerge.
SEO Authority and Link Equity Distribution
Let’s tackle the elephant in the room first. Does Google treat subdomains as separate entities from your main domain? The short answer: it’s complicated, and anyone who tells you otherwise is oversimplifying.
How Search Engines Treat Subdomains vs. Subfolders
Search engines have evolved significantly in how they interpret site structure. Back in 2012, SEO Theory noted that Google might show multiple subdomains in brand query results, which sparked concerns about cannibalisation. Fast forward to 2026, and the picture has become more nuanced.
Google’s John Mueller has repeatedly stated that the search engine can understand when subdomains belong to the same brand. But here’s the catch: “can understand” doesn’t mean “treats identically.” In practice, subdomains often start with a blank slate in terms of authority signals. They need to build their own reputation, even if they’re part of a trusted parent domain.
Subfolders, on the other hand, inherit the domain’s existing authority immediately. When you publish content at yoursite.com/blog/new-article, it benefits from all the trust signals your main domain has accumulated. It’s like being born into a wealthy family versus starting from scratch—both can succeed, but one has a head start.
Did you know? Research indicates that subfolders typically rank faster for new content because they utilize existing domain authority, while subdomains may take 2-3 months longer to achieve similar rankings for comparable content quality.
The technical reason relates to how crawlers map site architecture. When Googlebot encounters yoursite.com/section/article, it recognises a hierarchical relationship. The path structure signals that /section/ is part of yoursite.com’s content ecosystem. With blog.yoursite.com/article, the subdomain creates a boundary that crawlers treat with more caution.
My experience with migrating a client’s blog from a subdomain to a subfolder in 2024 revealed a 34% increase in organic traffic within four months. The content was identical—we simply changed the URL structure and implemented proper redirects. The subfolder allowed the blog posts to benefit from the main domain’s established authority, particularly for competitive keywords where the main site already ranked well.
Domain Authority Consolidation Strategies
Domain authority (whether you’re looking at Moz’s DA, Ahrefs’ Domain Rating, or any similar metric) operates on accumulation principles. Every quality backlink, every positive user signal, every piece of authoritative content adds to your domain’s trust score. The question is: where does that accumulation happen?
With subfolders, everything pools together. A backlink to yoursite.com/blog/article-123 strengthens yoursite.com as a whole. The authority flows throughout the entire domain structure. It’s a unified approach where all your SEO efforts compound.
Subdomains fragment this accumulation. A backlink to blog.yoursite.com technically points to a different “domain” in the eyes of most SEO tools and, to some extent, search engines. You’re essentially running two separate properties that need individual authority building.
| Aspect | Subfolder Approach | Subdomain Approach |
|---|---|---|
| Authority Accumulation | Unified across entire domain | Separate per subdomain |
| Backlink Value | Benefits whole site | Isolated to subdomain |
| Time to Rank New Content | Faster (inherits existing authority) | Slower (builds from lower baseline) |
| Keyword Cannibalisation Risk | Higher (same domain competing) | Lower (separate entities) |
| Brand Query Visibility | Consolidated results | Multiple listings possible |
There’s a intentional angle here, though. Some businesses intentionally use subdomains to create separation. If you’re running a user-generated content platform (think forums, marketplaces, or community sections), you might want that isolation. A spam attack on forum.yoursite.com won’t directly damage yoursite.com’s authority. It’s a defensive play.
But for most businesses—especially those trying to establish thought leadership through content marketing—consolidation makes more sense. You want every piece of content to reinforce your domain’s proficiency signals.
Backlink Value Transfer Mechanisms
Let’s get into the mechanics of how link equity moves through your site architecture. When someone links to your content, they’re casting a vote of confidence. The value of that vote depends on the linking site’s authority, relevance, and how the link is implemented (dofollow vs. nofollow, anchor text, context).
With subfolders, the path is straightforward. A link to yoursite.com/resources/guide passes authority to yoursite.com, which then distributes that value across your internal link structure based on PageRank flow principles. The entire domain becomes stronger.
Subdomains complicate this transfer. When resources.yoursite.com receives a backlink, that authority primarily benefits resources.yoursite.com. There’s debate about whether some authority transfers to the parent domain (yoursite.com), but even if it does, the effect is diluted compared to direct subfolder links.
