Skip to content
    Moz logo Menu open Menu close
    • Products
      • Moz Pro
      • Moz Pro Home
      • Moz Local
      • Moz Local Home
      • STAT
      • Moz API
      • Moz API Home
      • Compare SEO Products
      • Moz Data
    • Free SEO Tools
      • Domain Analysis
      • Keyword Explorer
      • Link Explorer
      • Competitive Research
      • MozBar
      • More Free SEO Tools
    • Learn SEO
      • Beginner's Guide to SEO
      • SEO Learning Center
      • Moz Academy
      • MozCon
      • Webinars, Whitepapers, & Guides
    • Blog
    • Why Moz
      • Digital Marketers
      • Agency Solutions
      • Enterprise Solutions
      • Small Business Solutions
      • The Moz Story
      • New Releases
    • Log in
    • Log out
    • Products
      • Moz Pro

        Your all-in-one suite of SEO essentials.

      • Moz Local

        Raise your local SEO visibility with complete local SEO management.

      • STAT

        SERP tracking and analytics for enterprise SEO experts.

      • Moz API

        Power your SEO with our index of over 44 trillion links.

      • Compare SEO Products

        See which Moz SEO solution best meets your business needs.

      • Moz Data

        Power your SEO strategy & AI models with custom data solutions.

      Track AI Overviews in Keyword Research
      Moz Pro

      Track AI Overviews in Keyword Research

      Try it free!
    • Free SEO Tools
      • Domain Analysis

        Get top competitive SEO metrics like DA, top pages and more.

      • Keyword Explorer

        Find traffic-driving keywords with our 1.25 billion+ keyword index.

      • Link Explorer

        Explore over 40 trillion links for powerful backlink data.

      • Competitive Research

        Uncover valuable insights on your organic search competitors.

      • MozBar

        See top SEO metrics for free as you browse the web.

      • More Free SEO Tools

        Explore all the free SEO tools Moz has to offer.

      NEW Keyword Suggestions by Topic
      Moz Pro

      NEW Keyword Suggestions by Topic

      Learn more
    • Learn SEO
      • Beginner's Guide to SEO

        The #1 most popular introduction to SEO, trusted by millions.

      • SEO Learning Center

        Broaden your knowledge with SEO resources for all skill levels.

      • On-Demand Webinars

        Learn modern SEO best practices from industry experts.

      • How-To Guides

        Step-by-step guides to search success from the authority on SEO.

      • Moz Academy

        Upskill and get certified with on-demand courses & certifications.

      • MozCon

        Save on Early Bird tickets and join us in London or New York City

      Unlock flexible pricing & new endpoints
      Moz API

      Unlock flexible pricing & new endpoints

      Find your plan
    • Blog
    • Why Moz
      • Digital Marketers

        Simplify SEO tasks to save time and grow your traffic.

      • Small Business Solutions

        Uncover insights to make smarter marketing decisions in less time.

      • Agency Solutions

        Earn & keep valuable clients with unparalleled data & insights.

      • Enterprise Solutions

        Gain a competitive edge in the ever-changing world of search.

      • The Moz Story

        Moz was the first & remains the most trusted SEO company.

      • New Releases

        Get the scoop on the latest and greatest from Moz.

      Surface actionable competitive intel
      New Feature

      Surface actionable competitive intel

      Learn More
    • Log in
      • Moz Pro
      • Moz Local
      • Moz Local Dashboard
      • Moz API
      • Moz API Dashboard
      • Moz Academy
    • Avatar
      • Moz Home
      • Notifications
      • Account & Billing
      • Manage Users
      • Community Profile
      • My Q&A
      • My Videos
      • Log Out

    The Moz Q&A Forum

    • Forum
    • Questions
    • Users
    • Ask the Community

    Welcome to the Q&A Forum

    Browse the forum for helpful insights and fresh discussions about all things SEO.

    1. Home
    2. SEO Tactics
    3. Intermediate & Advanced SEO
    4. SEO value in multiple backlinks from same domain and from various sub-domains.

    Moz Q&A is closed.

    After more than 13 years, and tens of thousands of questions, Moz Q&A closed on 12th December 2024. Whilst we’re not completely removing the content - many posts will still be possible to view - we have locked both new posts and new replies. More details here.

    SEO value in multiple backlinks from same domain and from various sub-domains.

    Intermediate & Advanced SEO
    3
    12
    16679
    Loading More Posts
    • Oldest to Newest
    • Newest to Oldest
    • Most Votes
    Reply
    • Reply as question
    Log in to reply
    This topic has been deleted. Only users with question management privileges can see it.
    • knielsen
      knielsen last edited by

      1. A site has a link to my site as one of their main tabs, which means whenever a user clicks through to another page within the site, my link - being a main tab - is there. This creates thousands of links from this site. How does Google treat this? Do we have a rough formula estimate. In other words, assume it creates 1,000 backlinks would the SEO value be around the same as if I had just 2 link total as a main tab, but on 2 different non-related sites? Or, does it actually count fully as 1,000 links?

