Rankings of Subdomains vs. Main Domain
-
Here's a puzzler...
Our main domain (www.ides.com) doesn't appear in Google (but does on Bing and other engines). We think this is due to duplicate content which we're fixing.
However our website's subdomains continue to appear prominently in SERPs, even on Google - here are some examples:
- IDES Prospector = prospector.ides.com
- IDES = support.ides.com
- Cycolac FR15 = catalog.ides.com
Why would Google penalize a main domain and its subdomains?
-
Maybe the robots problem fixes everything for you. I hope it does.
I always use the same kind of robots.txt -> as short as possible and as clear as possible. Archives and everything are allowed and so far (knocking on a piece of natural wood) never has something like this occurred. Again hope this helps your site
kind regards
Jarno
-
Thanks Jarno,
Good to know from your geographic location. Looking at analytics shows traffic is down about 60% from Google visits originating from the U.S. to our main domain.
The last ia_archiver blocks an archiving website - saw it in Bruce Clay's robots.txt (http://www.bruceclay.com/robots.txt).
But we are looking at cleaning up our robots.txt file so it's nice 'n tidy. There are things in there that can now be removed, so thank you for the reminding tip!
No errors in Google Webmaster. Did receive a message on Nov. 5th saying http://www.ides.com/: Big traffic change for top URL but no reasons listed.
-
Nathan,
i just checked it but Google has listed your website:
If you were truly penalized i don't think i would get the results I'm getting now. Have you checked your robots.txt file for any strange markings? strange signs or number sequences? When i look at it it looks like this:
User-agent: *
Disallow: /ArtScape/
Disallow: /aspnet_client/
Disallow: /costmate/CMHelp.aspx
Disallow: /demos/eplasturgy/
Disallow: /downloads/
Disallow: /email/
Disallow: /grades/
Disallow: /graveyard/
Disallow: /Gulf_War/
Disallow: //info/manufacturers/
Disallow: /LanapCaptcha.aspx
Disallow: /plasticsmarketplace/(S
Disallow: /processors/
Disallow: /PWeb
Disallow: /pweb/
Disallow: /news/
Disallow: /newsletters/archive/
Disallow: /newsletters/free/
Disallow: /newsletters/x5/
Disallow: /questions/
Disallow: /registration/
Disallow: /resinpricing/history.aspx
Disallow: /templates/
Disallow: /tools/CMHelp.aspx
Disallow: /thunderstone/
Disallow: /Web_Solutions.html
Sitemap: http://app.wistia.com/sitemaps/8875.xml
User-agent: ia_archiver
Disallow: /Maybe this last statement is confusing Google? i have never seen a ia_archiver disallow root statement before. Is it the right syntaxis?
What are your webmastertools saying? Any strange errors or messages?
Kind Regards
Jarno
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
-
Page Rank Flow
I wonder if someone can help me understand clearly page rank flow. If we have a website with a Home page, Services, About and Contact as a very basic website and the page rank will flow to each of those pages from the Home page (i'm not including internal linking between pages or anchor text from the home page content - this is a question purely about home page flow via the main navigation). If the Services page had 3 drop down pages. Would the home page rank also flow to each of these or is it going to the Services page which then distributes it to the three drop down. So instead of Home page rank flowing to 3 pages 33% each - it is flowing to 6 pages 16.6% each. Or is it flowing to 3 pages - 33.3% then the Services pages get a third of 33.3% ->10.1% I know this is simplifying it all a great deal- but it is the basic concept I am trying to grasp on this simple example. Thanks
Technical SEO | | AL123al0 -
Site hacked in Jan. Redeveloped new site. Still not ranking. Should we change domain?
