Are multiple domains for my website hurting my Google ranking?
-
Hello,
I currently have two domains showing up in google search:
These domains are currently ranked in the #2 and #3 spot, however my page is much more trafficked than the current #1 ranking. I am wondering if the fact that I have two domains competing for the #1 spot is hurting my search ranking. If so, what is the best way to remedy this issue and get back my #1 spot?
I'm rather new to SEO and teaching myself as I go, so I appreciate the feedback!
-
Here's the post on Search Engine Roundtable that discusses Google's comments about this not being a ranking change.
http://www.seroundtable.com/google-subdomains-webmaster-tools-13968.html
-
FYI, it looks like you're 302-redirecting the "shop." sub-domain to a deeper page on the root domain. This can be the worst of both worlds, in some cases. I'm not clear on the reasoning, but if "shop." is the e-commerce/store sub-domain, I'd rather see you 301-redirect it to "/shop" or something like that.
I realize you may have technical constraints that require the e-commerce site to be on a subdomain. There are ways around that, like a reverse proxy.
From a purely SEO standpoint, you can potentially rank 2 sub-domains (Google keeps changing their mind on that, it seems), but you're also potentially splitting the link-juice between those sub-domains. In most cases, I don't find the sub-domain approach to be a good long-term strategy. On the other hand, if you're ranking #2 and #3 and aren't seeing a downside, you've got to consider that data.
-
Google hasn't been clear on this - they stated later (I can't recall where, unfortunately) that this change was only an accounting change in Google Webmaster Tools. It didn't change how they actually pass link-juice across subdomains. I've found it can go both ways. Some subdomains fragment and get treated as separate domains, and others seem to get more tightly integrated. It depends a lot on the site, structure, duplication, etc.
-
Glad to see you also sorted out the non-www to www permanent redirect on shwoodshop.com. I would say that this is the quickest way to get site wide content duplication.
Now that you have these redirects put in place your site will be ok. Just make sure you don't delete the redirects!
-
Perfect! Thanks again for your input. I really appreciate your help!
-
These are 2 completely different pages so you should be fine now. As for the question "will it hurt if Google indexes both?", not at all. Actually it's every SEOs dream to get 2 pages from one site indexed on 1st page. Although, it's best practice to make sure that each page's content and meta tags are unique to each other. The reason is that sometimes these can also battle for serp position if they are closely alike in terms of content and meta tags. Just make sure there unique and focused on what that specific page has to offer. But then once again if your already have a keyword ranking on 1st page for both urls then its probably best to leave them as is and see what the result 301 redirect will accomplish for you. Allow for it to be re-indexed by Google again.
-
Thanks so much for your response! I went ahead and used the 301 redirects to direct everything to www.shwoodshop.com.
Now that everything is pointing to the same place, is there any harm in having both www.shwoodshop.com and www.shwoodshop.com/collections/all show up in a google search? These pages aren't competing now, correct?
According to the SEOmoz data, my page www.shwoodshop.com is much stronger than my competitors' when googling "wood sunglasses" so I just want to see if there are any obvious factors limiting my search strength.
Thanks again everyone!
-
Hi Taylor, As I had done some of the analysis for your both domains. If you use both domain then it will hurt your ranking according to google.
The analysis that I had done as below:
This is website that have Page rank =5
Google Indexing Backlinks=274
Secondly your shop.shwoodshop.com is redirect to http://shwoodshop.com/collections/all these page which have following factors:
This is website that have Page rank =4
Google Indexing Backlinks=274
One of the most important issue that I found that your website does not have 301 redirect error set up.
This would results that there are two separate domains i. e http://www.shwoodshop.com/ & http://shwoodshop.com/, so it is better to redirect it to the one & only single page according to their preferred domain.
Below there is a link which tells you that multiple domain are bad for SEOm& website too:
http://www.seo.com/blog/multiple-domains-seo/
&
http://blog.ineedhits.com/tips-advice/why-owning-multiple-domain-names-is-bad-for-seo-02539442.html
I hope that your query had been solved.
-
This use to be the case but recently Google now treats the sub domain as internal links see the changes here: http://searchengineland.com/new-google-classifies-subdomains-as-internal-links-within-webmaster-tools-91401
Overall I do not think this will be a problem having your sub domain and your main url rank for a term, that been said if both the sub domain and main website have unique content and are well linked it can be a good strategy.
