undefined
Skip to content
Moz logo Menu open Menu close
  • Products
    • Moz Pro
    • Moz Pro Home
    • Moz Local
    • Moz Local Home
    • STAT
    • Moz API
    • Moz API Home
    • Compare SEO Products
    • Moz Data
  • Free SEO Tools
    • Domain Analysis
    • Keyword Explorer
    • Link Explorer
    • Competitive Research
    • MozBar
    • More Free SEO Tools
  • Learn SEO
    • Beginner's Guide to SEO
    • SEO Learning Center
    • Moz Academy
    • SEO Q&A
    • Webinars, Whitepapers, & Guides
  • Blog
  • Why Moz
    • Agency Solutions
    • Enterprise Solutions
    • Small Business Solutions
    • Case Studies
    • The Moz Story
    • New Releases
  • Log in
  • Log out
  • Products
    • Moz Pro

      Your all-in-one suite of SEO essentials.

    • Moz Local

      Raise your local SEO visibility with complete local SEO management.

    • STAT

      SERP tracking and analytics for enterprise SEO experts.

    • Moz API

      Power your SEO with our index of over 44 trillion links.

    • Compare SEO Products

      See which Moz SEO solution best meets your business needs.

    • Moz Data

      Power your SEO strategy & AI models with custom data solutions.

    NEW Keyword Suggestions by Topic
    Moz Pro

    NEW Keyword Suggestions by Topic

    Learn more
  • Free SEO Tools
    • Domain Analysis

      Get top competitive SEO metrics like DA, top pages and more.

    • Keyword Explorer

      Find traffic-driving keywords with our 1.25 billion+ keyword index.

    • Link Explorer

      Explore over 40 trillion links for powerful backlink data.

    • Competitive Research

      Uncover valuable insights on your organic search competitors.

    • MozBar

      See top SEO metrics for free as you browse the web.

    • More Free SEO Tools

      Explore all the free SEO tools Moz has to offer.

    NEW Keyword Suggestions by Topic
    Moz Pro

    NEW Keyword Suggestions by Topic

    Learn more
  • Learn SEO
    • Beginner's Guide to SEO

      The #1 most popular introduction to SEO, trusted by millions.

    • SEO Learning Center

      Broaden your knowledge with SEO resources for all skill levels.

    • On-Demand Webinars

      Learn modern SEO best practices from industry experts.

    • How-To Guides

      Step-by-step guides to search success from the authority on SEO.

    • Moz Academy

      Upskill and get certified with on-demand courses & certifications.

    • MozCon

      Save on Early Bird tickets and join us in London or New York City

    Unlock flexible pricing & new endpoints
    Moz API

    Unlock flexible pricing & new endpoints

    Find your plan
  • Blog
  • Why Moz
    • Small Business Solutions

      Uncover insights to make smarter marketing decisions in less time.

    • Agency Solutions

      Earn & keep valuable clients with unparalleled data & insights.

    • Enterprise Solutions

      Gain a competitive edge in the ever-changing world of search.

    • The Moz Story

      Moz was the first & remains the most trusted SEO company.

    • Case Studies

      Explore how Moz drives ROI with a proven track record of success.

    • New Releases

      Get the scoop on the latest and greatest from Moz.

    Surface actionable competitive intel
    New Feature

    Surface actionable competitive intel

    Learn More
  • Log in
    • Moz Pro
    • Moz Local
    • Moz Local Dashboard
    • Moz API
    • Moz API Dashboard
    • Moz Academy
  • Avatar
    • Moz Home
    • Notifications
    • Account & Billing
    • Manage Users
    • Community Profile
    • My Q&A
    • My Videos
    • Log Out

The Moz Q&A Forum

  • Forum
  • Questions
  • Users
  • Ask the Community

Welcome to the Q&A Forum

Browse the forum for helpful insights and fresh discussions about all things SEO.

  1. Home
  2. Moz Tools
  3. Moz Pro
  4. Why are my sub-domains ranking higher than my Root Domains?

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.

Why are my sub-domains ranking higher than my Root Domains?

Moz Pro
3
7
2.8k
Loading More Posts
  • Oldest to Newest
  • Newest to Oldest
  • Most Votes
Reply
  • Reply as question
Log in to reply
This topic has been deleted. Only users with question management privileges can see it.
  • simonberenyi
    simonberenyi last edited by Apr 14, 2012, 6:06 AM

    I have just noticed that my sub-domains are ranking higher in Mozrank and Moztrust than the root domain - that seems nuts. Am I doing something wrong?

    1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
    • ShaMenz
      ShaMenz @simonberenyi last edited by Apr 14, 2012, 7:45 PM Apr 14, 2012, 7:44 PM

      Glad to help anytime Simon.

      I know it's probably hard to believe right now, but I'm sure it won't be long and you'll be explaining stuff to others here in Q&A!

