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I've a very interesting domain: ink. I have a project ready to launch on that.

However ink.can be mutated into l.ink., a subdomain for an unrelated project.

So main domain and subdomain would be separate brands.

What do you think about this? Can I pull this of, or will it create more hassles down the road?

For example, people could confuse the two projects. On the other hand, the target can be so different they wouldn't even notice the existence of the other?

dan
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2 Answers2

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There seems to be some confusion about how sub-domains are treated so I will try and clarify some of this.

Using example.com, www.example.com is a sub-domain of example.com and we take it for granted that these are the same. But they are not. It is very possible, though no-one really ever does this, that example.com and www.example.com are completely different sites with different content and so on. And Google will treat them as such. This also holds true for other-topic.example.com. Both sites will be treated as two completely separate sites with some exception.

The exception is this. Let us make the example clear for a moment. Example.com does a 301 redirect to www.example.com so we can throw away this for our discussion. We will assume that www.example.com and example.com follows tradition and we will greatly simplify the example. Other-topic.example.com and example.com are within the same realm. These are related sites using a semantic database designed to combat web spam and for other reasons of trust and ranking.

While each site will have to perform on it's own, any sub-domain cannot be fully ranked simply because some metrics do not exist for sub-domains. As well, some metrics for the parent domain will effect any sub-domain as a matter of trust. Here is a list off the top of my head.

  • Site Age
  • Changes in Registration
  • Registrant Quality (has the registrant been penalized in the past?)
  • Registration Period (generally not a big factor)
  • Registrar Quality
  • Private Registration Quality
  • Parent Domain is Black Listed (or has a moderately significant black list history)
  • TLD Quality
  • DNS Stability (changes in IP address primarily though far more involved)
  • Parent Domain is not known for previous issues- Spam, Phishing, Fraud, Cloaking, Inciteful, or other Bad Content
  • Parent Domain has Company Physical Address, Phone, E-Mail Address and is easily found.
  • Parent Domain has a Privacy Policy and is easily found.
  • Parent Domain is Child Safe

Because these metrics are missing for sub-domains, the semantic link map ties domains and sub-domains together to pass along at least some portion of these trust metrics to properly rank the sub-domain.

As for content.

The sub-domain will be treated as a separate site in regard to content and indexing. Any sub-domain can be a completely different topic from the parent domain and any other sub-domain. In fact, this is quite normal and sub-domains are often used to segregate/divorce topics from the parent domain as not to dilute/effect the SEO prowess of a parent domain.

In this case, I would not worry too much about users being confused. This is a personal call if you think the two topics would have a negative effect. As far as search engines are concerned, this is not an issue.

Again, each site will have to compete to gain search relevance and SERP performance. However, the performance of the parent domain does influence the SERP performance of the sub-domain through trust metrics gained by the parent at least in part.

closetnoc
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l.ink. will always be associated with ink.. That will go for IT people and SEO.

Google will see them as linked. So if you really want two separate projects, you cannot use a sub-domain.

If you are only worried about "regular people" confusing them and don't care for SEO, then I don't think you'll have to worry much. In my experience, most regular people think the address bar is only a short link to google and don't understand there is a link between l.ink. and www.ink..

EG: If you would use it as an URL minifier (like tinyurl) for your own projects, then SEO won't really matter and you could use it.

Hugo Delsing
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  • Google does not associate sub domains with the top level domain unless you they link to one another. Google treats new sub domains just as it would a new domain. – Simon Hayter Feb 19 '15 at 10:40
  • You did see that the information came from Matt Cutts, head of Google's Webspam team? I guess I'll trust his word over yours. – Hugo Delsing Feb 19 '15 at 11:46
  • If that was true the millions of sites that are used in spam on wordpress.com, trumbler and blogspot would effect every other sub domain and top level domain. Also, this would dilute keywords for all the other sites. – Simon Hayter Feb 19 '15 at 15:00
  • The link is in my answer, watch the video. Or watch it on Google Webmasters youtube channel. And it was linked exactly to prevent subdomain spam. – Hugo Delsing Feb 19 '15 at 15:04
  • I've watched it, at no point does it say they are associated. If you have a blog on a subdomain you'd link to that using the www. sub domain. Again, without the link you do not pass the association. – Simon Hayter Feb 19 '15 at 15:05
  • Link to a source that says authority, relevancy and rankings are passed to a sub domain without a back link. I was clear what I said in the first comment. – Simon Hayter Feb 19 '15 at 15:07
  • Googles algorithm will be more advanced then if subdomain then linked else notlinked. I'm sure google can detect the difference between hundreds of subdomains on blogspot.com and one subdomain on mypersonalsite.com and threat it differently. This discussion has been going on for over a decade and there are still people that say they are linked and some that say they are not. The only information from Google I can find, starting back in 2007, is that they are changing more and more to include subdomains as part of the main domain. – Hugo Delsing Feb 19 '15 at 15:45
  • A single link from www. to sub. would make them one site with an internal link. That's nothing like "It's a separate site". If you do everything right, it might be seen as a separate site, but most likely Google will handle it as one. – Hugo Delsing Feb 19 '15 at 15:46
  • Often when the .www links to a blog to its .sub it will link hundreds of times over, that being in the top menu or stack exchange example in the footer. This is how sub domains receive the authority, relevancy and rankings. Also when listening to Matt Cutts you should never treat everything he says as FACT, hes just like a politician, he rarely ever answers a question without opening up a new question. In the linked video he mentions nothing about linking to one another, he mentions nothing about the site, he mentions nothing how long it will take, all the questions that you need to know. – Simon Hayter Feb 19 '15 at 16:30
  • I recommend you watch http://moz.com/blog/subdomains-vs-subfolders-rel-canonical-vs-301-how-to-structure-links-optimally-for-seo-whiteboard-friday along with hundreds of other case studies about sub domain dilemma's – Simon Hayter Feb 19 '15 at 16:31
  • @bybe I agree with your statement regarding Matt Cutts. He is extremely careful in what he says and how he says it. Often it is more what he has not said that is important. Too many people read too much into his words running off in all kinds of directions and do not parse what is actually said. It actually cracks me up sometimes except people get so adamant and will fight tooth and nail as if Christ himself has spoken. I say this as a warning to others. Be careful. Matt is okay, he is just very careful to give away very little and extend the industry of confusion further. – closetnoc Feb 20 '15 at 01:10