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.
Can subdomains avoid spam penalizations?
-
Hello everyone,
I have a basic question for which I couldn't find a definitive answer for.
Let's say I have my main website with URL:
And I have a related affiliates website with URL:
Which includes completely different content from the main website. Also, both domains have two different IP addresses.
Are those considered two completely separate domains by Google? Can bad links pointing to affiliates.mywebsite.com affect www.mywebsite.com in any way?
Thanks in advance for any answer to my inquiry!
-
Sure, I understand, that makes sense. Thank you for your help!
-
Hi Fabrizo,
As answered by Joshua Belland in above answer, you will need to be careful with how you plan it out.
The IP and DNS need to be on a different server.
Be careful about how prtovide link for these with each other.
Regards,
Vijay
-
Sorry guys, I wasn't enough clear with my first question above, it was actually too generic.
To cut to the chase, I am talking about our main website:
www.virtualsheetmusic.com (IP 66.29.153.48)
and our affiliate website which is:
affiliates.virtualsheetmusic.com (IP 66.29.153.50)
They have 2 different IPs, but they are on the same server and same network, of course their are on the same IP block.
And I'd like to know to what extent the activity/status of one site can affect the other, but from what you are asking, I guess they could affect each other to some extent. I mean, Google could understand that they are part of the same "network" and then associate them anyway... right?
-
Are these subdomain properties on different A class ip blocks or different C class ip blocks?
It think this all depends. If the IP addresses are in the same neighborhood or on the same subnets as each other then I would say yes. But beyond that you have to think about several other foot prints to look for:
- Are the nameservers the same?
- Are these ip addresses assigned to different regions?
- Are you interlinking these web properties?
- Even the fact that the subdomain is still associated with the domain makes nervous and only because that is easy for Google to track. If you think about how may other data points they use to find footprints in their algorithm, I don't see why that wouldn't be one of them.
I would be careful with RankBrain continuously evolving and seeing how much turbulence there has been in the serps lately. Personally, my small PBN is completely on separate A Class IPs, with custom name servers, different hosts, and I only put premium content on it. It's not great for quick affiliate gigs, but it certainly helps sustain long term growth.
-
Hi Fabrizo,
Yes, they would be treated as different entities, as a precaution, I would recommend the geographical location of the server IP to be far off and not from the same IP block.
Thanks,
Vijay
-
Thank you Vijay for your extensive answer, but as I wrote above, each sub-domain has its own separate IP address. So... if each sub-domain has its own IP address, are they treated as two completely different websites?
-
Hi Fabrizo,
A subdomain is treated a different entity, however since it comes from the same IP, it's risky to create backlinks to main the site and subdomain. Let me try to answer your question by giving you an example, where we experimented with the idea of subdomain and main site linking , it would help you understand how google treats them as different entities.
We had a client who runs one of his donation campaign for his project from his subdomain and used the main domain for commercial purpose.
He was linking both domains in reciprocal links to send traffic to donation subdomain from the main site and vice versa. The results were shocking as the donation website was ranking far better on even commercial keywords better than main website. We did a deeper analysis and found out the donation website was out-performing main website in terms of high authority contextual backlinks. After some time, the main site started dipping more on the organic traffic and results, we analysed and concluded it was reciprocal linking that was the source of the problem.
We had to make a choice either to remove reciprocal backlinks or test the subdomain on a separate IP. First, we removed the reciprocal links (even if the client was not ready easily) just to prove to the client that it was subdomain links that were causing the problem, the results were good as the main site recovered the ranks and traffic (we also implemented our planned off-page for both the sites) .
Now, this helped us conclude that same IP + subdomain was an issue but we were not sure whether moving to another server would help (not only IP, we had made clear that we wanted a separate location for server IP from hosting company). We shifted the IP first and then watched the results , the donation site was steadily improving on donation related keywords and dipping on commercial keywords, on the other hand, the main website crept up slowly in ranks on commercial keywords (they were medium-high competition keywords).
We made it clear to the client, that this time the links won't be reciprocal and he has to decide his priority about which site he wants to give follow and no follow links. The client wanted the backlinks from donation to the main site with do-follow links, so we created the same. This further helped our commercial website rank to improve, we are still running the websites in the same mode and the results are good.
I hope this answers your query and would help you have a decision. if you have further questions, please feel free to respond and ask.
Regards,
Vijay
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
-
How i can increase my page authority?