Quick Tip: If you’re already using subdomains and want to consolidate authority, implement a phased migration to subfolders. Start with your highest-performing content, set up 301 redirects, and monitor traffic patterns. According to Netpeak’s research on subdomain migrations, most sites see positive results within 2-3 months of making the switch.
Here’s where it gets interesting: cross-domain linking between your subdomain and main domain. If blog.yoursite.com links to yoursite.com/products, does that count as an internal link or external link? Technically, it’s treated more like an external link because it crosses domain boundaries. The link still passes value, but you lose some of the performance you’d have with true internal linking.
Think about link equity like water flowing through pipes. Subfolders create a unified plumbing system where water (authority) flows freely throughout. Subdomains create separate tanks that require pumps (cross-domain links) to transfer water between them. The pumps work, but you lose pressure (authority) in the transfer.
PageRank Flow and Internal Linking
PageRank might seem like ancient history—Google stopped publicly updating it years ago—but the underlying algorithm still powers how authority distributes through your site structure. Understanding this flow is necessary for the subdomain vs. subfolder decision.
In a subfolder structure, every page participates in the same PageRank distribution network. Your homepage might have the highest PageRank, and it passes portions of that value to pages it links to. Those pages pass value to pages they link to, and so on. It’s a closed ecosystem where the total PageRank is conserved and redistributed based on your internal linking strategy.
With subdomains, you’re running parallel PageRank systems. blog.yoursite.com has its own PageRank pool, separate from yoursite.com. Links between them are treated as external links, which means they don’t participate in the same internal distribution network.
You know what’s fascinating? The mathematical implications here. If your main domain has accumulated important PageRank over years, and you launch a new content section, putting it in a subfolder means it immediately participates in that PageRank pool. Launch it as a subdomain, and it starts at near-zero PageRank, regardless of your main domain’s strength.
This affects your content strategy. With subfolders, you can strategically link from high-authority pages to new content to boost its initial rankings. With subdomains, that strategy is far less effective because you’re linking across domain boundaries.
What if you need both? Some organisations legitimately need subdomains for technical or organisational reasons—think separate applications, different technology stacks, or international versions. In these cases, accept the SEO trade-off and focus on building each subdomain’s authority independently. Just don’t fragment your content unnecessarily.
Technical Implementation and Infrastructure Requirements
Beyond SEO considerations, the subdomain vs. subfolder choice has real technical implications. Let’s get into the weeds of what each approach requires from an infrastructure standpoint.
DNS Configuration and Server Setup
Setting up a subfolder is dead simple from a DNS perspective. You don’t need to do anything. The subfolder is just a directory path on your existing server. Create the folder, configure your web server to serve content from it, and you’re done. No DNS changes, no propagation delays, no additional configuration.
Subdomains require DNS records. You need to create an A record (or CNAME) pointing blog.yoursite.com to the appropriate IP address or hostname. This introduces several considerations:
- DNS propagation time (typically 24-48 hours for full global propagation)
- Additional DNS records to manage and monitor
- Potential for configuration errors that take down the subdomain
- TTL (Time To Live) settings that affect how quickly changes propagate
For organisations with complex infrastructure, subdomains offer routing flexibility. You can point blog.yoursite.com to a completely different server or even a different hosting provider than yoursite.com. This is useful if your blog runs on WordPress but your main site uses a different CMS, or if you want to host your documentation on a specialized platform.
The technical complexity of rewriting URLs between subfolders and subdomains shouldn’t be underestimated. If you’re using IIS and web.config, for instance, you’ll need Application Request Routing configured properly. With nginx, you’ll need careful attention to proxy settings and header forwarding.
My experience with a client who wanted to migrate from a subfolder to a subdomain (yes, the reverse direction) involved three weeks of troubleshooting relative URL issues. Images, CSS files, and JavaScript references all needed updating because the domain context changed. What seemed like a simple DNS change cascaded into a front-end nightmare.
SSL Certificate Management Considerations
Security matters, and SSL certificates are non-negotiable in 2026. Here’s where subdomains add complexity. Your SSL certificate needs to cover all the domains and subdomains you’re serving content from.
With subfolders, you need one SSL certificate for yoursite.com. That certificate covers yoursite.com/blog, yoursite.com/shop, yoursite.com/anything. Simple, clean, one certificate to manage, renew, and monitor.
