Subdomains seen as one site
-
Earlier this month Google announced that sub-domains are now
be treated as one site. At first I thought this was good news as I like to use
sub-domains for separation of categories and the like. But what about links
from one sub-domain to the other, they uised to be external links now they are
internal links. If you don’t have many external links, I would say that the
cross sub-domain links would have been important, if you have a lot of external
links then the flow of link juice would be of more benefit. I think overall its
is a good thing.Does anyone have any opinions about this or know of any writings
on the subject since this announcement?http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com/2011/08/reorganizing-internal-vs-external.html
-
Well you want to see them as they are considered for ranking. If for ranking a subdomain link is considered an internal link then yes, thats how WMT should report it.
-
I am not a legal expert but it is my understanding if you own the root domain, then you own the subdomains. Even if you use sites like wordpress.com or blogspot the legal owner of the subdomains is the root domain owner. If you violate their terms of service, the main company will kick the subdomain user off and take control over the account.
With respect to Google WMT, I think it's a convenience thing. In most cases, you want to know what other sites are linking to your site. It is usually not helpful to know your own subdomain is linking to your root domain. You expect that as you do other internal linking. It makes the analysis of external linking a bit easier to remove all internal links.
-
Exactly so I am thinking they will basically just aggregate any sites that use the same domain under the same webmaster account.
-
Yes i did not read too clearly, the comments explaned much more.
but it makes one think,about the old question about how google handles subdomains(for rankings). when does it see them as the same site and when does it see them as seperate.
I am guesisng they already do rank sites using the rules in article. I look after a site that has nothing more then a home, about, search and contact page on root domain, with several sub-domains. yet the home page ranks well for all the subdomains catgories. -
The announcement is informative but in my opinion highly misunderstood.
Dr. Pete asked the key question which was answered in a reply from the original author:
"This update only changes how links are displayed in Webmaster Tools. It doesn't affect how links are valued in relation to the search algorithm or ranking. It has nothing to do with Panda, nothing to do with keywords, nothing to do with PageRank."
In short, nothing has changed. The only difference iis how links are displayed when you are viewing the root domain in Google WMT.
-
I get your point, what they dont make clear is if you only list the root domain then how do they know you own the sub domains also, aer you to put the same verification code in each site?
And if they are going to see then as the same site are they going to sdee them that way for ranking? or do they already for that reason?
-
From reading that article it looks like they are doing this for their webmaster tools, but don't mention if they are combining subdomain links and primary domain links into their SERP calculations as if they were the same site.
Knowing if it affected SERP calculations is more important. Have you seen any articles on that (going to search shortly for that ;))
That would be more interesting to me as our site currently has at least 6 subdomains for publicly accessible sites, and while I would love to move them all under sub folders it requires a decent bit of effort on our side. If Google just counted them all under the same link profile for rankings then it would save time and money, and give Google a better view of our web presence as a whole. This would be better for the end user as the end user would be able to get to our blogs, forums, portal, and API knowledgebase easier from search results when just searching for our company name. So I can see it being useful for Google since it is useful for users.
For that article (webmaster tool purposes) I think it makes sense as it helps simplify reporting for the "www" subdomain. It makes it easier to aggregate your data, and see it how Google really sees it (especially if you have a rewrite from www.example.com to just example.com or vice versa). So it sounds good to me
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
What is the best way to become a published writer / blogger for bigger industry sites?
I'm a younger SEO manager and wanted to started establishing my name throughout the industry through well written blogs, expert articles, and any advice that is needed. I know a lot of answers will be to start my own blog and establish that and I'll get noticed, but is there a good way to make the first contact with industry sites to get an article or blog post published to their site? Or is it a pretty tight "gotta know someone" inner circle?
Industry News | | MERGE-Chicago0 -
Do rankings return to previous rank after a site has been un-indexed?
