I have a sub domain that has live content on it but the root domain redirects to another URL. I know this is not great but what are the implications?
-
I have a subdomain that is populated and has content. The root domain that the sub lives on redirects to an entirely different URL. I am trying to make a case as to why this isn't great besides the fact that it is just weird user experiences. What are the SEO implications etc. Would any equity that gets built up on the subdomain get passed along in the redirect? Or will there be indexation issues with Google?
Cheers,
Mark
-
Thanks for the feedback! I was not the person who set-up the site like this. I came on board and that is how it is working. I want it changed but just wanted to make sure I was on the right track.
-
The implications are tied to trust and authority primarily, and overall ranking weight.
Why would content in a subdomain o exist on a "site" where the root domain itself redirects? It's not natural by any stretch of the imagination. And if the root domain isn't itself a stand-alone trustworthy presence, any ability it might otherwise have to provide ranking signals that it can then pass to the subdomain are lost.
Even though, generally speaking, subdomains are treated as independent, that's not true across the entire spectrum of signals.
IF, however, that subdomain is very strong in its own right, and sends the highest quality signals across the spectrum within it's own environment, it may be a case where it can succeed. Because yes, technically even "www." is a subdomain. So like most everything else, case by case, each situation is unique.
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
-
Same URL, different Drupal content types
Hi all, I am working in Drupal which isn't always SEO-friendly. I want to convert some of our articles that are currently in an old article type to our new shiny longform template without losing SEO value. The process we use right now is to: change the URL of the old article in the CMS from /article-title to /article-title-old and then make the longform template /article-title in the CMS. Then hit publish. That way we can avoid having to mess with redirects. My concerns are that this will be seen as a bait and switch by Google. They are, after all, two separate pages — node-1 and node-2 on the back end — that are being smushed into the same skin aka same URL. I don't know if updating to the new template wipes out some of the info Google may have deemed important. I guess you could argue it's a redesign by CMS but I'm still not sure. Thoughts?
Technical SEO | | webbedfeet0 -
301 redirecting a previously abused URL
A client previously had their most important landing page at domain.com/example.htm They carried out the sort of link building that was commonplace a few years back (exact match anchors, paid blog links etc) targeting this URL, but they also got a bunch of legitimate decent quality links here. I believe they may have had a number of issues when link quality algo updates were rolled out, so rather than try and get links removed and go through the disavow process they instead decided to abandon this URL, let it 404 and start afresh at domain.com/example.html - updating all internal navigation, XML sitemaps etc. So fast forward to today. What is the best practice for this URL these days do we think? Is it now possible to 301 domain.com/example.htm > domain.com/example.html and recover whatever value may be left here? The argument for not doing so may be that you could pass over the negative metrics associated with the old URL, but would this not be handled by the real-time penguin update and the poor links just devalued rather than actually harming? And could this just be tested - i.e. add in the 301, monitor the impact and if things don't go the way we'd want then just remove the 301 again? Would be keen to get a few opinions on this. TIA
Technical SEO | | Salience_Search_Marketing0 -
Buying a domain to 301 redirect for increased rankings
A large competitor has recently purchased a large marketing company that specializes in their industry. As a part of this acquisition they obtained ownership of www.digitalsherpa.com, which is now 301 redirecting some 50K links to www.costar.com/. When I did a site:www.digitalsherpa.com search all of the origin URLs had title tags from the costar site in place of their own. My question is: Does this violate Google spam guidelines? search?sourceid=chrome-psyapi2&ion=1&espv=2&ie=UTF-8&q=site%3Adigitalsherpa.com&oq=site&aqs=chrome.0.69i59j69i57j69i65j69i60j0l2.1919j0j7
Technical SEO | | Reis_Inc.0 -
Should a sub domain be a separate property in the Search Console?
We're launching a blog on a sub-domain of a corp site (blog.corpsite.com). We already have corpsite.com set up in the Search Console. Should I set up a separate property for this sub-domain in the Search Console (WMT) in order to manage it? Is it necessary? Thanks, JM
Technical SEO | | HeroDesignStudio0 -
Duplicate Content with ADN, DNS and F5 URLs
In my duplicate content report, there are URLs showing as duplicate content. All of the pages work, they do not redirect, and they are used for either IT debugging or as part of a legacy system using a split DNS, QAing the site, etc... They aren't linked (or at least, shouldn't be) on any pages, and I am not seeing them in Search Results, but Moz is picking them up. Should I be worried about duplicate content here and how should I handle them? They are replicates of the current live site, but have different subdomains. We are doing clean up before migrating to a new CMS, so I'm not sure it's worth fixing at this point, or if it is even an issue at all. But should I make sure they are in robots or take any action to address these? Thanks!
Technical SEO | | QAD_ERP0 -
Friendly URLS (SEO urls)
Hello, I own a eCommerce site with more than 5k of products, urls of products are : www.site.com/index.php?route=product/product&path=61_87&product_id=266 Im thinking about make it friend to seo site.com/category/product-brand Here is my question,will I lost ranks for make that change? Its very important to me know it Thank you very much!
Technical SEO | | matiw0 -
Homepage/Root domain de-indexed by Google
This morning I discovered that the homepage/root domain of our company site, http://www.collegeplus.org/, has been de-indexed by Google and Bing. Out IT dept. is claiming it's our fault because we changed the meta title on our homepage. But they will not give me access to GWT to see if there's any issues. I believe the issue lies within our robots.txt file - http://www.collegeplus.org/robots.txt I also don't believe we're suffering a penalty because all of our tier 2 pages are still indexed when any type of branded search is performed. We don't do things that can get a site de-indexed like this. Any ideas on what the issue may be? Or at least something to convince our IT dept. that simply changing a meta title won't get your homepage totally de-indexed? Thanks.
Technical SEO | | explorionary0 -
Sub Domain vs. New Root Domain for New Brand
Would you recommend a new brand be placed as a subdomain to the existing parent company or create a separate root domain for this new brand?
Technical SEO | | ScratchMM0