Hi, I have website and i want to increase my page authority. My website is latestdatabase.com I have making more backlinks but not good page authority so far. Please give me suggest.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | LatestMailingDatabase1 -
Can you disallow links via Search Console?
Hey guys, Is it possible in anyway to nofollow links via search console (not disavow) but just nofollow external links pointing to your site? Cheers.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | lohardiu90 -
Can a .ly domain rank in the United States?
Hello members. I have a question that I am seeking to confirm whether or not I am on the right track. I am interested in purchasing a .ly domain which is the ccTLD for Libya. The purpose of the .ly domain would be for branding purposes however at the same time I do not want to kill the websites ability to rank in Google.com (United States searches) because of this domain. Google does not consider .ly to be one of those generic ccTLDs like. io, .cc, .co, etc. that can rank and Bitly has also moved away from the .ly extension to a .com extension. Back in 2011 when there was unrest in Lybia, a few well known sites that utilized the .ly extension had their domains confiscated such as Letter.ly, Advers.ly and I think Bitly may have been on that list too however with the unrest behind us it is possible to purchase a .ly so being able to obtain one is not an issue. From what I can tell, I should be able to specify in Google Search Console that the website utilizing the .ly extension is a US based website. I can also do this with Google My Business and I will keep the Whois info public so the whois data can been seen as a US based website. Based on everything I just said do any of you think I will be OK if I were to register and use the .ly domain extension and still be able to rank in Google.com (US Searches). Confirmation would help me sleep better. Thanks in advance everyone and have a great day!!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | joemaresca0 -
Can I add external links to my sitemap?
Hi, I'm integrating with a service that adds 3rd-party images/videos (owned by them, hosted on their server) to my site. For instance, the service might have tons of pictures/videos of cars; and then when I integrate, I can show my users these pictures/videos about cars I might be selling. But I'm wondering how to build out the sitemap--I would like to include reference to these images/videos, so Google knows I'm using lots of multimedia. How's the most white-hat way to do that? Can I add external links to my sitemap pointing to these images/videos hosted on a different server, or is that frowned upon? Thanks in advance.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | SEOdub0 -
Can you buy backlinks from fiverr?
Hi Mozers, I though a while ago I heard that buying backlinks was a no go, until I seen and read this article: I notice the guy that wrote the article suggested that you can buy backlinks from fiverr, and also just make sure they are do-follow backlinks. Can someone please correct me and perhaps clear my confusion over this. As far as I knew it was best to build backlinks by doing guest posting and engaging in relevant forums? Heres the article: http://socialmediafuze.com/10-backlink-strategies-business/ Thanks guys
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | edward-may2 -
Using subdomains for related landing pages?
Seeking subdomain usage and related SEO advice... I'd like to use multiple subdomains for multiple landing pages all with content related to the main root domain. Why?...Cost: so I only have to register one domain. One root domain for better 'branding'. Multiple subdomains that each focus on one specific reason & set of specific keywords people would search a solution to their reason to hire us (or our competition).
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | nodiffrei0 -
Complimentary sub-brand; subdomain, subfolder, something else?
Hello forum! I have a question about subdomains vs. subfolders for a new sub-brand for a company. The company is looking at creating a sub-brand delivering a different service to the parent company. It is complimentary in a sense, but it would need a very different marketing strategy. It is not trying to 'hide' its parent brand at all, but instead would leverage the parent brand as added social proof. I've read that creating a subdomain essentially means starting from scratch in terms of SEO, and that a subfolder would better leverage the domain authority the TLD has accrued. However, creating a subfolder does not really gel with me, as it would not in my opinion provide a good experience for visitors. I.e. it's like running a website that sells electronics and having a subfolder marketing IT support services. Yes, there is some synergy-- but it can also lead to visitor confusion. I'd love your opinions on this! Carlo
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | carlod0 -
Should we stream videos from a subdomain or subfolder?
This is causing some hand-wrangling and I need some help. Let's say we were developing rich video content for our products and our agency is hosting the content on a new external server. There are already plans to link to these videos from product detail pages, category pages, and landing pages on our main website: www.example.com. Would it be better to create a new subdomain or to use a subfolder with a reverse proxy technique for this video content? It's not truly a microsite and will not have a gallery page to navigate the various videos. For example, would it be better to use this: video.example.com/ ...or this (executed with a reverse proxy😞 www.example.com/video/ Of course, regardless of whether this new content will live on a subdomain or within a subfolder, we plan on creating a video Sitemap using guidance from Justin Hammack in this terrific post.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Ryan-Ricketts1