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.
Ranking drop after sub domain to sub directory migration. Usual?
-
Hi all,
We had our help articles on sub-domain help.website.com. Then we moved it to sub directory website.com/help/. We expected ranking improvement of website.com as there is a wide saying of benefiting from sub domain to sub directory migration. We have noticed that ranking improvement of new sub directory pages (website.com/help/) but not for any main website pages (website.com). I presume that link juice from main website has benefited new sub directory pages but main website lost ranking due to the page rank dilution. Do you agree? Any ideas?
Thanks
-
Hmmmm - that is interesting then
I'd of done exactly what you've done. I take it you mean you're home page has dropped in rankings? Are the sub domains outranking it?
How's your internal link structure/navigation back to the home page.
As I say I don't think you've done anything wrong - A link building campaign to the home page might benefit you but even then I'd be tempted to ignore it and focus on the sub domains - ask yourself as a user - When was the last time you used a home page as a landing page as opposed to a page that served your specific request?
-
I can say the website got affected in between not benefited and suffered.
Main website pages are around 130 where new sub directory have almost 1000 pages. But we do have other sub domains and sub directories. Especially, we have blog as sub directory which have hundreds of pages.
-
If it's a sub directory and it's been migrated correctly and the old sub domain has been removed/redirected then yes it will be considered part of the new website.
It sounds like the sub directory has has benefited (albeit eventually) are you saying the main website a. hasn't benefited or b. actually suffered?
Whilst from an SEO standpoint the main site should have benefited as a whole from the new sub directory from a UX standpoint I probably would only expect the sub directories to massively change.
How big is the website? did the sub directories double the amount of content? Or just add a few pages - What you've done is right, from an SEO and UX perspective (in my opinion) but I think you might be hoping for too much from it.
There isn't always a silver bullet when it comes to rankings... just a lot of hard slog
-
Eventually new sub directory pages gained the ranking improvement, but not main site pages. I can say that the fall hasn't happened overnight. I actually expected to be performing better but main website didn't pick up as per the estimation. This is what concerns me more. And competitors have almost stable rankings over the period.
One confident answer I been expecting from you is, if the sub domain has been migrated to sub directory, Google will consider it as a pert of the website. So the traffic of the sub directory will fall into website. Then the visits of the new sub directory will benefit the website or not?
-
Has you're traffic and rankings actually dropped or remained static over that top?
Is that to the main site or the sub directory?
and don't forget - ranking factors aren't always down to what you've done. You could be doing everything fine but if you're competitors are doing something better you'll still be doing everything right and experience a drop.
-
Hi James,
Thanks for such response. You made it almost clear. But the migration to new sub directory happened months back and we don't see any other reason for our main website drop or not improving as expected. Most of the keywords people land on new sub directory are brand related searched as it's all about help guides of our product. I just wonder why main site hasn't benefited when new sub directory even after months. So, do you agree with my expectation that more number of visitors from different IP addressed to our website or sub directory will benefit in rankings? And you mentioned that you need more detail to answer this question. Please let me know the exact details you need for better understanding of the scenario.
Thanks
Satish
-
I'm not sure there's enough detail here to answer the question correctly
You say the sub directory has benefited which for me would have been the main goal of this exercise - I wouldn't have expected much short term benefit to the main site. You're right, in the long term the extra content/traffic will help (assuming the sub directory is serving peoples searches) but I'd assume the Homepage and the sub directory will have different key words with the sub domains being more specific or long tail.
If the sub directory has benefited I'd just sit back and wait for the rest to happen - that won't be overnight though as Google builds up a view of people using those pages
You may have been hoping for a bit too much overnight I'm afraid.
-
Hi Becker,
Thanks for the response. As I told, sub directory pages are ranking good. That's because they are now part of our main website and root domain is influencing them. But I thought this migration will help as the visitors of new sub directory counts as visitors of website and that's how we gonna benefited from Google. But seems like it didn't workout as expected. I think main reason is because of more internal links increased, PR got diluted.
-
There are not a lot of reasons for a better ranking root domain. Möge dir improvement of the help content. Why did u expected a better ranking for the Rest? There was "No" change, Just some new internal links. They have been there before, nur from another URL.
Main Website lost? Thats the Strange Part, if true.
