Can subdomains hurt your primary domain's SEO?
-
Our primary website https://domain.com has a subdomain https://subDomain.domain.com and on that subdomain we have a jive-hosted community, with a few links to and fro. In GA they are set up as different properties but there are many SEO issues in the jive-hosted site, in which many different people can create content, delete content, comment, etc. There are issues related to how jive structures content, broken links, etc. My question is this: Aside from the SEO issues with the subdomain, can the performance of that subdomain negatively impact the SEO performance and rank of the primary domain? I've heard and read conflicting reports about this and it would be nice to hear from the MOZ community about options to resolve such issues if they exist. Thanks.
-
All of the content that you have on a subdomain and all of the links that the subdomain attracts could have been working to strengthen your root domain.
In Google you are going out to fight the heavyweights. Do you want to do that with a couple light weight platforms or do you want to unite the clans and attack with all that you got. That is the choice that you make by running subdomains.
I moved and redirected my subdomains into folders on the main website a long time ago and the results were great.
-
Under certain circumstances it can harm the rankings and SEO performance of your main site. In terms of low-end technical SEO issues like broken links and stuff, that usually wouldn't be a problem (unless it were creating loads of broken links from the sub-site, to the main site). If you had a more substantial issue like an active penalty (manual GSC notification) or a malware threat (or hacked content) on your subdomain, that could assuredly harm the main site's rankings. Except in extreme circumstances such as these - I wouldn't worry about it too much
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
-
Is it good practice to use "SAVE $1000's" in SEO titles and Meta Descriptions?
Our company sells a product system that will permanently waterproof almost anything. We market it as a DIY system. I am working on SEO titles and descriptions. This topic came up for discussion, if using "SAVE $1000's.." would help or hurt. We are trying to create an effective call to action, but we are wondering if search engines see it as click bait. Can you
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | tyler.louth0 -
How important is the user experience for SEO in google's eyes?
So far I've gathered that backlinks are really king, however you can't get good backlinks without well written content that serves a purpose. As well you can't do a great job with that content and not keep a good user experience, since why would anyone want to backlink to content that can be helpful if you squint an eye and suffer a few scrolling cramps. So how would you rank user experience in the everlasting war of SEO for Google? With this in mind, why would using bootstrap resources pose a problem? I've seen it could add issue to pageload times, however seems minifying could easily solve that. I personally enjoy the use of Bootstrap since it's very easy on the eyes and can have real positive effects when a user looks at content on such a framework.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Deacyde0 -
Are clean mobile URL's necessary?
Adding code to redirect/clean up ugly URL's slows down mobile site performance, so it is necessary if we are already using rel=alternate tags on our desktop/www pages?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | recbrands0 -
Domain Forwarding for SEO
Hey guys, I recently created a new website for a client who was ranking #1 for the term "jupiter obgyn" but they have now dropped down to #4. This happened because their old home page was at www. instead of just jupiterobgyn.com. When you type in the www. version, it does take you to the root domain but it's not carrying the old PA! The www. version of the page had a 22 PA and the new root domain hosted page is a 1. How can I fix it so that "link juice" carries over? Is this something i need to do in 1and1 (their web host) or within Wordpress? Thanks!!!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | RickyShockley0 -
When Google's WMT shows thousands of links from a single domain... Should they be removed?
Hi, Looking at Google's WMT "links to your site" it shows few sites that have thousands of links pointing to mine. There are actually only 1-2 links pointing to me from a site that Google shows 2000.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | BeytzNet
I assume that it is simply because they don't have canonical tags. Should I ask for the 2 links to be removed? Thanks0 -
SEO for one web site two domains
I have web site www.sxxxcafe.com and there is a another domain for the same like xxx.com .How can i use second domain for the same web site keeping SEO up and without loosing ranking .
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | innofidelity0 -
What's the best practise for adding a blog to your site post panda? subdomain or subdirectory???
Should i use a subdomain or a subdirectory? i was going to use a subdirectory however i have been reading a lot of articles on the use of subdomains post panda and the advantages of using them instead of using subdirectories. Thanks Ari
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | dublinbet0 -
Does domain WhoIs Privacy affect SEO efforts?
Hi guys, I got a hopefully quick question. I am designing a site currently that is made up of many different domain names as part of a network. I've heard that Google will penalize however is linking is passed back and forth between these domains if the registrant information was the same. I have WhoIS privacy information on all the domains to stop telemarketers and spam as well as (hopefully stop Google from getting suspicious). I'm not doing anything bad or against Google rules but I can see how they might think that if I have a huge network and links are being passed between these. It's a friend of mine who owns like 2000 domains and he wants to put legitimate information on each one and rank them higher, it's an interesting concept but I won't go into to much detail. So my question is basically, does having WhoIS privacy on all these domains, will it affect me in anyway in the SEO process? Will google count the links passing back and forth as legitimate? Or might it get suspicious and think I am spam? Are there ways to see what server it's coming from? Should all these sites be on different servers? Any help is much appreciated!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | itechware0