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.
Sub-Domain Google Search Nested under main Domain?
-
Hello,
I have a strange issue that I have not come across before:My subdomain is: michigan.dogdaycare.com.
Some of the Keyword searches show our subdomain being nested under the main domain for Google searches instead of being indexed individually.
Example search term: Dogtopia Bloomfield
https://www.google.com/?gws_rd=ssl#q=dogtopia+bloomfield
-This will show two subdomain links nested under the main domain
Example search term: Dogtopia Birmingham
https://www.google.com/?gws_rd=ssl#q=dogtopia+birmingham
-This shows the subdomain showing correctly in searches and not nested.
Any idea as to how to fix this?
Thanks in advance!
-
Thanks for your advice and tips!
-
I'm wondering if you can correct this with link building. Your domain has some decent authority, so it's probably a trust of the primary domain over the subdomain in this case.
In contrast, I have a subdomain that generated quite a bit of editorial coverage that stands on its own in SERPs, and I believe that is because of the link profile to it.
I'll leave you with a couple ideas...
- Get rid of the button link on the michigan.dogdaycare.com page to /bloomington/ and instead, link them the other way (ie corporate page to business listing on subdomain).
- Also, on the corporate domain, if you do any internal linking, switch them to the Michigan subdomain URL instead of /bloomfield/
- Do something to generate some inbound links to your subdomain listing, and do it without including links to anywhere on the main domain. Honestly, something as simple as Moz Local, a press release that gets picked up by some local publications, and maybe some links to that subdomain URL from some doggy daycare directories will help that, IMO.
- Moving forward, show no link love to the corporate domain page.
-
Within Webmaster Tools you could possibly exclude the subdomain pages from being listed as site links, but Google has stated they're trying to get better at associating when subdomains are similar to subfolders on a site. Rand recently discussed that aspect of it here: http://moz.com/blog/subdomains-vs-subfolders-rel-canonical-vs-301-how-to-structure-links-optimally-for-seo-whiteboard-friday. Cheers!
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 about a No-index backlink in the eye of Google
I have a doubt - when I create a backlink as a part of SEO in some website when I rechecked the same couple of days after. It hasn't indexed and I checked its robots file. It showing **User-agent: ****Mediapartners-Google ****Disallow: ****User-Agent: * ****Disallow:**However, is this create any backlink support or just this for the purpose of not indexing in google.I make it simple -"Is this kind of backlink creation support my SEO activity or Not?" In this No-index website.
Local Website Optimization | | LayaPaul0 -
Google-selected canonical: the homepage?
Hi guys,
Local Website Optimization | | Andreea-M
I checked the product pages on our website with Google Search Console (URL Inspection), and the majority appear as
"URL is not on Google"
Coverage: "Duplicate, submitted URL not selected as canonical", and
Google-selected canonical: the homepage of the website (for all product pages) Our product pages are not identical to the homepage (content-wise), besides the top menu, header and footer, so how could I use the canonical tag in this case? I wouldn't want that the product pages to be seen as duplicates of the homepage. Thanks!0 -
Google my business - Image sizes
I have scoured the web in order to find a guide that would give me the ideal dimensions for images to populate google my business page... in vain. Google itself is very vague about it as indicated below Format: JPG, PNG, TIFF, BMP Size: Between 10 KB and 5 MB Minimum resolution: 250px tall, 250px wide Does anyone know of a guide with optimum recommendation for each photo (profile, Cover photo, business specific photos...) or alternatively can recommend the exact size needed. Thanks
Local Website Optimization | | coolhandluc0 -
Virtual Offices & Google Search
United Kingdom We have a client who works from home and wants a virtual office so his clients do not know where he lives. Can a virtual office address be used on his business website pages & contact pages, in title tags and descriptions as well as Google places. The virtual office is manned at all times and phone calls will be directed to the client, the virtual office company say effectively it is a registered business address. Look forward to any helpful responses.