My client has had a site since 1996 (the first one was a www subdomain, his current site has no www). He came to my company for SEO about a year ago, after having a WordPress site that was accidentally set to not be crawled/indexed by search engines. We set the site to be indexed and added a blog. Since then, he has had slow increase in keyword rankings (on page 3 or most globally searched terms) but is still nowhere near page 1 for most of his keywords. He thinks my company has done nothing, while I see the keyword improvements as a sign of success - slow, gradual - but going in the right direction. I don't know if he was ranking well before he had a site that was not set to be indexed - but if he was on page one, would he eventually return there? Or do we have to build everything over again?
Industry News | | Alex_Ratynski0 -
Help seems like google is punishing our site and I don't understand why
I would love some helpMy anme is Suzanne Diamond our web site is WWW.thefutonshop.com we have been on line for years, 10 brick and mortar stores, had a strong ecommerce web site but in the past 4 months we have been dropping like a leaf. Organic search has been dropping since November 2012 but now total traffic seems to be slowing We are working on our SEO but I feel it has to be something more direct that we are being punished by google Perhaps it s obvious but not to me Can anyone help me please or give me a direction. suzanne@thefutonshop.com thanks in advance for any direction
Industry News | | FUTONSHOP0 -
3rd Party Site Presence and Internet Marketing
An issue that I do not see discussed about much in Internet Marketing circles is the importance of establishing and developing a presence on third party sites other than through guest posting and I was wondering how much other internet marketers focus on this area and recommend this to clients. I see many people wanting hiring internet marketers basically for SEO and the KPI's on which they are judged are SEO based outcomes (higher alexa rank, number of page 1 keywords, number of top 1, top 3 keywords etc). I recently gave advice to someone who had very little time, very little money and very little SEO skills who wanted to rank in number 1 positions for their band for wedding and corporate bookings. I basically showed them sites that were highly positioned in the SERPs where they could get develop a strong online profile and how this would work better than investing 3 hours a month badly into SEO. Ultimately what businesses want is strong convertible leads and sales. For many businesses that might be better established particularly where budgets are tight through other elements whether it is Tripadvisor rankings, presence in other 3rd party sites or in an Ebay store than through SEO for their own site. Obviously for big brands with big budgets SEO is essential but as many keyword terms become increasingly competitive how important should referrals from 3rd party sites be in businesses internet marketing strategy and to what extent do you feel current internet marketing businesses identify and promote this need rather than simply working on improving ranking performance for keywords?
Industry News | | LighthouseC0 -
Sitelinks Disappeard For My Site
Hi Guys I noticed that all the sitelinks for my site has disappeared. Could it be because of recent changes that I made to the site or maybe because I submitted a new sitemap for my site? Should I ask the googlebot to fetch my site now again after I submitted my sitemap and also ask to re-index it? I also read somewhere else that Google could be re-indexing my site and thus still needs to determine what my sitelinks is going to be. If somebody could please give me some advice on this I would appreciate it. Thanks Dave
Industry News | | DavidZA10 -
My site was hit by the Penguin Update, Now What?
My site is very young, having only been up for about a month and a half. Despite being nascent we were seeing a ton of organic traffic. Enter Google Penguin update.... Traffic is down 40% or so over the past week. So, assuming the damage has been done, the question is, what do we do next to start moving back towards where we were? If we're doing everything everything right do we just chalk it up to the fact that our site is very new and stay the course on original content and link building? I know you can submit your site for reconsideration which is something that we are going to do this week, but I wonder what else we can do to start edging back to where we were pre-penguin update. Maybe this would be a good Whiteboard Friday topic.
Industry News | | knowyourbank0 -
Site search
My google site search is now costing us $750/year. That is an outrageous fee for providing a search feature on our website. does anyone know of an effective search box we can put on our site that is less expensive than google?
Industry News | | StreetwiseReports0 -
Any pointers for my site would be greatly apprecieated and rewarded.
We just started changing all the meta data and adding relevant blog content. Anything I'm missing? Any advise or "after panda" link building strategies? inkfarm.com
Industry News | | ibex0