Domain and subdomain comparison - a deeper look into the subdomain metrics
-
Hi all,
As I'm doing an analysis on our site and our main competitor (both sites are quite big, with active forums), who is much larger than we are, I have found out that :
-
Our site has the strongest domain authority: 34, competitor: 33.
-
Competitor beats us on 6 out of 8 areas in the sub categories for the "domain authority" category
-
We beat our competitor in 8 out of 8 sub categories for the category "sub domain metrics"
Now, as the title for this question suggests, I would like to hear what your thoughts is on this. Remember that our competitor is way bigger than us - how can they do so bad on the sub domain metrics, compared to us (and everybody else, I guess)?
What are your thoughts on this?
Please be aware that the domain shown to the left in the screen shot is our competitor.
Thanks a lot - all comments are very much appreciated!
-
-
Hi MPO,
The competitor has a lot of points pointing to his root domain, but for whatever reason they do not point to the subdomain that you are comparing.
For example, if I point a link to example.com (no www), then the root domain metrics for the url www.example.com would be strong, but for the specific subdomain www.example.com they would be weaker.
(boy, this is so confusing when you try to explain it on paper. Here's a post from Rand on subdomains - http://www.seomoz.org/blog/understanding-root-domains-subdomains-vs-subfolders-microsites
Does it matter? Probably not much. It depends where exactly those links are pointing, and what's ranking in the search results. Keep doing what you're doing - getting good links from good sources, and you'll come out on top either way.
-
I wouldn't worry about it to much to be honest, your better off spending your time building great content and getting people to link to it rather than watching what your competitions stats say. Focus on getting your own stuff right, and you'll soon be leaving the competition wondering what happened.
-
From what I have read, I don't disagree. We have always (until very recently) been focusing solely on "honest" links (links that real people actually make on their site or in a forum), in comparison to "links that you build" / pay for / do something to get - that philosophy (or lack of philosophy, one might say) has changed, and slowly we are starting to get (build) better and more links.
To be honest, I'm not sure if your reply answered my question: Why has our competitor such a weak score on the "sub domain metric" and does this matter (at all)?
Or put in another way, the question simply is: does it make any sense to spend time on wondering about this?
-
To be honest a DA in the 30's is pretty low. If you concentrate on getting a 30-50 good quality links you should easily get into the 40's.
-
Hi, and thanks for your answer - you are right about that, yes. When you look at the example shown in my initial post, what do you think about those two site-profiles. Does it tell whether one of the sites is in "good" or "bad" shape, does it really not say anything, etc.? Also: Is it important to beat your competitor on the "sub domain metrics", or does this question really not make much sense to ask?
Any one who has an opinion about this?
-
It all depends on where links are pointing to - remember a www. is also subdomain.
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
-
With the release of so many domains from .expert through to even .xyz why don't we see many around the top of SERPS?
And should I use one of these to create a nice looking site, invest time, energy, resource, money or will I simply regret it later and stick to the main TLDs? First question on Moz (yey)
On-Page Optimization | | LGG1230 -
Domain Authority
I made some changes to my site and many of my keywords improved dramatically. Its odd however, that the changes caused the domain authority to go down by 3 points, from 20 to 17. Is this a short term thing caused by recent changes and likely to recover?
On-Page Optimization | | KrisIrr0 -
Effecting Domain Authority
I've taking an old brochure website and done 61 Pages and 10 Post pages On-page SEO and my Domain Authority is still a '1.' I've used Low Difficulty Keywords and gotten Grade A in On-page Moz reports. We've even keyworded 400 images - Alt text. My competitors have done nothing and they have domain authority at least in the 40s...... Am I doing anything wrong?
On-Page Optimization | | Joseph.Lusso0 -
Using Subdomains to Increase Keyword Density?
I have a website on which I publish lots of news (sometimes up to 10 posts per day). I have a feeling that somewhat it is diluting the density of some keywords I am targeting. By using subdomains, would I avoid diluting keyword density too much? Of course, I am talking about a reasonable use of subdomains (maybe 1 or 2). What's your opinion?
On-Page Optimization | | sbrault740 -
Multiple Years Domain Registration
Is there benefit to registering a domain name for multiple years from a SEO standpoint?
On-Page Optimization | | lbohen0 -
Interesting optimisation killing page comparison
I have two these tag pages: http://www.businessinteriors.co.uk/tag/office-fit-out-birmingham/ http://www.businessinteriors.co.uk/tag/office-refurbishment-birmingham/ Both targeted on key words respectively "office fit out birmingham" and "office refurbishment Birmingham" Now the weirdest thing has happened. I have being optimising the, "office refurbishment Birmingham"...with a little more content etc...and links etc...and havent got round to "optimising "office fit out birmingham" yet.... Which seems good, because weirdly the "office fit out birmingham" page is ranking HIGHER than the "office refurbishment Birmingham" page for the term office refurbishment Birmingham search?!?! So I must be doing something very wrong. What on earth has happened? Can anyone see these two pages and give me some insite into why making a page better has nuked it?! Many thanks. James
On-Page Optimization | | bizint0 -
Multiple local addresses for one domain
Hi Mozzers! If I have a website that has a separate office in each state that they wish to rank locally for eg: "service CityA" "service CityB" etc Would it be best to have a separate subdomain for each major city (unique content on each) with the office address specific to that city? Then there would be a separate Google places listing the subdomain as the website. Or should we just use subfolders? Would Google Places accept the subfolder as the web address? thanks!
On-Page Optimization | | Netboost1 -
Negatives to using custom sub domain?
So - being photographers, we have our main website, but also, we use a hosted service for all our client galleries (www.zenfolio.com) So, in effect, we have two websites: Our main informational website Our client gallery/proofing website The client gallery has back links to our main website - so, when people are viewing their gallery, they can easily get back to our main site. We also have thrown a few of our preferred keywords in there for SEO purposes. The gallery has thousands of pages which link back to the main site. So.. the client gallery URL can either be: http://ourbusinessname.zenfolio.com OR we can have it so it uses our own domain, such as: http://gallery.ourbusinessname.com The question is, which domain name will benefit the back links more? Our custom subdomain (which links to our main domain) or, using the Zenfolio domain (which is external to our site). Or, is there no real difference either way? Or.. do I make no sense?
On-Page Optimization | | blitzna100