I remember one website in a local insurance niche doing this well for a long time
-
Hello Taylor,
Is this a trick question? The reason I ask is because the shop.shwoodshop.com you are talking about already redirects to http://shwoodshop.com/collections/all. Also I notice an important factor that might help your site rank better. I recently suggested this to a client and within a few days his site moved to 1spot from 4th position. I am not guaranteeing it will work but its actually an issue that needs to be resolved anyhow. If your utilizing the SEOMOZ software then the first thing you will notice if running a campaign is a notification from the software stating the following:
We have detected that the domain www.shwoodshop.com and the domain shwoodshop.com both respond to web requests and do not redirect. Having two "twin" domains that both resolve forces them to battle for SERP positions, making your SEO efforts less effective.
I suggest that you fix this by either 301 redirecting the non www to www or vice versa. It all depends for which version you already have keywords ranking on. In other words if your already ranking for keywords on the www version then you will want to redirect the non www to it. If it's the non www that you are already ranking for then you will benefit from directing the www to the non www.
I hope that helps
-
As far as I know Google will treat content on a subdomain as a separate website, so chances are you're splitting the domain authority over the two websites.
As far as PageRank is concerned this is on a **per page basis (n**ot per site). Every page is ranked on its own individual merits.
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
-
Deindexed from Google images Sep17th
We have a travel website that has been ranked in Google for 12-14years. The site produces original images with branding on them and have been for years ranking well. There's been no site changes. We have a Moz spamscore 1/17 and Domain Authority 59. Sep 17th all our images just disappeared from Google Image Search. Even searching for our domain with keyword photo results in nothing. I've checked our Search console and no email from Google and I see no postings on Moz and others relating to search algo changes with Images. I'm at a loss here.. does anyone have some advice?
Algorithm Updates | | danta2 -
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 -
Home Page not ranking?
Hey guys, I'm working on a relatively new client and have noticed that all the initial rankings that we have point towards a sub page rather than the home page. Only a branded search appears to bring up the home page which seems really strange. Any ideas? Home page; www.geraldmiller.com Sub page (ranking); www.geraldmiller.com/dwi-dui-defense
Algorithm Updates | | Webrevolve0 -
Home page rank for keyword
Hi Mozers I have traded from my website balloon.co.uk for over 10 years. For a long while the site ranked first for the word 'balloon' across the UK on google.co.uk (first out of 41 million). Around the time Penguin launched the site began to drop and currently sits on about page 5. What's confusing is that for a search on 'balloons' ('s' on the end of balloon) it ranks 2nd in the location of Birmingham where I'm based. That's 2nd in the real search rather than a map local search. But - if I search 'balloon' from the location of Birmingham my contact page ranks 5th: http://www.balloon.co.uk/contact.htm but the home page ranks nowhere. So - it's gone from ranking 1st nationally to ranking nowhere with my contact page ranking above the home page (which is a generic word domain). Any ideas?
Algorithm Updates | | balloon.co.uk0 -
Fetch as Google in GWT - Functionality
Hi, For example, some of the HTML improvements notices from GWT, says dupe meta descriptions or titles, for pages that have since been 301 redirected or had a canonical tag added. So, my idea is to force google to read it using "Fetch as Google" - hoping that it will now see 301 redirection or the fix we have implemented. Does this work? How long does it take? Lastly, should I just click the "fetch as google" or should I also click on the "Submit to index" button? Thanks!
Algorithm Updates | | bjs20100 -
Does Google or Bing use words in the page title beyond the displayed limit for ranking purposes?
Standard good practice for on-page SEO includes keeping page title length below the maximum that Google displays in the SERPs. But words in the title beyond that maximum can be indexed, even if they don't show in the SERPs for end users. For ranking purposes, is there any value in words beyond the character limit in page titles that are truncated in the SERPs?
Algorithm Updates | | KyleJB0 -
Why would Google read different pages to rank for a keyword?
I have noticed a large drop in a number of keywords in the latest rankings report. I have checked the results on the 'Ranking History Graph' and it appears that Google is reading different pages for the specific keyword and therefore, giving large fluctuations in ranking dependant on the page from week to week. Why would this be happening?
Algorithm Updates | | Benjamin3790 -
Is there a way to know what rank my site is listed on google ?
My current client web page was listed at the 4th page 1 month ago. Im trying real hard to make him understand that the traffic from beiing on the first page is important and that he need to give me additionnal ressource to make it happen ( i don't prog at all). So i had the idea of checking every page to see whats is current rank. but instead of looking from page 1 to page X, i was wondering if there was something somewhere that could give me my rank right away. It woud help saving time. Thx.
Algorithm Updates | | Promoteam0