With subdomains, you have options, none of them as simple:
- Separate certificates for each subdomain (blog.yoursite.com gets its own certificate)
- Wildcard certificate that covers *.yoursite.com (covers all subdomains)
- Multi-domain (SAN) certificate that explicitly lists each subdomain
Wildcard certificates sound perfect, but they’re more expensive than standard certificates and require more careful private key management. If the wildcard certificate’s private key is compromised, all your subdomains are vulnerable. That’s a larger attack surface than a single-domain certificate.
Did you know? Let’s Encrypt revolutionised SSL by offering free certificates, but wildcard certificates from Let’s Encrypt require DNS-01 challenge validation, which is more complex to automate than HTTP-01 challenges used for standard certificates. This technical barrier keeps many organisations on separate certificates per subdomain.
Certificate renewal automation becomes vital. If you’re running six subdomains, that’s six certificates to track and renew (or one wildcard certificate with stricter security requirements). Miss a renewal, and your subdomain goes down with browser security warnings—a disaster for user trust and SEO.
The subfolder approach avoids this entire category of problems. One domain, one certificate, one renewal schedule. It’s the difference between juggling three balls versus juggling twelve.
CDN Integration and Performance Impact
Content Delivery Networks are key for performance, and your subdomain vs. subfolder choice affects CDN configuration. Most modern CDNs (Cloudflare, Fastly, Akamai) can handle both approaches, but the implementation differs.
With subfolders, your CDN configuration is straightforward. You set up yoursite.com as your origin, configure caching rules, and the CDN serves content from yoursite.com/* through its edge network. All your content benefits from the same CDN configuration, cache policies, and edge locations.
Subdomains require separate CDN configurations. blog.yoursite.com needs its own setup, potentially with different caching rules than yoursite.com. This can be an advantage if your blog has different performance characteristics than your main site (longer cache times for static content, different purge strategies), but it’s also more configuration to manage.
Performance-wise, there’s a subtle difference in DNS resolution. When a user visits yoursite.com/blog, their browser performs one DNS lookup. When they visit blog.yoursite.com, that’s an additional DNS lookup. We’re talking milliseconds, but those milliseconds add up, especially for users on slower connections or in regions far from your DNS servers.
| Performance Factor | Subfolder Impact | Subdomain Impact |
|---|---|---|
| DNS Lookups | Single lookup for entire site | Additional lookup per subdomain |
| SSL Handshake | One handshake per session | Separate handshake per subdomain |
| Cookie Transmission | Cookies sent with all requests | Can isolate cookies per subdomain |
| CDN Configuration | Unified setup | Separate configurations needed |
| HTTP/2 Connection Reuse | Full connection reuse | New connection per subdomain |
There’s an interesting cookie consideration here. Cookies set on yoursite.com are sent with every request to yoursite.com/*, including all subfolders. This adds ability overhead. Subdomains allow cookie isolation—cookies set on yoursite.com aren’t automatically sent to blog.yoursite.com. For sites with heavy cookie usage (authentication tokens, tracking data), this can reduce time and improve performance.
But here’s the thing: if users navigate between your main site and your blog frequently, they’ll experience the DNS lookup and SSL handshake overhead repeatedly. The connection can’t be reused across domain boundaries in many cases, especially with older HTTP/1.1 implementations.
Key Insight: HTTP/2 and HTTP/3 improve connection reuse, but cross-domain requests still incur overhead that same-domain requests avoid. For content-heavy sites where users browse multiple sections, subfolders provide better connection effectiveness.
Consider how complexity of handling relative URLs with reverse proxies interact with subdomains versus subfolders. If you’re using nginx to proxy requests to different backend services, subdomain routing is often cleaner. You can route blog.yoursite.com to one backend server and shop.yoursite.com to another. With subfolders, you need location blocks and more complex routing logic.
Migration Strategies and Technical Challenges
Changing your mind after choosing subdomains or subfolders isn’t trivial. Let’s talk about what migration actually involves, because the internet is littered with horror stories of botched transitions.
Planning Your Migration Without Losing Traffic
If you’re moving from a subdomain to a subfolder (the most common migration direction for SEO reasons), you’re essentially moving content from one domain to another in Google’s eyes. This requires careful planning to avoid traffic losses.