      2. Links from various sub-domains. Several .EDU's are linking to my site. Different schools within the overall same university. Example: nursing.abc.edu links to my site, but so does business.abc.edu. For SEO does that count as much as if I had links from complete non-related universities, or would Google evaluate that these links are related (since same main domain) and that will discount any links more than 1 to some extent? If discounted, then what do we estimate the discount to be?

      thank yoyu

      1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
      • VentaMarketing
        VentaMarketing @knielsen last edited by

        Agreed. Thanks Cody.

        1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
        • WhoWuddaThunk
          WhoWuddaThunk @knielsen last edited by

          If it had a good reason to be there, and you had a decent link profile, then you are probably safe.  Even so, I'd say try to limit them to relevant pages.

          The real question, though, is how much traffic is driving?  If it is driving a lot of good traffic that converts, then you pretty much have to leave it there.

          1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
          • VentaMarketing
            VentaMarketing @knielsen last edited by

            Cody, I would like to hear your opinion, but in Kristian's case, I would not think removing these site wide links would be a good idea, unless the links are spammy. Especially if the website has a good reason to be there (ex: it is a good resource, it is a sponsor, it si the parent company, etc.). As long as not all of the links in Kristian's backlink profile are site wide, I wouldn't link the website is at risk of a penalty. Also, I would not think removing a site wide link on an .edu site would be a good idea, just becuase all of the referral traffic potential.

            Like I said, the site wide penalty seemed more geared to a web designer or hosting company that only have site wide links in their profile.

            Cody, what do you think?

            1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
            • WhoWuddaThunk
              WhoWuddaThunk @VentaMarketing last edited by

              Even prior to reading that I would agree with your analysis.  2 links from separate domains are better than 2 links from the same root domain.

              1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
              • WhoWuddaThunk
                WhoWuddaThunk @knielsen last edited by

                This article talks about a website that received the Penguin penalty, and was able to start recovering by reducing the amount of site wide links: http://searchenginewatch.com/article/2180722/Google-Penguin-1.1-Pushed-Out-As-Some-Sites-Report-Recovery

                "A) Remove all of the crap sitewide links, weird anchors first, B) continue building good links and C) take advantage of press by pinging Danny Sullivan to try and get it featured on SEL to get in front of Google. Obviously A) was not going to be completely possible so I was going for "remove most of your crappy links."

                So, I do believe that site wide links are bad, and that it would be better to limit the number of links.  Also, here is a reference about the diminishing returns on several links from one domain: http://www.seomoz.org/blog/understanding-link-based-spam-analysis-techniques

                "The first link from a domain carries the first vote and getting additional links from one particular domain will continue to increase the total value from a domain, but only to a point. Eventually inbound links from the same domain will continue to experience diminishing returns. Going from 1 link to 3 links from a domain will have more of an effect than 101 links to 103 links."

                1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
                • VentaMarketing
                  VentaMarketing @knielsen last edited by

                  Kristian,

                  There is not really a downside to having a link on multiple page's of a website. You just can't expect all of these links to be counted a independent,and equal to a website with a link profile that has a wide variety of linking root domains.

                  I would not recommend removing any links on these website. I would just focus your time on getting links from other of root domains.

                  1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                  • VentaMarketing
                    VentaMarketing @WhoWuddaThunk last edited by

                    Here is a recent article in published in Search Engine Journal about subdomains and subpages, as they relate to SEO:

                    http://www.searchenginejournal.com/subdomains-or-subfolders-which-are-better-for-seo/6849/

                    It looks like Cody is right, Google does recognize them has seperate, but a recent tweak in Google's algorithim, now cause them to be recognized as being associated with each other.

                    I would think that this means a link from a subdoamin and a root domain would not be equal to two links from two different root domains.

                    Cody, thanks for you insight, and I would love to hear what you think?

                    WhoWuddaThunk 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
                    • knielsen
                      knielsen @WhoWuddaThunk last edited by

                      1. it sounds like you think there could be downside in having this many links. Again, it is from a main tab on their homepage, and since the main tabs follow on all pages, so does my website link. I understand if the site linked to my site from different locations (main tab, in article, footer etc etc) that looks odd. But since it is from a main tab that creates thousands of links I can't understand why that could be a negative.
                      VentaMarketing WhoWuddaThunk 5 Replies Last reply Reply Quote 0
                      • WhoWuddaThunk
                        WhoWuddaThunk last edited by

                        1. To answer your first question, it does count all the links.  However, there is a massive diminishing return for anything over 2 links on one site.  So, having 1,000 links from one site would not be beneficial.  Instead, have them change it so you get one link on their top two pages, and none anywhere else.  You can use Opensiteexplorer.org and the top landing pages tab to find which two pages to request a link from.

