Choosing the Right Domain Strategy for Your Website Now

When you’re planning a new website, one of the key decisions to make early on is how your domain will be structured. Your domain not only affects how users perceive your brand, but also plays a significant role in SEO, maintenance, and long-term marketing flexibility.

In this post, we’ll explore the three main domain structure options — and help you decide which one is right for you.

1. Subdomain

e.g. subdomain.example.com

Pros:

  • Easy to separate branding or functionality (e.g. shop.example.com, blog.example.com)
  • Useful for specific tools, platforms, or locations
  • Some CMS platforms default to subdomains for technical reasons

Cons:

  • Google treats it as a separate site for SEO purposes
  • Requires its own authority building and backlink profile
  • Not ideal for sharing SEO strength with your main domain

2. Subdirectory

e.g. example.com/section

Pros:

  • Best for SEO — inherits domain authority and trust from the main site
  • Easier to maintain and track in one system
  • Can still have a completely different visual identity

Cons:

  • Slightly less separation from the main brand (though design can solve this)
  • May require more careful CMS setup if distinct teams manage different areas

3. Separate Domain

e.g. newbrandexample.com

Pros:

  • Full brand autonomy and marketing flexibility
  • Clean and focused for a specific audience
  • Useful if you want to eventually spin off a service or brand entirely

Cons:

  • No inherited SEO value — you’re starting from scratch
  • More expensive and time-consuming to maintain
  • Risk of diluting brand authority if not managed carefully

Quick Comparison Table

StrategyBest ForSEO BenefitMaintenanceBrand Autonomy
SubdomainTools, blogs, or regional portals❌ Separate siteMediumModerate
SubdirectoryUnified SEO and scalable growth✅ SharedLowModerate (via design)
Separate DomainFull brand spin-off or distinct entity❌ Starts at zeroHighFull

Real-World Examples

  • Subdomain: blog.hubspot.com — separates long-form content while maintaining brand cohesion
  • Subdirectory: moz.com/academy — a fully designed learning platform benefiting from Moz’s main domain authority
  • Separate Domain: mandrillapp.com (originally by Mailchimp) — full spin-off with its own brand and marketing strategy

Analytics & Tracking Consideration

Also consider how you’ll manage data:

  • It’s far simpler to set up and analyse one GA4 property if you’re using subdirectories
  • Separate domains or subdomains may require additional tracking setup, cross-domain configuration, and fragmented data

Recommendation

If SEO performance is important — and you don’t have the time or budget to build up a completely separate site — a subdirectory is often the best long-term option. It gives you full SEO benefit from your existing domain while allowing design and branding flexibility.

If you want to use a clean domain like projectbrand.co.uk for marketing, you can always redirect that to the subdirectory. This gives you the best of both worlds — a marketable URL and strong SEO performance.

FAQ

Yes — this is a common strategy. You won’t build SEO authority on the redirected domain, but it gives you a clean, memorable web address for marketing.

No — subdomains are treated as separate properties. You’ll need to build SEO strength independently for each one.

Yes — with good design, you can give a subdirectory its own branding, navigation, and style while still getting the SEO benefit of being under the main domain.

Only if you want full separation for branding or legal reasons, and you have the resources to build its SEO and content profile from scratch.

Further Reading

1. Google’s SEO Starter Guide (covers domain structure)

Google Search Central: Subdomain or subdirectory?
From a business point of view, do whatever makes sense for your business… segment by subdirectories, but other times it might make sense to partition topics into subdomains.

2. Ahrefs blog: SEO implications of domain setup

Ahrefs: Subdomain vs. Subfolder – Which is Better for SEO?
Data-backed insights from one of the leading SEO tools.

3. Google Analytics 4 setup guide

Google: Set up Analytics for a website and/or app
Official documentation for setting up GA4 properly.

Need help planning your domain strategy? Get in touch and let’s talk through your options.