What would you do if a site's entire content is on a subdomain?
-
Scenario:
- There is a website called mydomain.com and it is a new domain with about 300 inbound links (some going to the product pages and categories), but they have some high trust links
- The website has categories a, b, c etc but they are all on a subdomain so instead of being mydomain.com/categoryA/productname the entire site's structure looks like subdomain.mydomain.com/categoryA/productname
- Would you go to the effort of 301ing the subdomain urls to the correct url structure of mydomain.com/category/product name, or would you leave it as it is?
Just interested as to the extent of the issues this could cause in the future and if this is something worth resolving sooner than later.
-
Thanks for suggestions, appreciated!
-
Yes,exactly that structure
-
That is the best answer, you are right. Maybe I would first contact the sites that link to mine.
-
Here is what I would (probably) do.....
If there is just one subdomain... I would 301 redirect it to the root domain.
If there are multiple subdomains.... I would redirect each of them to a folder.
I would then try to get the links changed to directly hit the proper content in the proper folder.
-
Great question Kerry,
A great factor is how many subdomains do you exactly have. If not above 50 I think interlinking the content well should be enough. There are sites that use lots of subs and are succesful (look at cragslist.org for example). If you have a lot more subdomians I would further investigate the links: how many do exactly go to subdomians. Cause if you redirect only these links will no longer provide about 10-15% of the link juice they do provide now. You can estimate the ratio of the fallback.
Hope I could give you some points to consider, regretfully making a decision you are facing now is never easy. I hope you will be able to solve the problem.
-
Hi there,
So just to make sure. The structure would be as follows:
shop.mydomain.com/categoryA/productname
shop.mydomain.com/categoryB/productname1
???
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
-
Schema.org implementation for physician's office vs physician herself?
Hi, Regarding schema.org microdata, which page(s) should have the microdata? 1) http://schema.org/Physician -- appears to be about the office. Since we have all of the contact/address info in the footer on each page, should we do the same with microdata? I can't seem to find a suggested implementation on schema.org Assuming an office has multiple MDs, how should the docs be listed since the physician schema appears to be for the office, not for the individual doctors? Thanks for any insight!
Technical SEO | | Titan5520 -
Sites for English speaking countries: Duplicate Content - What to do?
HI, We are planning to launch sites specific to target market (geographic location) but the products and services are similar in all those markets as we sell software.So here's the scenario: Our target markets are all English speaking countries i.e. Britain, USA and India We don't have the option of using ccTLD like .co.uk, co.in etc. How should we handle the content? Because product, its features, industries it caters to and our services are common irrespective of market. Whether we go with sub-directory or sub-domain, the content will be in English. So how should we craft the content? Is writing the unique content for the same product thrice the only option? Regards
Technical SEO | | IM_Learner0 -
What's the latest on Title Tags?
What is the latest on what Google is looking for? Keyword one, Keyword two? Sentences with the Keyword in them?
Technical SEO | | netviper0 -
Duplicate Content Vs No Content
Hello! A question that has been throw around a lot at our company has been "Is duplicate content better than no content?". We operate a range of online flash game sites, most of which pull their games from a feed, which includes the game description. We have unique content written on the home page of the website, but aside from that, the game descriptions are the only text content on the website. We have been hit by both Panda and Penguin, and are in the process of trying to recover from both. In this effort we are trying to decide whether to remove or keep the game descriptions. I figured the best way to settle the issue would be to ask here. I understand the best solution would be to replace the descriptions with unique content, however, that is a massive task when you've got thousands of games. So if you have to choose between duplicate or no content, which is better for SEO? Thanks!
Technical SEO | | Ryan_Phillips0 -
Duplicate Content on 2 Sites - Advice
We have one client who has an established eCommerce Site and has created another site which has the exact same content which is about to be launched. We want both sites to be indexed but not be penalised for duplicate content. The sites have different domains The sites have the same host We want the current site to be priority, so the new site would not be ranking higher in SERPs. Any advice on setting up canonical, author tags, alternate link tag etc Thanks Rich
Technical SEO | | SEOLeaders0 -
Replacing H1's with images
We host a few Japanese sites and Japanese fonts tend to look a bit scruffy the larger they are. I was wondering if image replacement for H1 is risky or not? eg in short... spiders see: Some header text optimized for seo then in the css h1 {
Technical SEO | | -Al-
text-indent: -9999px;
} h1.header_1{ background:url(/images/bg_h1.jpg) no-repeat 0 0; } We are considering this technique, I thought I should get some advise before potentially jeopardising anything, especially as we are dealing with one of the most important on page elements. In my opinion any attempt to hide text could be seen as keyword stuffing, is it a case that in moderation it is acceptable? Cheers0 -
Site 'filtered' by Google in early July.... and still filtered!
Hi, Our site got demoted by Google all of a sudden back in early July. You can view the site here: http://alturl.com/4pfrj and you may read the discussions I posted in Google's forums here: http://www.google.com/support/forum/p/Webmasters/thread?tid=6e8f9aab7e384d88&hl=en http://www.google.com/support/forum/p/Webmasters/thread?tid=276dc6687317641b&hl=en Those discussions chronicle what happened, and what we've done since. I don't want to make this a long post by retyping it all here, hence the links. However, we've made various changes (as detailed), such as getting rid of duplicate content (use of noindex on various pages etc), and ensuring there is no hidden text (we made an unintentional blunder there through use of a 3rd party control which used CSS hidden text to store certain data). We have also filed reconsideration requests with Google and been told that no manual penalty has been applied. So the problem is down to algorithmic filters which are being applied. So... my reason for posting here is simply to see if anyone here can help us discover if there is anything we have missed? I'd hope that we've addressed the main issues and that eventually our Google ranking will recover (ie. filter removed.... it isn't that we 'rank' poorly, but that a filter is bumping us down, to, for example, page 50).... but after three months it sure is taking a while! It appears that a 30 day penalty was originally applied, as our ranking recovered in early August. But a few days later it dived down again (so presumably Google analysed the site again, found a problem and applied another penalty/filter). I'd hope that might have been 30 or 60 days, but 60 days have now passed.... so perhaps we have a 90 day penalty now. OR.... perhaps there is no time frame this time, simply the need to 'fix' whatever is constantly triggering the filter (that said, I 'feel' like a time frame is there, especially given what happened after 30 days). Of course the other aspect that can always be worked on (and oft-mentioned) is the need for more and more original content. However, we've done a lot to increase this and think our Guide pages are pretty useful now. I've looked at many competitive sites which list in Google and they really don't offer anything more than we do..... so if that is the issue it sure is puzzling if we're filtered and they aren't. Anyway, I'm getting wordy now, so I'll pause. I'm just asking if anyone would like to have a quick look at the site and see what they can deduce? We have of course run it through SEOMoz's tools and made use of the suggestions. Our target pages generally rate as an A for SEO in the reports. Thanks!
Technical SEO | | Go2Holidays0 -
From your perspective, what's wrong with this site such that it has a Panda Penalty?
www.duhaime.org For more background, please see: http://www.seomoz.org/q/advice-regarding-panda http://www.seomoz.org/q/when-panda-s-attack (hoping the third time's the charm here)
Technical SEO | | sprynewmedia0