undefined
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
    • SEO Q&A
    • Webinars, Whitepapers, & Guides
  • Blog
  • Why Moz
    • Agency Solutions
    • Enterprise Solutions
    • Small Business Solutions
    • Case Studies
    • 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.

    NEW Keyword Suggestions by Topic
    Moz Pro

    NEW Keyword Suggestions by Topic

    Learn more
  • 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
    • 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.

    • Case Studies

      Explore how Moz drives ROI with a proven track record of success.

    • 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. Subdomain replaced domain in Google SERP

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.

Subdomain replaced domain in Google SERP

Intermediate & Advanced SEO
5
10
2.9k
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.
  • chiplab
    chiplab last edited by Jun 6, 2016, 11:27 AM

    Good morning,

    This is my first post.  I found many Q&As here that mostly answer my question, but just to be sure we do this right I'm hoping the community can take a peak at my thinking below:

    Problem: We are relevant rank #1 for "custom poker chips" for example. We have this development website on a subdomain (http://dev.chiplab.com).  On Saturday our live 'chiplab.com' main domain was replaced by 'dev.chiplab.com' in the SERP.

    Expected Cause: We did not add NOFOLLOW to the header tag. We also did not DISALLOW the subdomain in the robots.txt. We could have also put the 'dev.chiplab.com' subdomain behind a password wall.

    Solution: Add NOFOLLOW header, update robots.txt on subdomain and disallow crawl/index.

    Question: If we remove the subdomain from Google using WMT, will this drop us completely from the SERP? In other words, we would ideally like our root chiplab.com domain to replace  the subdomain to get us back to where we were before Saturday.  If the removal tool in WMT just removes the link completely, then is the only solution to wait until the site is recrawled and reindexed and hope the root chiplab.com domain ranks in place of the subdomain again?

    Thank you for your time,

    Chase

    1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
    • eyepaq
      eyepaq @chiplab last edited by Jun 7, 2016, 4:52 AM Jun 7, 2016, 4:52 AM

      Hi Chase,

      Removing dev via web master tools should do the trick for now. Then since google won't get to dev anymore you should be safe.

      Adding both noindex and password protection is not needed. Since it's password protected Google won't get to see the noindex on the pages. So you should only do one of the two. No need to change now. The password protection is safe.

      As expected 'dev.chiplab.com' was removed from the SERP.  Now, I'm a bit worried that the link equity was transferred for good to the subdomain from 'www.chiplab.com'.  That's not possible, right?

      *** Yes, that's not possible so you are good.

      Only 301 redirections are "mandatory" for Google to pass equity - so all good.

      1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
      • LoganRay
        LoganRay @chiplab last edited by Jun 6, 2016, 8:56 PM Jun 6, 2016, 8:56 PM

        No worries, that's what this community is here for!

        Google views subdomains as different entities. They have different authority metrics and therefore different ranking power. Removing a URL on a subdomain won't have any affect on it's brother over on a different subdomain (for example: dev. and www.).

        Good call to keep the disallow: / on the dev.chiplab.com/robots.txt file - I forgot to mention that you should leave it there, for anti-crawling purpose.

        This is the query you'll want to keep an eye on. The info: operator is new and can be used to show you what Google has indexed as your 'canonical' homepage.

        1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
        • chiplab
          chiplab @LoganRay last edited by Jun 6, 2016, 6:40 PM Jun 6, 2016, 6:40 PM

          Hi Logan,

          Last follow-up.  I swear. 🙂

          Since I'm pretty new to this I got scared and cancelled the 'dev.chiplab.com' link removal request.  I did this because I didn't want to go up 14 days without any traffic (this is the estimated time I found that the Google SERP can take to be updated even though we "fetched as GoogleBot in GWT).  May be wrong on the SERP update time?

          So what I did was add a 301 permanent redirect from 'dev.chiplab.com' to 'www.chiplab.com'. I've kept the NOFOLLOW/NOINDEX header on all 'dev' subdomains of course.  I've kept the DISALLOW in robots.txt for the dev.chiplab.com site specifically.  So now I just plan on doing work in the 'dev' site (because I can't test anything with the redirects happening).  And then hopefull in 14 days or so the domain name will change gracefully in the Google SERP from dev.chiplab.com to www.chiplab.com.  I did all of this because of how many sales we would lose if it took 14 days to start ranking again for this term.  Good?

          Best,

          Chase

          LoganRay 1 Reply Last reply Jun 6, 2016, 8:56 PM Reply Quote 0
          • LoganRay
            LoganRay @chiplab last edited by Jun 6, 2016, 6:22 PM Jun 6, 2016, 6:22 PM

            You should be all set# I wouldn't worry about link equity, but it certainly wouldn't hurt to keep an eye on your domain authority over the next few days.

            chiplab 1 Reply Last reply Jun 6, 2016, 6:40 PM Reply Quote 1
            • chiplab
              chiplab @LoganRay last edited by Jun 6, 2016, 5:50 PM Jun 6, 2016, 5:50 PM

              Hi Logan,

              Thanks for fast reply!