First, audit everything. Document every URL on your subdomain, every backlink pointing to it, and every internal link between your subdomain and main domain. Tools like Screaming Frog, Ahrefs, or SEMrush can help, but expect to find edge cases these tools miss.
Create a complete URL mapping. For every blog.yoursite.com/article URL, you need to know exactly where it’s moving: yoursite.com/blog/article. This mapping becomes your redirect configuration. Miss a URL, and you’ve created a 404 error that loses traffic and link equity.
Implement 301 redirects at the server level, not through JavaScript or meta refresh tags. Server-level redirects (in .htaccess for Apache, nginx.conf for nginx, or IIS configuration) are faster and pass more link equity. According to Netpeak’s research on subdomain migrations, proper 301 redirects preserve 90-95% of ranking power, while improper implementations can lose 50% or more.
Myth Buster: “You’ll lose all your rankings if you migrate from subdomain to subfolder.” False. While there’s typically a temporary dip during the transition (2-4 weeks), properly implemented migrations with 301 redirects recover and often exceed previous traffic levels within 2-3 months because of consolidated authority.
Update your internal links before the migration. If your main site links to blog.yoursite.com/article, change those links to yoursite.com/blog/article before you migrate. This reduces the redirect chain length and helps search engines understand the new structure faster.
Dealing With Relative URL Nightmares
Here’s something they don’t warn you about: relative URLs become absolute nightmares during subdomain migrations. If your blog posts contain links like /category/article, those links resolve differently on blog.yoursite.com versus yoursite.com/blog.
On blog.yoursite.com, /category/article resolves to blog.yoursite.com/category/article. After migration to yoursite.com/blog, that same relative URL resolves to yoursite.com/category/article—wrong location, 404 error. You need to update every relative URL in your content to either absolute URLs or correct relative paths.
The complexity of handling relative URLs with reverse proxies compounds this problem. If you’re proxying requests, you need proper header forwarding (X-Forwarded-Host, X-Forwarded-Proto) so your application knows its actual public URL and generates correct links.
My recommendation? Do a content audit and convert all internal links to absolute URLs before migration. Yes, it’s tedious. Yes, it takes time. But it prevents the cascade of broken links that tank user experience and SEO performance post-migration.
Updating Backlinks and External References
You can’t control external backlinks, but you can influence them. After migration, reach out to sites linking to your old subdomain URLs, especially high-authority sites. A simple email explaining the URL change and requesting an update can preserve link equity that would otherwise pass through redirects.
Update your own properties: social media profiles, email signatures, business listings (this is where directories like Jasmine Web Directory become important—keeping your listings current ensures consistent citations), marketing materials, and any owned channels. The goal is to minimize redirect chains and establish the new URLs as canonical.
Monitor your redirect logs. Are there URLs receiving marked traffic that you forgot to redirect? Are there redirect chains (URL A → URL B → URL C) that should be flattened? The first month post-migration is important for catching these issues.
Real-World Example: A SaaS company migrated their documentation from docs.example.com to example.com/docs in early 2025. They saw a 23% traffic drop in the first three weeks, which caused panic. But they’d prepared for this. They monitored redirect logs, fixed broken relative URLs in their content, reached out to major sites linking to their docs, and updated their internal links. By month four, traffic had recovered to 112% of pre-migration levels, and their main domain’s authority metrics improved across the board.
When Subdomains Actually Make Sense
Let’s be fair here. Despite everything I’ve said about subfolders being the safer SEO choice, there are legitimate reasons to use subdomains. Not every situation fits the “subfolder is always better” narrative.
Technical Architecture Requirements
If your blog runs on a completely different technology stack than your main site—say, your main site is a React single-page application but your blog is WordPress—subdomains simplify deployment. You can host them on different servers, use different technologies, and avoid the complexity of routing subfolder requests to different applications.
Large organisations with separate teams managing different properties often prefer subdomains for organisational clarity. The blog team controls blog.yoursite.com completely, while the product team manages yoursite.com. There’s no stepping on each other’s toes, no coordination needed for deployments, and clear ownership boundaries.
Subdomains also make sense for applications that need domain-level isolation. If you’re running a user-generated content platform where users can upload files, keeping that on uploads.yoursite.com provides a security boundary. If there’s a vulnerability exploited on the uploads subdomain, it’s contained—it doesn’t directly compromise yoursite.com.
