Onsite Search Engine
-
Hi,
We have a search engine on our website. Whenever a user searches on our site it goes to subdomain - search.mysite.com. This domain is not hosted by us, is this negatively affecting our SEO?
Does google interpret this as a bounce since a user is technically leaving our site to search for something?
Are there any other ramifications this would have on our site?
Thanks!
-
Firstly, I'm unclear as to where the subdomain lives - you say it's hosted by someone else, but then use "mysite.com" as the example. If I understand you, it's hosted by someone else, but lives on your domain - is that right?
If you don't have the same Google analytics code on the search pages, it will look like a user disappears, leaving the site, then potentially coming back. You can check this by viewing the source and looking for your GA code on any search page. This is purely a data and analytics issue, not a search optimization issue.
As far as SEO is concerned, I wouldn't worry too much about it unless the functionality of your site depends heavily on searching. You should probably block any search pages in robots.txt anyway, as for most sites they add no value. If your site works exclusively with search, you might need to find a new solution.
-
To add the domain name would help for analytics. Does it show google that users aren't leaving the site?
-
I believe if a user lands on a page on mysite.com and doesn't visit any other page on this domain, and then clicks a link to search.mysite.com, then this would count as a bounce unless you set search.mysite.com to be in the same Analytics profile.
-
I'm not so sure what you mean, are you saying that it is counted as a bounce to the site if google analytics doesn't treat this this subdomain as part of the site?
-
Yep, it is likely counted unless Google Analytics is treating the subdomain as part of your main site. If session information isn't being passed, Google would not know.
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
-
Google Search Console and User-declared canonical is actually Hreflang tag
Hey, We recently launched a US version of UK based ecommerce website on the us.example.com subdomain. Both websites are on Shopify so canonical tags are handled automatically and we have implemented Hreflang tags across both websites. Suddenly our rankings in the UK have dropped and after looking in search console for the UK site ive found that a lot of pages are now no longer indexed in Google because the User-declared canonical is the Hreflang tag for the US URL. Below is an example https://www.example.com/products/pac-man-arcade-cabinet - is the product page is the canonical tag rel="alternate" href="https://www.example.com/products/pac-man-arcade-cabinet" hreflang="en-gb" /> - UK hreflang tag rel="alternate" href="https://us.example.com/products/pac-man-arcade-cabinet" hreflang="en-us" /> - US Hreflang tag then in Google search console the user-defined canonical is https://us.example.com/products/pac-man-arcade-cabinet but it should be https://www.example.com/products/pac-man-arcade-cabinet The UK website has been assigned to target the United Kingdom in Search Console and the US website has been assigned to target the United States. We also do not have access to robots.txt file unfortunately. Any help or insight would be greatly appreciated.
Technical SEO | | PeterRubber0 -
Indexed, but not shown in search result
Hi all We face this problem for www.residentiebosrand.be, which is well programmed, added to Google Search Console and indexed. Web pages are shown in Google for site:www.residentiebosrand.be. Website has been online for 7 weeks, but still no search results. Could you guys look at the update below? Thanks!
Technical SEO | | conversal0 -
Wrong image shown to represent brand in mobile search
The image I’ve attached is a screenshot of what shows up on mobile when I do a branded search for one of my clients. We have a Youtube video on the homepage featuring Harry Connick Jr. The video is directly under the hero image on the homepage, and the thumbnail for the video is the image that Google is pulling into the SERP. I don’t want this image in the SERPs. I’ve marked up the logo with schema but that doesn’t seem to be helping. Is there any other schema markup I can use to remedy this? What else I can do to influence which image Google pulls? zVfvz
Technical SEO | | tdastru0 -
HTTP to HTTPS Transition, Large Drop in Search Traffic
My URL is: https://www.seattlecoffeegear.comWe implemented https across the site on Friday. Saturday and Sunday search traffic was normal/slightly higher than normal (in analytics) and slightly down in GWT. Today, it has dropped significantly in both, to about half of normal search traffic. From everything we can see, we implemented this correctly. 301 redirected all http requests to https (and yes, they go to the correct page and not to the homepage 😉 ) Rewrote hardcoded internal links Registered/submitted sitemaps from https in Bing and GWT Used fetch and render to ensure Google could reach the site and also was redirected appropriately from http to https versions Ensured robots.txt does not block https or secure We also use a CDN (though I don't think that impacts anything) and have had no customer issues with accessing or using the website since the transition.Is there anything else I might be missing that could correlate to a drop in search impressions or is this just a waiting game of a few days to let Google sort through the change we've made and reindex everything (it dropped to 0 indexed for a day and is now up to 1744 of our 2180 pages indexed)?Thank you so much for any input!Kaylie
Technical SEO | | Marketing.SCG0 -
How is IT handling multi-page search results for this url?
How is the IT team handling multi-page results? The URL is the same - with out any parameters, but the content changes. Is this best way to handle it from an SEO perspective?
Technical SEO | | S.S.N0 -
How to add a disclaimer to a site but keep the content accessible to search robots?
Hi, I have a client with a site regulated by the UK FSA (Financial Services Authority). They have to display a disclaimer which visitor must accept before browsing. This is for real, not like the EU cookie compliance debacle 🙂 Currently the site 302 redirects anyone not already cookied (as having accepted) to a disclaimer page/form. Do you have any suggestions or examples of how to require acceptance while maintaining accessibility? I'm not sure just using a jquery lightbox would meet the FSA's requirements, as it wouldn't be shown if JS was not enabled. Thanks, -Jason
Technical SEO | | GroupM_APAC0 -
Base HREF set without HTTP. Will this cause search issues?
The base href has been set in the following format: <base href="//www.example.com/"> I am working on a project where many of the programming team don't believe that SEO has an impact on a website. So, we often see some strange things. Recently, they have rolled out an update to the website template that includes the base href I listed above. I found out about it when some of our tools such as Xenu link checker - suddenly stopped working. Google appears to be indexing the the pages fine and following the links without any issue - but I wonder if there is any long term SEO considerations to building the internal links in this manner? Thanks!
Technical SEO | | Nebraska0 -
Sitemap.xml showing up in Google Search
Hello when I do a Google search my sitemap.xml shows up for lots of queries. Does anyone have any advise on this? Should I remove url in Google Webmaster? Thanks,
Technical SEO | | Socialdude0