      Once all the pieces start to fall into place everything becomes much easier to understand and if you spend some time around the SEOmoz community you'll be flying in no time!

      Here's a post with links to all of the most important resources here are SEOmoz which might help you find your way around.

      Look forward to catching up with you around the community 🙂

      Sha

      1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
      • simonberenyi
        simonberenyi @simonberenyi last edited by Apr 14, 2012, 7:22 PM Apr 14, 2012, 7:22 PM

        Thankyou Chris and Sha for your feed back - I now have it clear in my head. You have been of great help. Thank you also for the link Sha.

        Warm Regards

        Simon

        1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
        • ShaMenz
          ShaMenz @simonberenyi last edited by Apr 14, 2012, 7:48 PM Apr 14, 2012, 4:07 PM

          Hi again waspman,

          No worries...it takes a little getting your head around when you start out 🙂

          As Chris confirmed, the root domain is waspkilluk.co.uk.

          The most common subdomain is the www, which is standard, but you can also create other subdomains if you wish.

          Perhaps the most visible real world example of a site that uses subdomains is Google -  which uses subdomains to manage each of its specific products within the site. If you take a look at the URLs when you are using Google products you will see examples like places.google.com, maps.google.com, blogger.google.com, webmasters.google.com, www.google.com etc.

          A subdomain is referred to as a "third level" domain, created within another domain. As a rule, each level of a domain is defined by the dots (.) appearing in reverse order within a URL.

          So, in the Google Maps example:

          the Top Level Domain (TLD) is .com

          the second level domain is the chosen domain name google

          the third level domain (or subdomain) is maps

          In your case it is a little more complicated. You have an extra level in your domains because your Top Level Domain is the country designator .uk so your second level is actually .co, but for the purposes of understanding subdomains it won't hurt for you to think of .co.uk as your top level domain.

          Generally, most small sites don't require extra subdomains, so often the only subdomain in play is the www.

          Matt Cutts has a simple tutorial on the parts of a URL that makes it much easier to understand what is going on at a glance.

          Hope that helps,

          Sha

          1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
          • ChrisDyson
            ChrisDyson @simonberenyi last edited by Apr 14, 2012, 1:54 PM Apr 14, 2012, 1:54 PM

            That's right wapkilluk.co.uk is the root domain and www.waspkilluk.co.uk is your sub-domain

            1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
            • simonberenyi
              simonberenyi @ShaMenz last edited by Apr 14, 2012, 10:48 AM Apr 14, 2012, 10:48 AM

              Thank you Sha for answering.

              I am new to this - but I thought "www.waspkilluk.co.uk" was my root domain.

              So have I got this a little mixed up - is "waspkilluk.co.uk" my root domain and "www.waspkilluk.co.uk" classed as a sub-domain?

              Sorry if this sounds a little basic - be gentle.

              ChrisDyson ShaMenz simonberenyi 4 Replies Last reply Apr 14, 2012, 7:44 PM Reply Quote 0
              • ShaMenz
                ShaMenz last edited by Apr 14, 2012, 6:30 AM Apr 14, 2012, 6:30 AM

                Hi waspman,

                No, you are absolutely not doing anything wrong 🙂

                The simple answer is that you are acquiring links primarily to the sub-domains and not the root domains.

                To explain:

                "mozRank is SEOmoz's global link popularity score. It compares the relative link value (ranking power) between URLs on the Internet. It is similar in premise to Google's original PageRank metric but is updated more frequently and offers greater precision."

                You can read more about all of the SEOmoz Metrics at the Open Site Explorer explanatory page.

                So, if you go to Open Site Explorer and run a query for your sub-domain you will see the number of external links to that URL. If you then remove the www and run the query for the root domain you will see that there are 0 links to that URL.

                Since mozRank = link popularity - it should be higher for the sub-domain because that is where the links are pointing, and of course you want to ensure that your links are always consolidated to just one domain. So, things are exactly as they should be. 🙂

                Hope that helps,

                Sha

                simonberenyi 1 Reply Last reply Apr 14, 2012, 10:48 AM Reply Quote 4
                • 1 / 1
                1 out of 7
                • First post
                  1/7
                  Last post

                Got a burning SEO question?

                Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.


                Start my free trial


                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.

                • See all categories

                Related Questions

                • baddjuju

                  Unsolved Mobile Rankings for me and competitors disappear in Moz but still ranking.

                  rankings reports keyword rankings google mobile

                  Hi, I'm trying to create an SEO report for my client however their mobile rankings have completely disappeared for Google Mobile rankings. Competitors rankings have disappeared as well. Could this be a Moz configuration issue?