Local Website Optimization | | ChristinaRadisic0 -
Sub domain for geo pages
Hello Group! I have been tossing the idea in my head of using sub domains for the geo pages for each of my clients. For example: one of my clients is a lawyer in a very competitive Atlanta market http://bestdefensega.com. Can I set his geo page to woodstock.bestdefensega.com? Is this a viable option? Will I get penalized? Thoughts or suggestions always appreciated! Thanks in Advance
Local Website Optimization | | underdogmike0 -
Subdomain for ticketing of a client website (how to solve SEO problems caused by the subdomain/domain relationship)
We have a client in need of a ticketing solution for their domain (let's call it www.domain.com) which is on Wordpress - as is our custom ticket solution. However, we want to have full control of the ticketing, since we manage it for them - so we do not want to build it inside their original Wordpress install. Our proposed solution is to build it on tickets.domain.com. This will exist only for selling and issuing the tickets. The question is, is there a way to do this without damaging their bounce rate and SEO scores?
Local Website Optimization | | Adam_RushHour_Marketing
Since customers will come to www.domain.com, then click the ticketing tab and land on tickets.domain.com, Google will see this as a bounce. In reality, customers will not notice the difference as we will clone the look and feel of domain.com Should we perhaps have the canonical URL of tickets.domain.com point to www.domain.com? And also, can we install Webmaster Tools for tickets.domain.com and set the preferred domain as www.domain.com? Are these possible solutions to the problem, or not - and if not, does anyone else have a viable solution? Thank you so much for the help.0 -
How Google's Doorway Pages Update Affects Local SEO
Hey Awesome Local Folks! I thought I'd take a proactive stance and start a thread on the new doorway pages update from Google, as I feel there will be questions coming up about this here in the forum: Here's the update announcement: http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com/2015/03/an-update-on-doorway-pages.html And here's the part that will make local business owners and Local SEOs take a second glance at this: Here are questions to ask of pages that could be seen as doorway pages: Do the pages duplicate useful aggregations of items (locations, products, etc.) that already exist on the site for the purpose of capturing more search traffic? I think this will naturally lead to questions about the practice of creating local/city landing pages. At this point, my prediction is that this will come down to high quality vs. crummy quality pages of this type. In fact, after chatting briefly with Andrew Shotland, I'm leaning a bit toward seeing the above language as being strongly geared toward directory type sites and large franchises. I recommend reading Andrew's post about his take on this, as I think he's on the right track: http://www.localseoguide.com/googles-about-to-close-your-local-doorway-pages/ So, I'm feeling at this point that if you've made the right efforts to develop unique, high quality local landing pages, you should be good unless you are an accidental casualty of an over-zealous update. We'll see! If anyone has thoughts to contribute on this thread, I hope they will, and if lots of questions start coming up about this here in the community, feel free to link back to this thread in helping your fellow community members 🙂 Thanks, all!
Local Website Optimization | | MiriamEllis9 -
SEO: .com vs .org vs .travel Domain
Hi there, I am new to MOZ Q&A and first of all I appreciate all the folks here that share their expertise and make everyone understand 'the WWW' a bit better. My question: I have been developing a 'travel guide' site for a city in the U.S. and now its time to choose the right domain name. I put a strong focus on SEO in terms of coding, site performance as well as content and to round things up I'd like to register the _best _domain name in terms of SEO. Let's suppose the city is Atlanta. I have found the following domain names that are available and I was wondering whether you guys could give me some inside on which domain name would perform best. discoveratlanta.org
Local Website Optimization | | kinimod
atlantaguide.org
atlanta.travel
atlantamag.com Looking at the Google Adwords Keyword tool the term that reaches the highest search queries is obviously "Atlanta" itself. Sites that are already ranking high are atlanta.com and atlanta.gov. So basically I am wondering whether I should aim for a new TLD like atlanta.travel or rather go with a .org domain. I had a look around and it seems that .org domains generally work well for city guides (at least a lot of such sites use .org domains). However, I have also seen a major US city that uses .travel and ranks first. On the other hand in New York, nycgo.com ranks well. Is it safe to assume that from the domain names I mentioned it really doesn't matter which one I use since it wouldn't significantly affect my ranking (good or bad)? Or would you still choose one above the other? What do you generally thing about .travel domain names (especially since they are far more expensive then the rest)? I really appreciate your response to my question! Best,
kinimod0