International and Language Variations
For international sites, subdomains (uk.yoursite.com, de.yoursite.com) offer clearer geographic and language targeting than subfolders (yoursite.com/uk, yoursite.com/de). Google Search Console allows you to set geographic targeting for subdomains but not for subfolders of the same domain.
This isn’t just about SEO—it’s about user perception. Users in Germany might trust de.yoursite.com more than yoursite.com/de because the subdomain signals a dedicated local presence. The psychology of domain structure matters for international expansion.
That said, ccTLDs (country code top-level domains like yoursite.de, yoursite.co.uk) are even stronger signals for international SEO. If you’re serious about a market, a ccTLD beats both subdomains and subfolders. But ccTLDs come with their own complications: separate domain management, separate authority building, and higher costs.
Brand and Marketing Considerations
Sometimes marketing trumps SEO. If you’re launching a distinct sub-brand or campaign that needs its own identity, a subdomain can reinforce that separation. campaign.yoursite.com feels like a distinct destination, while yoursite.com/campaign feels like just another page.
Mobile-specific sites (m.yoursite.com) were common in the past, though responsive design has largely replaced them. But if you have a genuinely different mobile experience—not just responsive design but a separate application—a subdomain makes sense.
Quick Tip: If you use a subdomain for brand/marketing reasons despite the SEO trade-offs, be aggressive about cross-linking between your subdomain and main domain. Treat it like a partnership between related sites. The more you connect them through content and links, the more search engines will understand their relationship.
The 2026 Context: What’s Changed and What Hasn’t
We’re in 2026 now, and some things have evolved while others remain stubbornly constant. Let’s look at what’s actually changed in this debate and what’s just noise.
Search Engine Algorithm Maturity
Google’s algorithms have become better at understanding site relationships. The search engine can now recognize that blog.yoursite.com and yoursite.com belong to the same entity more reliably than in 2020. But “better at understanding” doesn’t mean “treats identically.” The fundamental authority distribution differences remain.
What has improved is Google’s handling of content quality signals across domains. If your subdomain consistently publishes high-quality, authoritative content, Google will recognize that faster than it would have five years ago. The cold-start problem for new subdomains has shortened, but it hasn’t disappeared.
Voice search and AI-powered search results have added new dimensions. When a voice assistant answers a query, it often pulls from a single authoritative source. Having consolidated domain authority (subfolder approach) increases your chances of being that source.
Core Web Vitals and Performance Metrics
Google’s Core Web Vitals have become even more important by 2026. The performance implications of subdomains (additional DNS lookups, separate SSL handshakes) matter more now than they did when the debate started. Every millisecond counts for Largest Contentful Paint (LCP) and First Input Delay (FID).
The good news: HTTP/3 and QUIC protocol adoption have reduced some of the connection overhead for subdomains. Modern browsers handle multiple domains more efficiently. But subfolders still have an inherent performance advantage for same-session browsing.
Mobile-First Indexing Reality
Mobile-first indexing is now the only indexing. Google doesn’t maintain separate mobile and desktop indices anymore. This affects the subdomain vs. subfolder debate because mobile performance is foremost, and every extra DNS lookup hits harder on mobile networks.
Progressive Web Apps (PWAs) have become standard, and PWAs work more seamlessly with subfolder structures. Service workers, offline functionality, and app-like experiences are easier to implement when everything shares the same origin (same domain, protocol, and port).
Did you know? Cross-origin requests require CORS (Cross-Origin Resource Sharing) headers, adding complexity to API calls between your subdomain and main domain. Subfolders avoid this entirely because same-origin policy doesn’t apply. This technical simplification speeds up development and reduces potential security vulnerabilities.
Making Your Decision: A Practical Framework
Enough theory. Here’s how to actually decide for your specific situation. This framework considers your current state, goals, and constraints.
Assessing Your Current Situation
Start with an honest inventory. If you’re already using one approach, switching has costs. Is the potential SEO benefit worth the migration effort, temporary traffic dip, and technical work required?
Calculate your migration cost. For a site with 500 blog posts on a subdomain, expect 40-60 hours of work for a proper migration: URL mapping, redirect configuration, content updates, testing, and monitoring. Add development time for any custom functionality that needs updating.
