Multisite Subdirectory SEO

  • Is it possible to house blogs of larger sites in a Multisite setup and have the blog be accessible as a subdirectory of the parent site. So, theoretically we would have:

    blog1
    blog2
    blog3

    in a multisite install. We want to access those sites from:

    https://www.site1.com/blog1
    https://www.site2.com/blog2
    https://www.site3.com/blog3

    We would prefer to do the subdomain thing with blog1.site1.com but have been told we have to use subdirectories due to pagecount for the domain. If anyone can shed any light on a solution or a definitive article saying subdomains are fine I would love you forever.

    JR

Viewing 3 replies - 1 through 3 (of 3 total)

  • Subdomains are counted as separate from the main domain.

    If you want

    https://www.site1.com/blog1
    https://www.site2.com/blog2
    https://www.site3.com/blog3

    use multiple networks with this plugin.
    https://www.ads-software.com/extend/plugins/wp-multi-network/

    Thread Starter jroakes

    (@jroakes)

    Andrea, Arrrrrhh! (pirate reference) Thank you for that. 2 follow-ups.

    Subdirectories vs. Subdomains

    I guess I am confused about the whole Google juice idea, I have read articles by Cutts that say there is no difference between having sites on a Subdomain vs. a Subdirectory as far as Google is concerned. Google even has that on a FAQ on their webmaster site. I have also read that Google Juice is related to the page and has nothing to do with the domain. It is carried through the interlinking. We have many clients on Windows, Expression Engine, Expression Web sites. A lot of them want blogs. We wanted to put the blogs in a WP Multisite so they would be easy to update and manage. The problem is how do we keep clients original domain and site and add on the blog so that it looks like it is in a subdirectory. See below for an example.

    So here comes the hypothetical:

    So we would have an existing site SiteA.com on a Windows machine running Expression Web and we want to put the blog (along with other blogs) in the WP Multisite(on another server). We were hoping to do this by just using CNAME to point blog.SiteA.com to the WP Multisite with domain mapping. Since we now need to have the blogs in subdirectories; is there a way to still have the blog located in the WP Multisite(on another server) and have its url be SiteA.com/blog/?

    I really don’t want to have to keep (eventually) 50-100 blogs up-to-date. So I am hoping for some manna here.

    The problem is how do we keep clients original domain and site and add on the blog so that it looks like it is in a subdirectory.

    You can’t. This isn’t a wordPress limitation, this ai a DNS limitation. Much the same way you can’t set up a blog at Blogger and have it look like a folder in your domain.

    give them subdomains.

    While google does see them sorta like a separate site, there’s no “bad” seo in doing that.

    And I would have given you this answer first had you explained the entire situation. ??

Viewing 3 replies - 1 through 3 (of 3 total)
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