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Exact match subdomains
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Hi, I have seen significant SEO benefits from owning exact match domains and was wondering whether exact match subdomains hold the same (or some) of these benefits?
eg.
halloweencostumes.co.uk vs. halloween [dot] costumes.co.uk
Many thanks.
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I agree. But at the same time because its still on the main domain which has authority i have a hard time believing the engines don't trust the url more as a sub-domain vs a bran new url.
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Thanks for your response. Interesting to hear about your experience with exact match sub-pages. Sub-pages benefit from URL structure and domain authority. Would be also be interesting to compare with exact match subdomains where weight isn't passed from the root domain and relies primarily on URL keywords.
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Hey Mate,
One of my clients has around 20 terms on his site that we created exact match sub-pages for which are basically:
These rank very well, I can't say they are as good as an actual exact domain match but they def help get us ranking faster because the keywords in the url at all create authority.
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