Assess your current authority distribution. Run your domain and any subdomains through Ahrefs, Moz, or SEMrush. If your subdomain has independently built substantial authority (high Domain Rating, substantial referring domains), migration might not provide as much benefit. If your subdomain is languishing with low authority while your main domain is strong, migration could free up that consolidated power.
Matching Structure to Business Goals
What are you trying to achieve? Different goals favour different structures:
- Goal: Rank for competitive keywords quickly → Subfolders win. Inherited authority helps new content rank faster.
- Goal: Build a distinct sub-brand → Subdomains make sense. The separation reinforces brand identity.
- Goal: Simplify technical management → Subfolders are simpler for most setups.
- Goal: Isolate technical risks → Subdomains provide security boundaries.
- Goal: Improve overall domain authority → Subfolders consolidate all equity.
Think long-term. If you might want to sell your blog or content section separately from your main business, a subdomain makes that separation cleaner. If you’re building an integrated content ecosystem where everything reinforces your core business, subfolders create that unified presence.
Decision Framework: If your primary goal is SEO performance and you’re running a unified brand with integrated content, choose subfolders. If you have legitimate technical, organizational, or branding reasons for separation, choose subdomains and accept the SEO trade-offs.
Testing and Measuring Impact
Whatever you choose, measure the results. Set up proper analytics tracking that distinguishes between your main domain and any subdomains or subfolders. Track:
- Organic traffic trends (overall and by section)
- Ranking positions for target keywords
- Crawl output (pages crawled per day in Search Console)
- Backlink acquisition rate (are you earning links at the same rate?)
- User engagement metrics (bounce rate, time on site, pages per session)
If you’re migrating, expect a temporary dip. Don’t panic if traffic drops 15-20% in the first two weeks. That’s normal as search engines reprocess your redirects and update their index. Watch the trend—it should recover within 4-6 weeks and exceed previous levels by 3-4 months if the migration was executed properly.
Run A/B tests if possible. If you have multiple content sections, try migrating one to a subfolder while keeping another as a subdomain. Compare their performance over six months. Real data from your specific situation beats general advice.
Future Directions
Looking beyond 2026, several trends will influence this debate. Search is evolving rapidly, and site structure decisions need to account for where things are heading, not just where they are today.
AI-powered search engines (think ChatGPT integration in Bing, Google’s SGE, and emerging competitors) prioritize authoritative sources. These systems pull information from sites they trust. Consolidated domain authority—the subfolder approach—positions you better for these AI citations. When an AI needs to cite a source, it’s more likely to reference yoursite.com (with all its consolidated authority) than blog.yoursite.com (with fragmented authority).
Entity-based search continues to grow. Search engines are moving from keyword matching to understanding entities (people, places, organizations, concepts) and their relationships. Having all your content under one domain helps search engines understand your organization as a single, cohesive entity with know-how across topics. Subdomains fragment that entity understanding.
The rise of search alternatives—social media search, AI assistants, vertical search engines—means your content needs maximum visibility across platforms. Consolidated authority helps because these platforms often pull from sources that already rank well in traditional search. Strong yoursite.com authority lifts your content across multiple discovery channels.
Technical standards continue evolving. HTTP/3 reduces some subdomain overhead, but same-origin performance advantages remain. As privacy regulations tighten and third-party cookies disappear, first-party data becomes necessary. Subfolders simplify first-party cookie management and user tracking within privacy regulations.
The subdomain vs. subfolder debate won’t disappear, but the best practice is increasingly clear for most use cases: subfolders consolidate authority, simplify technical management, and align with how modern search engines evaluate sites. Use subdomains only when you have specific technical, organizational, or branding requirements that justify the SEO trade-offs.
Your site structure is a foundation that’s costly to change. Choose wisely based on your long-term strategy, not short-term convenience. And if you’re unsure? Start with subfolders. They’re the safer default that goes with with SEO effective methods and simplifies your technical infrastructure. You can always split into subdomains later if you discover a compelling reason, though the reverse migration is more common because businesses realize consolidation’s value.
The eternal debate continues, but the evidence increasingly points one direction. Make your choice based on data, your specific context, and your long-term goals—not outdated SEO mythology or cargo cult practices that worked (or didn’t) in 2015.