                        2. A sub-domain is a separate site, and would therefor have its own ranking ecosystem.  Even a www.abc.edu is a sub-domain of abc.edu.  So, getting a link from a sub-domain would be as beneficial, everything else being equal, as getting it from the root domain.   Just make sure it's just a link or two, and not site wide like you suggested you currently have.

                        knielsen VentaMarketing 2 Replies Last reply Reply Quote 1
                        • knielsen
                          knielsen @VentaMarketing last edited by

                          thank you. This does make sense and I appreciate the insight. I am still curious if anyone may have even more specific insight on the matter. It would be interesting to know how much the SEO value gets reduced in both cases

                          1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                          • VentaMarketing
                            VentaMarketing last edited by

                            These links do not count as 1,000 links from 1,000 seperate website, since Google does recognize linking root domains.

                            The most important link to your website would be from the page with the highest page authority, which is almost always the home page.

                            I am not 100% sure, but I remember reading about a recent Google algorithm update that targets multiple links from one domain. Web design firms were affected, since they typcally sign the footer, which creates a link on every page of the website.

                            The subdomain, works similar to a subpage. Google will notice the root dominan, which is abc.edu.

                            I do not think you are at risk of a penalty or anything like that, but if you want to continue to increase your rankings, once you get a link from a domain, I would focus my efforts on getting another link from a separate root domain, instead of a link from a subpage or subdomain from the same root domain.

                            knielsen 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
                            • 1 / 1
                            • First post
                              Last post

                            Got a burning SEO question?

                            Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.


                            Start my free trial


                            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.

                            • See all categories

                            Related Questions

                            • Saba.Elahi.M.

                              When creating a sub-domain, does that sub-domain automatically start with the DA of the main domain?

                              We have a website with a high DA and we are considering sub-folder or sub-domain. One of the great benefits of a sub-folder is that we know we get to keep the high DA, is this also the case for sub-domains? Also if you could provide any sources of information that specify this, I can't see to find anything!

                              Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Saba.Elahi.M.
                              0
                            • gaiaslastlaugh

                              Does redirecting from a "bad" domain "infect" the new domain?

                              Hi all, So a complicated question that requires a little background. I bought unseenjapan.com to serve as a legitimate news site about a year ago. Social media and content growth has been good. Unfortunately, one thing I didn't realize when I bought this domain was that it used to be a porn site. I've managed to muck out some of the damage already - primarily, I got major vendors like Macafee and OpenDNS to remove the "porn" categorization, which has unblocked the site at most schools & locations w/ public wifi. The sticky bit, however, is Google. Google has the domain filtered under SafeSearch, which means we're losing - and will continue to lose - a ton of organic traffic. I'm trying to figure out how to deal with this, and appeal the decision. Unfortunately, Google's Reconsideration Request form currently doesn't work unless your site has an existing manual action against it (mine does not). I've also heard such requests, even if I did figure out how to make them, often just get ignored for months on end. Now, I have a back up plan. I've registered unseen-japan.com, and I could just move my domain over to the new domain if I can't get this issue resolved. It would allow me to be on a domain with a clean history while not having to change my brand. But if I do that, and I set up 301 redirects from the former domain, will it simply cause the new domain to be perceived as an "adult" domain by Google? I.e., will the former URL's bad reputation carry over to the new one? I haven't made a decision one way or the other yet, so any insights are appreciated.

                              Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | gaiaslastlaugh
                              0
                            • vtmoz

                              Linking from & to in domains and sub-domains

                              What's the best optimised linking between sub-domains and domains? And every time we'll give website link at top with logo...do we need to link sub-domain also with all it's pages? If example.com is domain and example.com/blog is sub-domain or sub-folder... Do we need to link to example.com from /blog? Do we need to give /blog link in all pages of /blog? Is there any difference in connecting domains with sub-domains and sub-folders?

                              Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | vtmoz
                              0
                            • dbaxa-261338

                              Consolidating Multiple Domains into A Single Domain

                              I have a client who's website is an amalgamation of multiple domains. jacksonhole.net is the main domain but the site passes traffic back and forth from the following domains/sites. My questions is, would it it be better for SEO to consolidate all of these domains under the single high authority domain and 301 redirect the rest or is that a really bad idea?  Thanks for your help. jacksonhole.net (Domain Authority 31) jackson-hole-rental-condos.com (Domain Authority 22) jackson-hole-rental-homes.com (Domain Authority 21) j acksonholehotelguide.com (Domain Authority 19)

                              Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | dbaxa-261338
                              1
                            • IsaCleanse

                              Redirect domain or keep separate domains in each country?

