I was asked via email by a reader whether a company’s blog should live at blog.mycompany.com or mycompanyblog.com.

If the blog will get more links by being at an arm’s length from the corporate site, then I’d have it on a totally separate domain.

For example, if a life insurance company had a blog about health and wellness at www.stayinghealthy.com, I would expect that to garner many more links from the blogosphere than one at blog.lifeinsuranceco.com.

This may seem like an oversimplification, since I haven’t discussed the branding implications, but I believe the “link-ability” of the blog is the key ingredient for long-term success with a corporate blog. Everything else to me is peripheral.