Blog domain: subdomain, subfolder or a .blog address?

A blog can live at four kinds of address. The two on your own domain are the ones worth choosing between. Prices were checked on 31 October 2026 and change often, so treat them as an example of how registrars price, not as a quote.

This is the question most pages get loud about, and the honest answer is calmer than they suggest. John Mueller of Google said in 2017 that Google web search is fine with either, and in 2018 that in general Google sees them the same. He added that he would personally keep things together as much as possible.

Many SEO professionals still prefer the subfolder, usually on the argument that links and reputation stay in one place. You will find case studies where traffic rose after a blog moved into a subfolder. Those stories rarely isolate the move from everything else that changed at the same time, so read them as hints, not proof.

Google's documentation does show one real technical difference. Its crawling infrastructure defines a site as a unique hostname, so example.com and blog.example.com are separate sites with separate crawl budgets. That sounds serious until you read who the page is for: sites with around 1 million pages, or 10,000 pages that change daily. A blog with 50 articles doesn't need to think about it.

A second difference is visible in results. Site names in Google Search exist at domain and subdomain level, not for subfolders. A subfolder always shows under your main site's name, while a subdomain can have its own or fall back to the main one.

The practical conclusion: if adding a subfolder is easy, take it, because keeping things together is simpler for you and for readers. If it would mean rebuilding your site or changing platform, use a subdomain and spend the saved effort on the articles. What the articles say matters far more than this choice. If your site doesn't show up at all, the cause is almost never the address: start with why a website is not on Google.

Usually not for a business that already has a website. Anyone can register one, individuals and companies alike, and Google's starter guide is clear on what it buys you in search. Keywords in a domain name have hardly any effect beyond appearing in breadcrumbs, and Google doesn't care which top-level domain you use unless you target a specific country.

So .blog has no search advantage, and it has three small costs:

• The price jump. OVHcloud lists €3.49 for the first year and €25.99 to renew, before VAT. Compare the renewal, not the first year, because that is what you pay from year two.
• A second address to explain. Customers who know example.com have to learn example.blog, and they can't tell at a glance that it is the same business.
• A second site to run. It needs its own Search Console setup, and your menu has to send people across to it.

Four questions settle it for almost every small business. Stop at the first yes.

• No website yet? Build the site first and put the blog inside it. See how to create a website for your business and how much a website costs.
• Is your site on WordPress, or another system with a blog built in? Use the subfolder. It is already there.
• Is your site on a builder or a custom setup with no real blog feature? Use a subdomain, so the blog can run on its own software while staying on your domain.
• Is the blog a separate brand or publication, with a name of its own? Only then does a separate domain make sense.

A subdomain sounds technical, but it is one record at the company that manages your domain. Your website isn't touched.

1. Decide the name. blog.example.com is what people expect, and it describes itself.
2. Get the target from your blog software. It tells you what the subdomain has to point to.
3. Log in where your domain is managed and open the DNS settings. Add the CNAME record your software gave you.
4. Wait for it to work, then check that the blog opens at the new address over https.
5. Link the blog from your main site's menu and footer. Readers and Google both need a way to get there.
6. Check that the blog has a sitemap, then watch it in Search Console.

In Google Search Console, a Domain property covers the root domain and every subdomain, so one property shows both example.com and blog.example.com. It needs DNS verification, the same kind of record as above. A URL-prefix property covers only the exact address you enter, so with a subdomain you would need a second one.

Moving later is possible, and it is the reason to choose calmly rather than perfectly. To move a blog from a subdomain into a subfolder, each old article gets a permanent 301 redirect to its new address. Google says these redirects don't lose PageRank, that a small or medium site mostly moves in a few weeks, and that you should keep redirects for at least 1 year. Avoid moving without a reason: Mueller's advice was to pick a setup you can keep for longer.

One address is much harder to leave: a free platform address. You don't own it, so the redirect depends on what the platform allows. That is why it is the one option on this page we would rule out for a business.

Our own hosted blog uses a subdomain of your domain, because a subdomain works with any site, whatever it is built on. On WordPress or WooCommerce, Uisdom publishes native posts on your site instead, so the subfolder stays an option. Once the address is settled, the work is in starting the blog properly and how often to publish.