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Ask HN: Why is the support website traditionally hosted on a subdomain?

5 points by zkirill ↗ HN
I thought that using a subdomain hurts SEO and couldn’t find an answer that justified this pattern:

support.google.com

support.microsoft.com

support.apple.com

EDIT: I should clarify that none of my examples use a ticket system. Instead, they have support articles and search. The content is very SEO-able.

https://support.apple.com/billing

https://support.google.com/a/answer/1224185?hl=en

https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-store-and-billing

6 comments

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WA
Because you can point your subdomain to whatever support system provider you want on the DNS level and be done with it. No need for rules in the web server config.

- Not all companies care about SEO for their support pages.

- Having thousands of support pages can have negative SEO effects if you want only one single marketing page to be the top result.

- Subdomains are probably not as hurtful as you think in some cases, but I’m no expert on subdomain SEO.

bradwood
Because when the _main_ domains goes down, you should (hopefully) be able engage with the support function.
jaskyle
Sometimes it comes down to having a third party service handle support or provide the framework, so adding it as a subdomain makes it easier to integrate into your site. And Google often treats subdomains as their own site so you can have a well structured support driven layout, rather than a site trying to showcase featured content while battling with support content.
altdataseller
Another reason, is user-experience related: It's much easier for users to remember.