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I was on LinkedIn this morning and saw this question about URL design:

I’m rolling out a new website which has a number of child sites feeding off of it. I am wondering if anyone knows if there are any user experience issues, market response, branding etc regarding whether the sites should be:

www.foobar.com/site1

OR

site1.foobar.com

I’m not 100% sure so any feedback/insight would be appreciated!

Here’s my answer…

I actually do both. With the ebb and flow of Google and other major search engines I’ve seen the sub-domain perform well and then at other times I’ve seen the directory approach work well.

Since there is no penalty for duplicate content (see Google’s recent blog post confirming this) there is no real problem with covering the bases and using a sub domain and the directory approach.

HOWEVER… I often favour the SUB DOMAIN for one reason and one reason above all others… Here it is:

Classical Advertising Strategy.

If your URL shows up in the listings alongside another then putting your power word or your keyword at the front will help the HUMAN reader get a faster understanding of what you are offering. This will likely lead to increased clicks too. Also, consider that Google is always trying to understand the “meaning” of your page…

Remember we read from left to right and when we seek things we are often trying to immediately decide if the results match our expectations. If you were looking for purple widgets then the following URL design will communicate the value of your website faster.

Purple-Widgets.Domain.com

versus

Domain.com/Purple-Widgets

In the end only time will tell what Google decides is “best” but since that’s a moving target I have decided to use classical advertising and copywriting psychology in designing my URLS.

Feel free to copy me and let me know how you make out.