                  Moz Pro | Aug 12, 2023, 3:28 PM | baddjuju
                  0
                • HayleyBowyer

                  Moz Domain Authority [Megathread]

                  domain authority da

                  Hey Moz Community, We've noticed that there are questions about Domain Authority, what it is, and how to positively impact it. We're here to answer your questions! For a full overview, please see our help hub article here: https://moz.com/learn/seo/domain-authority First, it's important to keep in mind that Domain Authority (DA) is a search engine ranking score developed by Moz that predicts how likely a website is to rank in search engine result pages (SERPs). It is not a Google ranking factor. Domain Authority scores range from one to 100, with higher scores corresponding to a greater likelihood of ranking. Since DA is based on machine learning calculations, your site's score will often fluctuate as more, fewer, or different data points become available and are incorporated into those calculations. For instance, if facebook.com were to acquire a billion new links, every other site’s DA would drop relative to Facebook’s. Because more established and authoritative domains like Facebook will have increasingly larger link profiles, they take up more of the high-DA slots, leaving less room at the higher end of the scale for other domains with less robust link profiles. Therefore, it's significantly easier to grow your score from 20 to 30 than it is to grow it from 70 to 80. For this reason, it’s important to use Domain Authority as a comparative metric rather than an absolute one. The best way to influence your DA is to improve your overall site health with a focus on the quality and quantity of external links pointing to your site. Check out this video for more details on how to impact DA Happy analyzing!

                  Moz Pro | Dec 14, 2023, 11:42 AM | HayleyBowyer
                  0
                • agsln

                  Relation between domain age and domain authority?

                  what is relation between domain age and domain authority? Old registered domain help for domain authority higher or not? if so, but i am still in confused, http://www.green-lotus-trekking.com/ this is too old domain but authority is only 33?

                  Moz Pro | Oct 13, 2014, 9:14 AM | agsln
                  1
                • kpclaypool

                  Find Historical SERP Ranking for a Term?

                  Is there any way to find out what pages ranked for a given term historically? I.e. what were the top 10 search results for "Widgets" 6 months ago, 1 year ago, 2 years ago? If I had a campaign tracking that term, I'd be able to look back, but I do not. Does this data exist anywhere in a format that could be queried?

                  Moz Pro | Jun 15, 2013, 9:01 PM | kpclaypool
                  0
                • garypropellernet

                  What is the logarithmic scale used for domain authority?

                  I want to quantify how much better a score of 80 is compared to 60. Or 60 compared to 30 etc.... What is the logarithm base? Thanks, Rik

                  Moz Pro | Apr 25, 2013, 7:36 PM | garypropellernet
                  0
                • trainsimple

                  Why do my Rankings Report show different results than the Rank Tracker tool?

                  I noticed that my ranking report puts be at 33 in google for one term, but when I use the Rank Tracker under Research tools it places me at 15.

                  Moz Pro | Nov 7, 2012, 10:18 PM | trainsimple
                  0
                • anthonytjm

                  Domain.com and domain.com/index.html duplicate content in reports even with rewrite on

                  I have a site that was recently hit by the Google penguin update and dropped a page back. When running the site through seomoz tools, I keep getting duplicate content in the reports for domain.com and domain.com/index.html, even though I have a 301 rewrite condition. When I test the site, domain.com/index.html redirects to domain.com for all directories and root. I don't understand how my index page can still get flagged as duplicate content. I also have a redirect from domain.com to www.domain.com. Is there anything else I need to do or add to my htaccess file? Appreciate any clarification on this.

                  Moz Pro | Jun 26, 2012, 3:25 PM | anthonytjm
                  0
                • Caseman

                  What Exactly Does "Linking Root Domains" mean??

                  What Exactly Does "Linking Root Domains" mean?? And how does it affect your ranking for certain Keywords?? Thanks

                  Moz Pro | Jan 30, 2014, 2:54 PM | Caseman
                  57

                Get started with Moz Pro!

                Unlock the power of advanced SEO tools and data-driven insights.

                Start my free trial
                Products
                • Moz Pro
                • Moz Local
                • Moz API
                • Moz Data
                • STAT
                • Product Updates
                Moz Solutions
                • SMB Solutions
                • Agency Solutions
                • Enterprise Solutions
                Free SEO Tools
                • Domain Authority Checker
                • Link Explorer
                • Keyword Explorer
                • Competitive Research
                • Brand Authority Checker
                • Local Citation Checker
                • MozBar Extension
                • MozCast
                Resources
                • Blog
                • SEO Learning Center
                • Help Hub
                • Beginner's Guide to SEO
                • How-to Guides
                • Moz Academy
                • API Docs
                About Moz
                • About
                • Team
                • Careers
                • Contact
                Why Moz
                • Case Studies
                • Testimonials
                Get Involved
                • Become an Affiliate
                • MozCon
                • Webinars
                • Practical Marketer Series
                • MozPod
                Connect with us

                Contact the Help team

                Join our newsletter
                Moz logo
                © 2021 - 2025 SEOMoz, Inc., a Ziff Davis company. All rights reserved. Moz is a registered trademark of SEOMoz, Inc.
                • Accessibility
                • Terms of Use
                • Privacy

                Looks like your connection to Moz was lost, please wait while we try to reconnect.