              We did the following:

              1. Added NOINDEX on the entire subdomain
              2. Temporarily removed 'dev.chiplab.com' using Google Webmaster Tools
              3. Password protected 'dev.chiplab.com'

              As expected 'dev.chiplab.com' was removed from the SERP.  Now, I'm a bit worried that the link equity was transferred for good to the subdomain from 'www.chiplab.com'.  That's not possible, right?  Do we now just wait until GoogleBot crawls 'www.chiplab.com' and hope that it is restored to #1?

              Thank you for your time (+Shawn, +Matt, +eyqpaq),

              Chase

              LoganRay eyepaq 2 Replies Last reply Jun 7, 2016, 4:52 AM Reply Quote 0
              • eyepaq
                eyepaq last edited by Jun 6, 2016, 6:05 PM Jun 6, 2016, 1:39 PM

                noindex would be the easiest way.

                Seen some people having the same issue fixing it by adding rel canonical to dev pointing to the new site and so the main site got back step by step with no interruptions...

                Cheers.

                1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
                • Shawn_Huber
                  Shawn_Huber @LoganRay last edited by Jun 6, 2016, 12:29 PM Jun 6, 2016, 12:29 PM

                  Just like Chase said, noindex your dev site to let the search engines know that it should not show in search. I do this on my dev sites everytime.

                  1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                  • mattdinbrooklyn
                    mattdinbrooklyn last edited by Jun 6, 2016, 6:05 PM Jun 6, 2016, 12:21 PM

                    The most ideal method would be to make the dev page password protected. What I would do is to 301 redirect the dev page to the subsequent correct site pages and then when the SERP refreshes, I'd make the dev site a password protected site.

                    1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
                    • LoganRay
                      LoganRay last edited by Jun 6, 2016, 6:04 PM Jun 6, 2016, 12:20 PM

                      Hi Chase,

                      Removing the subdomain within Search Console (WMT) will not remove the rest of your WWW URLs. Since you have different properties in Search Console for each, they are treated separately. That removal is only temporary though.

                      The most sure-fire way to ensure you don't get dev. URLs indexed is to put a NOINDEX tag on that entire subdomain. NOFOLLOW simply means that links on whatever page that tag is on won't be followed by bots.

                      Remember, crawling and indexing are different things. For example, if on your live www. site you had an absolute link somewhere in the mix that had dev.chiplab.com in it, since you presumably haven't nofollowed your live site, a bot will still access that page. The same situation goes for a robots.txt disallow. That only prevents crawling, not indexing. In theory, a bot can get to a disallowed URL and still index it. See this query for an example.

                      Shawn_Huber chiplab 2 Replies Last reply Jun 6, 2016, 5:50 PM Reply Quote 2
                      • 1 / 1
                      1 out of 10
                      • First post
                        1/10
                        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

                      • rayatarh545123

                        Why some domains and sub-domains have same DA, but some others don't?

                        Hi I noticed for some blog providers in my country, which provide a sub-domian address for their blogs. the sub-domain authority is exactly as the main domain. Whereas, for some other blog providers  every subdomain has its different and lower authority. for example "ffff.blog.ir" and "blog.ir" both have domain authority of 60. It noteworthy to mention that the "ffff.blog.ir" does not even exist! This is while mihanblog.com and hfilm.mihanblog.com has diffrent page authority.

                        Intermediate & Advanced SEO | May 15, 2019, 7:27 PM | rayatarh545123
                        0
                      • clarkovitch

                        Legacy domains

                        Hi all, A couple of years ago we amalgamated five separate domains into one, and set up 301 redirects from all the pages on the old domains to their equivalent pages on the new site. We were a bit tardy in using the "change of address" tool in Search Console, but that was done nearly 8 months ago now as well. Two years after implementing all the redirects, the old domains still have significant authority (DAs of between 20-35) and some strong inbound links. I expected to see the DA of the legacy domains taper off during this period and (hopefully!) the DA of the new domain increase. The latter has happened, although not as much as I'd hoped, but the DA of the legacy domains is more or less as good as it ever was? Google is still indexing a handful of links from the legacy sites, strangely even when it is picking up the redirects correctly. So, for example, if you do a site:legacydomain1.com query, it will give a list of results which includes pages where it shows the title and snippet of the page on newdomain.com, but the link is to the page on legacydomain1.com. What has prompted me to finally try and resolve this is that the server which hosted the original 5 domains is now due to be decommissioned which obviously means the 301 redirects for the original pages will no longer be served. I can set up web forwarding for each of the legacy domains at the hosting level, but to maintain the page-by-page redirects I'd have to actually host the websites somewhere. I'd like to know the best way forward both in terms of the redirect issue, and also in terms of the indexing of the legacy domains? Many thanks, Dan