Our top ranking site in the UK was hacked at the end of 2014. http://www.ultimatefloorsanding.co.uk/ The site was the subject of a manual spam action from Google. After several unsuccessful attempts to clean it up, using Securi.net and reinstating old versions of the site, changing passwords etc. we took the decision to redevelop the site. We also changed hosting provider as we had received absolutely no support from them whatsoever in resolving the issue. So far we have: Removed the old website files off the server Developed a new website having implemented 301's for all the old URL's (except the spam ones) Submitted a reconsideration request for the manual spam action, which was accepted. Disavowed all the spammy inbound links through Webmaster Tools Implemented custom URL parameters through Google to not index the SPAM URLs ( which were using parameters) Our organic traffic is down by 63% compared to last year, and we are not ranking for most of our target keywords any longer. Is there anything that I am missing in the actions I have taken so far? We were advised that at this stage changing domain and starting again might be the way to go. However the current domain has been used by us since 2007, so it would be a big call. Any advice is appreciated, thanks. Sue - http://www.ultimatefloorsanding.co.uk/
Technical SEO | | galwaygirl0 -
Old domain still being crawled despite 301s to new domain
Hi there, We switched from the domain X.com to Y.com in late 2013 and for the most part, the transition was successful. We were able to 301 most of our content over without too much trouble. But when when I do a site:X.com in Google, I still see about 6240 URLs of X listed. But if you click on a link, you get 301d to Y. Maybe Google has not re-crawled those X pages to know of the 301 to Y, right? The home page of X.com is shown in the site:X.com results. But if I look at the cached version, the cached description will say :This is Google's cache of Y.com. It is a snapshot of the page as it appeared on July 31, 2014." So, Google has freshly crawled the page. It does know of the 301 to Y and is showing that page's content. But the X.com home page still shows up on site:X.com. How is the domain for X showing rather than Y when even Google's cache is showing the page content and URL for Y? There are some other similar examples. For instance, you would see a deep URL for X, but just looking at the <title>in the SERP, you can see it has crawled the Y equivalent. Clicking on the link gives you a 301 to the Y equivalent. The cached version of the deep URL to X also shows the content of Y.</p> <p>Any suggestions on how to fix this or if it's a problem. I'm concerned that some SEO equity is still being sequestered in the old domain.</p> <p>Thanks,</p> <p>Stephen</p></title>
Technical SEO | | fernandoRiveraZ1 -
Buying Expired Domains
Recently i was looking to buy some good quality Expired Domains. But while performing site and links query on such domains in google, none of the domains are showing any links or pages indexed in Google but the same domains are showing hundreds of links in opensiteexplorer for that domains. So does Google has started devaluing expired domains or will expired domains recover all their rankings after re registration by us.
Technical SEO | | amit910 -
Multiple domains on the same hosting
Hello, I have around 80 sites (different domains) which are on the same host. Everytime I look up the IP of these domains, it gives me the same IP. The sites are interlinked, all linking to the main domain. My question is: Does the off site link building have effect on the 80 sites?
Technical SEO | | Arianittt0 -
Domains redirect influence search rankings
Hi seomoz, I'm currently optimizing a website which is www.photobookworldwide.com and the ranking is on 2nd page, but looking at the result this morning, instead of showing photobookworldwide.com, it show other result which is www.photobooklaos.com on 2nd page for the keyword photobooks. Our web developer using virtual domain, and redirected photobooklaos.com to photobookworldwide.com. Any solution for this? need you guys to help me on this. Cheers Gerald
Technical SEO | | greathokage0 -
New domain
Hi, I have a domain with no keywords on it, and I´ve been using it for years. Now I bought another domain with the keyword on it. I whant to work on seo for the second domain, with the keyword. What is the better way to work this out? 301? Duplicate de site? redirect in another way?
Technical SEO | | mgfarte0 -
Redirect Multiple Domains
This is a follow-up question from one posted earlier this month. I can't linked to that because it's a private question so I'm trying to summarize it below. We have a number of domains – about 20 - (e.g. www.propertysharp.com) that point to our main domain ip adress (www.propertyshark.com) and share the same content. This is no black-hat strategy whatsoever, the domains were acquired several years ago in order to help people who mistyped the websites url to reach their desired destination. The question was whether to redirect them to our main domain or not. Pros were the reportedly millions of incoming links from these domains - cons was the fact that lots of issues regarding duplicate content could arise and we actually saw lots of some pages from these domains ranking in the search engines. We were recommended to redirect them, but to take it gradually. I have a simple question - what does gradually mean - one domain per week, per month?
Technical SEO | | propertyshark0