Switch to naked domain that has higher page authority
-
Brilliant Moz community!
I just started here and find it so helpful and am confident that I can get an answer to this.
Our domain is currently https://www.example.com. I have been wanting to move to https://example.com just for a cleaner URL.
To my surprise, https://example.com has the same DA but a significantly higher page authority than our current https://www.example.com.
Of course my immediate reaction is to 301 to the https://example.com but I wanted to get some advice and anything we should consider before doing this.
My other question would be - how is this possible? I don't remember that we ever used that domain but we also had some rather bad developers a couple of years back.
Thank you so much in advance!
-
Thank you, Rob! I'll let you know how it goes.
-
My pleasure sir - glad to be of help!
Yea I remember running the naked switch (sounds naughty) for our site a while back and I was a bit jittery but since we are operating with an algorithm the best thing to remember is that you can always make adjustments as long as you are making "educated guesses" with the intent of moving in the right direction.
From what I'm hearing you shouldn't have any issues with the switch - with the canonical tags you are avoiding any chance of duplicate pages and the naked url will give you slightly bigger boosts on the PA side - terrific for local organic ranking and SEO.
The primary focus of not changing URL structure is to avoid getting your link juice bottled up somewhere in your site (or the dreaded repetitive internal linking cycles). Changing domains isn't a terrible idea as long as it's done properly. Sounds like you've got it in hand though so best of luck in moving forward!
All the best,
Rob
-
Rob,
Thank you for such a fantastic and thorough answer. Helped immensely. We are about to move our site to a new host so I am thinking of having them change it all at that point.
So just to confirm, we are going to be changing our canonical domain from https://www. to https://(no www).
I've run many links through the Pro tool and seem to have same or higher PA for each.
I am not sure why, but it seems a little scary to do this :). I think it is because of how much I read about NOT changing domains/URL structure.
Very appreciative!
Kris
-
Hi Kris,
Yes PA will increase with a naked domain - Google has outlined that it enjoys seeing this and has directions on how to do it with Google Sites (Link Below):
https://support.google.com/a/answer/2518373?hl=en
Redirecting is a good move and can be done through your CMS - how you do this will depend on what you are using to operate your site. Keep in mind that redirects can affect the power of any links pointing to your Home Page and this will affect link juice flowing through the rest of your site to some degree. Depending on the scope of your service area and what kind of SEO you are running (Local, Global or PPC), this will have a greater or lesser impact on what you do moving forward.
In terms of what is creating the better PA - a combination of Google's approach to ranking sites and what your external links are pointing to are probably the answer. If external links are pointing to your naked domain instead of the www. version, this would explain what you are seeing.
Without knowing the site or the context it's hard to know for sure, but those are my guesses.
Hope this helps and fire any additional questions/info you want at me and I will try to help out as best I can.
Cheers,
Rob
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
-
Reducing Amount of Text on Web Pages-Risk of Killing Ranking?
We are a commercial real estate brokerage firm in Manhattan. Our site (w w w . m e t r o - m a n h a t t a n . com) is text heavy and somewhat uninviting. Ranking is fair. Conversions awful. Our niche is very competitive. We plan on reducing the amount of text and making the site more visual. Among the planned changes: -Reduce amount of text in home page and text heavy pages. More emphasis on product (listings)
Branding | | Kingalan1
-Much larger photos for listings
-Lighter cleaner design with more open white areas
-Use of more visible fonts
-Better forms New design will be like: http://www.dernieretage-paris.com/ Theme and graphics based on Manhattan. More visuals. Better photos. Less text. But are we shooting ourselves in the foot by reducing text? Is there a risk that Google will reduce our ranking? Can we compensate for reduced text that is visible to visitors by completing meta tags more fully? Any thoughts??? Thanks,
Alan0 -
Examples of Domain Change for Big Brands
Hi I am trying to put together a case study with big brands that have changed their domain names over the last 2 years. So far I have: t-mobile.co.uk -> ee.co.uk guardian.co.uk -> theguardian.com Are there any others you could think of? It'd be much appreciated! Thanks, C
Branding | | Carlos-R0 -
Is it OK to choose a Domain Name with Brand-name followed by keyword?