                        Intermediate & Advanced SEO | Jun 27, 2016, 5:59 AM | clarkovitch
                        0
                      • MarkWill

                        Blog subdomain not redirecting

                        Over the last few weeks I have been focused on fixing high and medium priority issues, as reported by the Moz crawler, after a recent transition to WordPress. I've made great progress, getting the high priority issues down from several hundred (various reasons, but many duplicates for things like non-www and www versions) to just five last week. And then there's this weeks report. For reasons I can't fathom, I am suddenly getting hundreds of duplicate content pages of the form http://blog.<domain>.com</domain> (being duplicates with the http://www.<domain>.com</domain> versions). I'm really unclear on why these suddenly appeared. I host my own WordPress site ie WordPress.org stuff. In Options / General everything refers to http://www.<domain>.com</domain> and has done for a number of weeks. I have no idea why the blog versions of the pages have suddenly appeared. FWIW, the non-www version of my pages still redirect to the www version, as I would expect. I'm obviously pretty concerned by this so any pointers greatly appreciated. Thanks. Mark

                        Intermediate & Advanced SEO | May 13, 2015, 2:36 PM | MarkWill
                        0
                      • ecerbone

                        Blog On Subdomain - Do backlinks to the blog posts on Subdomain count as links for main site?

                        I want to put blog on my site.  The IT department is asking that I use a subdomain (myblog.mysite.com) instead of a subfolder (mysite.com/myblog).  I am worried b/c it was my understanding that any links I get to my blog posts (if on subdomain) will not count toward the main site (search engines would view almost as other website).   The main purpose of this blog is to attract backlinks.  That is why I prefer the subfolder location for the Blog. Can anyone tell me if I am thinking about this right? Another solution I am being offered is to use a reverse proxy. Thoughts? Thank you for your time.

                        Intermediate & Advanced SEO | Dec 15, 2014, 5:34 PM | ecerbone
                        0
                      • Shawn124

                        Disavowin a sitewide link that has Thousands of subdomains. What do we tell Google?

                        Hello, I have a hosting company that partnered up with a blogger template developer that allowed users to download blog templates and have my footer links placed sitewide on their website.  Sitewides i know are frowned upon and that's why i went through the rigorous Link Audit months ago and emailed every webmaster who made "WEBSITENAME.Blogspot.com" 3 times each to remove the links. I'm at a point where i have 1000 sub users left that use the domain name of "blogspot.com".  I used to have 3,000! Question: When i disavow these links in Webmaster tools for Google and Bing, should i upload all 1000 subdomains of "blogspot.com" individually and show Google proof that i emailed all of them individually, or is it wise to just include just 1 domain name (www.blogspot.com) so Google sees just ONE big mistake instead of 1000. This has been on my mind for a year now and I'm open to hearing your intelligent responses.

                        Intermediate & Advanced SEO | Feb 10, 2014, 6:30 PM | Shawn124
                        0
                      • jasonwdexter

                        Redirect ruined domain to new domain without passing link juice

                        A new client has a domain which has been hammered by bad links, updates etc and it's basically on its arse because of previous SEO guys. They have various domains for their business (brand.com, brand.co.uk) and want to use a fresh domain and take it from there. Their current domain is brand.com (the ruined one). They're not bothered about the rankings for brand.com but they want to redirect brand.com to brand.co.uk so that previous clients can find them easily. Would a 302 redirect work for this? I don't want to set up a 301 redirect as I don't want any of the crappy links pointing across. Thanks!

                        Intermediate & Advanced SEO | Jul 8, 2013, 12:27 PM | jasonwdexter
                        0
                      • bjs2010

                        Why does Google add my domain as a suffix to page title in SERPS?

                        Hi, If I do a search in Google - for one our products on our site, our site comes up - but it would appear that google is adding our domain name as a suffix to our title in the results... Anyone else seen this? Can I do anything about it? I would prefer it not to appear. Thanks!

                        Intermediate & Advanced SEO | Jun 21, 2013, 12:39 PM | bjs2010
                        0
                      • peterwhitewebdesign

                        New Site: Use Aged Domain Name or Buy New Domain Name?

                        Hi,
                        I have the opportunity to build a new website and use a domain name that is older than 5 years or buy a new domain name. The aged domain name is a .net and includes a keyword.
                        The new domain would include the same keyword as well as the U.S. state abbreviation. Which one would you use and why? Thanks for your help!

                        Intermediate & Advanced SEO | Mar 2, 2012, 4:47 PM | peterwhitewebdesign
                        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
                      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.