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
-
Huge difference between GSC ranking and browser ranking for certain keywords: How to proceed?
Hi, There is a huge ranking difference between the GSC and browser for our primary keyword. As per GSC, our ranking is around 15 and when checking on the multiple different incognito browsers it's around 50. How to handle this? Which is the accurate one? Product expert from Google forums claim that what I see on browsers are the personalized results; but I tried on different browsers with different connections. Thanks
Algorithm Updates | | vtmoz0 -
Does an EAT score on my YMYL site impact my rankings?
I've read some conflicting information on YMYL and EAT. If the Google Quality Raters are out there reviewing YMYL pages and scoring them on EAT, does that site's score have an impact on that page's/site's ranking?
Algorithm Updates | | BFMichael0 -
How can I discover the Google ranking number for a keyword in Brazil?
Hello, how can I discover the Google ranking number for a keyword in Brazil location. I need to know what is the position in Brazil location for the keyword "ligação internacional" in the Google search engine for the webpage www.solaristelecom.com/ligacao-internacional. I tried to use the Moz tools to discover it but only shows that I am not in the top 50, then I want to know where I am, and if I am listed or not. I tried to search it in my browser and didn't show the name of my website. Thank you.
Algorithm Updates | | lmoraes1 -
Moving established :COM site to a .ART domain
Hi! We have an existing website that has a .com TLD with our brand name, which is completely unrelated to any of the terms we want to rank for except for the brand search of our company of course. We have an online shop and the .com site has been online for a good few years. The business activity is related to art, in fact some of our customers would search for "name of artists + art" and we appear in results. From what I have read, Google is not going to give better rankings for a .art domain name, but will the extension be counted as a potential keyword and relevancy to users searches based on example above? Does anyone have any experience with regards to this consideration? Thanks!
Algorithm Updates | | bjs20100 -
Exact Keywords Domain name
Hello everyone!, I would love to have your opinion on this matter. I am working on a company e-commerce site; these guys would like to change their domain name AND their company name, so the most logical thing that came to mind was to name the domain after the company name. However, they also bought in the past a domain that have the exact keyword they would like to rank for. I know that keywords in the URL are not as important as they used to be in the past, but nonetheless when I do a Google search for those keywords, 3 domains out of 10 on the first page are slight variations of those same keywords, meaning that they might have a really good domain name (also the other result are government, medical stuff and so on). And, no matter how many times I have read that keywords in the URL are not so important anymore, I still see a lot of sites ranking also because of their domain name (well at least outside the US) So, my question here is: would it be better for them to use the exact match keyword-domain name or should they use their company name for their new site? Or some sort combination of the two? (the keyword-domain that in some way points also to the brand domain). Thanks for your opinions on this; really appreciate it! Cheers
Algorithm Updates | | Eyah0 -
Your search - site:domain.com - did not match any documents.
I've recently started work on a new clients website and done some preliminary work with on-page optimisation, and there is still plenty of work to be done and issues to resolve. They are ranking ok on Bing, but they are not getting any ranking on Google at all (except paid) - I tried the site:domain.com search and comes up with no results... so this confirms that something is going on with the google search rank! Can anyone shed light on what can cause this or why this would happen? My next step is to look at their webmaster tools (haven't had access yet), but if anyone has any tips to resolve this or where to look, that would be great! Thanks!
Algorithm Updates | | ElevateCreativeAU0 -
How to Change Geo Target Location of Country Specific Domain
Hi - I have a country specific domain (www.updater.in), used it for writing blog articles Now when i go to site settings in Webmaster - the Geo target by default is coming for India, and no option of changing geographic target. Is there any way to let Search Engines know (despite .in domain) that site Geo Location is not country specific, but is meant for users from all across !!
Algorithm Updates | | Modi0 -
Will Parked Domain hurt My SEO as Duplicate Content?
Hello, I have one website (Migration Lawyers) and I have an extra 8 domains Parked so they are basically cloning the content of the site. so if the main site is: migrationlawyers.co.za and I have an addon domain migration-lawyers.com is that good or bad? is there a proper way to redirect the sites, will redirecting (301) subdomains be more effective? Thanks for your Input 🙂 0i8VXqr.png
Algorithm Updates | | thealika0