Root Domain v Subdomain
-
Hi,
Just doing some analysis on a domain, and the (external) linking root domains show as:
21 to Root Domain
4 to SubdomainThe site is hosted under the www. subdomain version and there is no 301 from domain to www.domain
Should the site be:
- Hosted on the root domain instead of subdomain
- 301 all incoming requests on domain to point to www.domain (subdomain)
Any comments and experience on this type of situation appreciated!
-
Agree with Justin, There is no right or wrong (www. vs none) pick one which suits you and go from there.
You can learn setting preferred domain on webmasters here - https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/44231
301 redirects depend on your CMS but don't forge to redirect to each relevant page.
Best of luck BJS.
(in short)
1) Hosted on the root domain instead of subdomain
This is your preference
2) 301 all incoming requests on domain to point to www.domain (subdomain)
Yes 301 so you're only using one site not both (e.g use www. or htttp:// but not both) but it doesn't have to be the www.
-
Hi
It depends on your preferred domain going forward, in truth 25 linking route domains isn't enough to be concerned about (unless they are from very high authority sites), so I would chose the variant which works best for you and 301 to that version.
Going forward you should build new links which point the chosen variant (www or non-www).
Justin
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
-
New Subdomain SEO questions
I have a main site - mysite.com. I just created a subdomain - leadform.mysite.com I plan to use the leadform.mysite.com as a 1 page lead form only. I will link to leadform.mysite.com from mysite.com and also from other websites I own (myothersite.com etc.) - filtering all traffic to this form to capture leads. (Note - the leadform.mysite.com has CNAME to other server that hosts the backend of the form) My questions are: How should I link from mysite.com to leadform.mysite.com? With dofollow or nofollow? (mysite.com has 1000's of pages and would link from every page with "get a quote' type button) 2) How should I link from myothersite.com to leadform.mysite.com? With dofollow or nofollow? Any SEO risk linking to leadform.mysite.com from an outside domain? (myothersite.com has 1000's of pages and would link from every page with "get a quote' type button) Does it make sense to build links from outside sites to leadform.mysite.com directly to try to get that lead capture page to rank on it's own? 4) Does it make sense to link back from leadform.mysite.com back to mysite.com for seo value? With dofollow or nofollow? Thanks in advance for any help.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | leadforms0 -
Redirect old .net domain to new .com domain
I have a quick question that I think I know the answer to but I wanted to get some feedback to make sure or see if there's additional feedback. The long and short of it is that I'm working with a site that currently has a .net domain that they've been running for 6 years. They've recently bought a .com of the same name as well. So the question is: I think it's obviously preferable to keep the .net and just direct the .com to it. However, if they would prefer to have the .com domain, is 301'ing the .net to the .com going to lose a lot of the equity they've built up in the site over the past years? And are there any steps that would make such a move easier? Also, if you have any tips or insight just into a general transition of this nature it would be much appreciated. Thanks!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | BrandLabs0 -
Redirecting a Page from Domain A to Domain B
We have a page on Domain A, an established and well-ranking website, that would be more appropriate on Domain B, a site that we launched about two years ago. This page ranks well, pulls nice search traffic and has traffic from external links. We would like to move the page and its traffic from Domain A to Domain B using a 301 redirect. Have you ever done this or have you heard of how it has worked for someone else? Thanks!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | EGOL0 -
301 Redirecting multiple domains to brand new domain
Hi guys, I have read quite a bit of stuff on 301 redirects after Penguin. Hoping someone could help me out. im looking at a way to do a legit 301 redirect without passing the penalty. I have acquired two businesses, business1 and business2, that both had websites that were hit by penguin. Ive anaylsed there backlinks and theres a lot of spammy forum links and comments and I was also informed they were both using buildmyrank. A side note, buiness2 only started using BMR after it noticed business1 have large amounts of high PR links. business1.com was ranking at position 1 till the penguin hit. Business2.com was ranking around page 2 I work in the same arena as these two businesses and didnt generate any business via the internet. When these 2 businesses failed (due to loss of rankings and traffic) i decided to take them over. What I am thinking of doing is 301'ing both business domains to my brand new, zero links, domain which will be the name of my new company. I will combine the content from both sites, around 1000 pages, in to the new one. So my question is, does 301'ing multiple domains, that target the same keywords, and operate in the same niche, look less "spammy" then 301'ing 1 domain? I'm trying to look at it in the eyes of google. It is a legit merging of businesses. Thanks for your help, really appreciate your time
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | JohnPeters0 -
Move blog from subdomain to main domain on ecom site?
I am wondering what my fellow mozers think. Pretty set about my direction but want to get any other input to aid in my decision. Have an ecom site with a www.blog.maindomain.com. The blog is fairly new and no major rankings. There are only about 30 posts. This isn't a super competitive market and the blogging won't be a huge part of our content strategy but I would like to use it for passing juice etc. Would you go through the trouble to move the blog to www.site.com/blog and redirecting all the old content to new?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | PEnterprises0 -
Query / Discussion on Subdomain and Root domain passing authority etc
I've seen Rands video on subdomains and best pratices at
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | James77
http://www.seomoz.org/blog/whiteboard-friday-the-microsite-mistake
http://www.seomoz.org/blog/understanding-root-domains-subdomains-vs-subfolders-microsites I have a question/theory though and it is related to an issue I am having. We have built our website, and now we are looking at adding 3rd party forums and blogs etc (all part of one CMS). The problem is these need to to be on a seperate subdomain to work correctly (I won't go into the specific IT details but this is what I have been advised by my IT guru's). So I can have something like:
http://cms.mysite.com/forum/ Obviously after reading Rands post and other stuff this is far from ideal. However I have another Idea - run the CMS from root and the main website from the www. subdomain. EG
www.mysite.com
mysite.com/blog Now my theory is that because so many website (possibly the majority - especially smaller sites) don't use 301 redirects between root and www. that search engines may make an exception in this case and treat them both as the same domain, so it could possibly be a way of getting round the issue. This is just a theory of mine, based solely on my thoughts that there are so many websites out there that don't 301 root to www. or vice versa, that possibly it would be in the SE's self interest to make an exception and count these as one domain, not 2. What are your thoughts on this and has there been any tests done to see if this is the case or not? Thanks0 -
Are sites that leave out www from domain at a disadvantage to domains with www in url
I know this has been discussed but was wondering what would be the best approach from an SEO perspective. I quite like the idea of setting up websites with domains without www but always worry that setting up domains without www has a disadvantage because user are use to referring to sites with the www included. Thus one of my fears are that users would link back using www version which will mean even if you do a 301 redirect that some of the link juice would be lost. I know some famous sites have used this convention such as http://searchenginewatch.com/ so think it would be possible but still concerned that for new sites it would be better to rather stick to conventions. What are your opinions about this?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | SABest0 -
Different Geographies - New Domain or Subdomain?
I have a site that is successful on the SERPs for a certain geography, let's call it City A (I'm sure you can't tell what it is from my username). I'm moving to a new city in another state so I will be building my business in this area (City B). Should I create a new domain for City B with CityBWebsiteDesign.com or should I create a sub-domain called CityB.BrandableCompanyName.com and just redirect CityBWebsiteDesign.com to the URL for offline marketing purposes only? My current website BrandableCompanyName.com has some authority with Google. Will it be better to building something on the sub-domain and get any sort of cross-benefits or are there really no benefits to be had between sub-domains? The benefit of going with CityBWebsiteDesign.com would be having a keyword rich URL but I would basically be starting from zero with building authority. Specific experience you've had with this or cited examples would be great for the discussion! Thanks,
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | JaredDetroit
Jared0