                              Hi all Hoping this might be something that can be answered given the number of variables 🙂 
                              My main site is www.isacleanse.com.au (Obviously targeted to Australian Market) and also www.isacleanse.co.nz targeted to NZ. The main Keywords im targeting are 'Isagenix' for both and also Isagenix Australia, Isagenix Perth, Sydney (Australian cities) and Isagenix NZ, Isagenix New Zealand, Isagenix Auckland etc.. for NZ The Australian site gets a lot more traffic and Australian market gets a lot more searches - I also have a section www.isacleanse.com.au/isagenix-new-zealand/ on the Australian site. The question is am I best off redirrecting the .co.nz domain completley to the Australian Domain to give it extra SEO Juice?

                              Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | IsaCleanse
                              0
                            • RickyShockley

                              Buying Expired Domains with Decent DA/PA for SEO Purposes

                              Hey guys, i've seen some stuff about this before but I recently found an opportunity to put it into action and wanted to make sure I knew what I was getting into! I am looking at buying a domain (expired and now only 10 dollars) that has a decent domain authority and has some keywords in it related to my clients practice. I plan on using a 301 redirect to pass "link juice" because this client is looking for a quick bump in rankings. Thoughts? Benefits? Problems with this?

                              Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | RickyShockley
                              1
                            • spiralsites

                              ECommerce product listed in multiple places, best SEO practice?

                              We have an eCommerce site we have built for a customer and the products are allowed to appear in more than one product category within the web site. Now I know this is a bad idea from a duplicate content point of view, But we are going to allow the customer to select which out of the multiple categories the product appears in will be the default category. This will mean we will have a way of defining what the default url is for a product. So am I correct in thinking all the other urls where the product appears we should add a rel canonical to these pages pointing to the default url to stop duplicate content? Is this the best way?

                              Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | spiralsites
                              0
                            • MAGNUMCreative

                              Migrating online store to subdomain using shopify and effects on seo and energy down the road for seo

                              I'm looking for some clarity... Looking at using Shopify for an existing online store that we have to migrate. Setting up the store with shopify means we will be using a subdomain such as shop.mywebsite.com instead of mywebsite.com/shop. The following are points to consider when responding The client currently has an online store, however it's a proprietary shopping store and CMS that has since gone defunct and they need to migrate to an alternative in order to survive online against new CMS systems that allow the site and its content to be better optimized. There is a lot of existing SEO done on the current site that we don't want to loose PR on. There is roughly 2000 products Client has a fixed budget, dealing with checkout issues, custom work and various other "bugs" seems to be easier controlled with Shopify...thus budget can be used more on content/strategy and migration We want to run the main site in Wordpress and are wanting to use Shopify since it supports a gateway, has great features and seems like it would allow us to get more bang for the buck and can focus more on the main site and content strategy and drive traffic to the subdomain store if needed Or main concern is the effort of migrating 2000+ products to shopify and the traffic and PR it gives the current site will have a negative effect on the main domain itself. Should we really be considering this path? The domain is diveidc.com One main benefit to the subdomain is the ability to clearly segment products from the service portion of the site in the analytics and focus 2 clear strategies and track it in a very defined manner. We're really on the fence with this...any thoughts are welcome.

                              Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | MAGNUMCreative
                              0

                            Get started with Moz Pro!

                            Unlock the power of advanced SEO tools and data-driven insights.

                            Start my free trial
                            Products
                            • Moz Pro
                            • Moz Local
                            • Moz API
                            • Moz Data
                            • STAT
                            • Product Updates
                            Moz Solutions
                            • SMB Solutions
                            • Agency Solutions
                            • Enterprise Solutions
                            • Digital Marketers
                            Free SEO Tools
                            • Domain Authority Checker
                            • Link Explorer
                            • Keyword Explorer
                            • Competitive Research
                            • Brand Authority Checker
                            • Local Citation Checker
                            • MozBar Extension
                            • MozCast
                            Resources
                            • Blog
                            • SEO Learning Center
                            • Help Hub
                            • Beginner's Guide to SEO
                            • How-to Guides
                            • Moz Academy
                            • API Docs
                            About Moz
                            • About
                            • Team
                            • Careers
                            • Contact
                            Why Moz
                            • Case Studies
                            • Testimonials
                            Get Involved
                            • Become an Affiliate
                            • MozCon
                            • Webinars
                            • Practical Marketer Series
                            • MozPod
                            Connect with us

                            Contact the Help team

                            Join our newsletter
                            Moz logo
                            © 2021 - 2025 SEOMoz, Inc., a Ziff Davis company. All rights reserved. Moz is a registered trademark of SEOMoz, Inc.
                            • Accessibility
                            • Terms of Use
                            • Privacy

                            Looks like your connection to Moz was lost, please wait while we try to reconnect.