My client has a website (brandname.co.in) The website is popular in India (we show up 1st in SERP for our brand name as the search query in Google India) but results are different in Google US, Actually we are not even in the top 10 results in the US version of Google SERP. The Domain name (brandname**.com**) is already taken by another person and he isn't using the domain but expects around $100000 for selling the domain. So we are only left with the option of buying another domain name. My client provides business intelligence consulting services/solutions. What I would like to know is can I recommend buying (brandname-bianalytics.com)? Would this be treated as keyword stuffing? Is there a possibility that my website be penalized by EDM algorithm updates for my primary keyword(bi analytics)? Please advise.
Branding | | PaulineRose0 -
Page Title restructuring
Hey Mozers! Surely you have noticed Google has been randomly restructuring our Page Titles to emphasize branding by placing the company/brand first, as opposed to after the "|" - a convention we had been accustomed to. I am wondering if the aforementioned warrants restructuring our client's (where branding is important) Page Titles as per Google's lead, or simply staying on the sidelines for now and letting Google do it? Anyone care to share their take on this? Thanks! Dino
Branding | | SCW0 -
Add Google + button link to google page and not link
Hello SEOOOOOOOOO moz people ! I was wondering if you know how can I add Google + button to my page I tried to set it up in google page http://awesomescreenshot.com/08d1a9hmef https://plus.google.com/b/109790526955470383191/109790526955470383191/posts But i would like to link the button to my google + fan page https://plus.google.com/b/109790526955470383191/109790526955470383191/about and not the url of the page. As our website is indeed 12 websites if you go to http://www.ibremarketing.com you don't have the same +1 than http://www.ibremarketing.com/me or http://www.ibremarketing.com/ma Any idea of how to do it ? It would be amazing 😛
Branding | | AymanH0 -
Is this the current recommendation for hyphen(s) in domain name?
Let's say your customers company name in the real world is "Foo Bar Baz Inc." and if it is read (and understood) as "foobarbaz inc." by someone hearing the name it does also make semantically sense (like "Dog Food Market"). Customer owns a lot of domain combinations, but notably foobarbaz.com foo-bar-baz.com Would you recommend to dedicate "foobarbaz.com" as main brand and domain for all SEO efforts and do the proper redirects from the other domains? Or would you do it the other way around, redirecting to the foo-bar-baz.com domain? Thanks!
Branding | | kqkq0 -
Domain Authority Mind = Blown
Hi guys, I've focused on building my domain authority for a while now, it's stll low but i'm sure it'll increase. My competitors have 0 backlinks to most of there products which is good, i guess. However they have a domain authority of around 70-80. Which is really high. There product pages get a page authority from 60-70+ which means they rank very high with no backlinks. I can easily out rank them by getting backlinks but it's a very time consuming and costs quite a bit of money to out source it. My question is... is it really all about page/domain authority? I can't see any other factors that allow them to rank high for the products. Also my mind is blown as you can create a blog with a high Domain authority such as Wordpress but that doesn't mean your blog will instantly rank high right? Is there something i'm missing with there website? I'm so confused right now! Any help would be great. Main competitor is: http://www.stinkyinkshop.co.uk along with http://www.cartridgesave.co.uk (Stinkyink to be a member here actually)
Branding | | InkCartridgesFast0 -
Acquired Premium Domain, question about Brand name change related to SEO
We recently acquired a premium domain name The domain we were operating on before had a lot of SEO done on it, as well as branding campaigns. Now that we have the premium domain, would it be wise to start doing SEO on the premium domain and discontinue old domain promotions if we plan on changing the brand name? to clear up any confusion, we own for example AAAFurnitureStore.com we acquired the premium domain: AAAFurniture.com should we redirect AAAFurnitureStore.com -> AAAFurniture.com or since we already have established presence/brand do opposite and redirect AAAFurniture.com -> AAAFurnitureStore.com and keep the brand name same as "AAA Furniture Store"?
Branding | | lafurniturestore0