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
      • Digital Marketers
      • Agency Solutions
      • Enterprise Solutions
      • Small Business Solutions
      • 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
      • Digital Marketers

        Simplify SEO tasks to save time and grow your traffic.

      • 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.

      • 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. SEO Tactics
    3. Intermediate & Advanced SEO
    4. SEO value in multiple backlinks from same domain and from various sub-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.

    SEO value in multiple backlinks from same domain and from various sub-domains.

    Intermediate & Advanced SEO
    3
    12
    16627
    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.
    • knielsen
      knielsen last edited by

      1. A site has a link to my site as one of their main tabs, which means whenever a user clicks through to another page within the site, my link - being a main tab - is there. This creates thousands of links from this site. How does Google treat this? Do we have a rough formula estimate. In other words, assume it creates 1,000 backlinks would the SEO value be around the same as if I had just 2 link total as a main tab, but on 2 different non-related sites? Or, does it actually count fully as 1,000 links?

      2. Links from various sub-domains. Several .EDU's are linking to my site. Different schools within the overall same university. Example: nursing.abc.edu links to my site, but so does business.abc.edu. For SEO does that count as much as if I had links from complete non-related universities, or would Google evaluate that these links are related (since same main domain) and that will discount any links more than 1 to some extent? If discounted, then what do we estimate the discount to be?

      thank yoyu

      1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
      • VentaMarketing
        VentaMarketing @knielsen last edited by

        Agreed. Thanks Cody.

        1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
        • WhoWuddaThunk
          WhoWuddaThunk @knielsen last edited by

          If it had a good reason to be there, and you had a decent link profile, then you are probably safe.  Even so, I'd say try to limit them to relevant pages.

          The real question, though, is how much traffic is driving?  If it is driving a lot of good traffic that converts, then you pretty much have to leave it there.

          1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
          • VentaMarketing
            VentaMarketing @knielsen last edited by

            Cody, I would like to hear your opinion, but in Kristian's case, I would not think removing these site wide links would be a good idea, unless the links are spammy. Especially if the website has a good reason to be there (ex: it is a good resource, it is a sponsor, it si the parent company, etc.). As long as not all of the links in Kristian's backlink profile are site wide, I wouldn't link the website is at risk of a penalty. Also, I would not think removing a site wide link on an .edu site would be a good idea, just becuase all of the referral traffic potential.

            Like I said, the site wide penalty seemed more geared to a web designer or hosting company that only have site wide links in their profile.

            Cody, what do you think?

            1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
            • WhoWuddaThunk
              WhoWuddaThunk @VentaMarketing last edited by

              Even prior to reading that I would agree with your analysis.  2 links from separate domains are better than 2 links from the same root domain.

              1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
              • WhoWuddaThunk
                WhoWuddaThunk @knielsen last edited by

                This article talks about a website that received the Penguin penalty, and was able to start recovering by reducing the amount of site wide links: http://searchenginewatch.com/article/2180722/Google-Penguin-1.1-Pushed-Out-As-Some-Sites-Report-Recovery

                "A) Remove all of the crap sitewide links, weird anchors first, B) continue building good links and C) take advantage of press by pinging Danny Sullivan to try and get it featured on SEL to get in front of Google. Obviously A) was not going to be completely possible so I was going for "remove most of your crappy links."

                So, I do believe that site wide links are bad, and that it would be better to limit the number of links.  Also, here is a reference about the diminishing returns on several links from one domain: http://www.seomoz.org/blog/understanding-link-based-spam-analysis-techniques

                "The first link from a domain carries the first vote and getting additional links from one particular domain will continue to increase the total value from a domain, but only to a point. Eventually inbound links from the same domain will continue to experience diminishing returns. Going from 1 link to 3 links from a domain will have more of an effect than 101 links to 103 links."

                1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
                • VentaMarketing
                  VentaMarketing @knielsen last edited by

                  Kristian,

                  There is not really a downside to having a link on multiple page's of a website. You just can't expect all of these links to be counted a independent,and equal to a website with a link profile that has a wide variety of linking root domains.

                  I would not recommend removing any links on these website. I would just focus your time on getting links from other of root domains.

                  1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                  • VentaMarketing
                    VentaMarketing @WhoWuddaThunk last edited by

                    Here is a recent article in published in Search Engine Journal about subdomains and subpages, as they relate to SEO:

                    http://www.searchenginejournal.com/subdomains-or-subfolders-which-are-better-for-seo/6849/

                    It looks like Cody is right, Google does recognize them has seperate, but a recent tweak in Google's algorithim, now cause them to be recognized as being associated with each other.

                    I would think that this means a link from a subdoamin and a root domain would not be equal to two links from two different root domains.

                    Cody, thanks for you insight, and I would love to hear what you think?

                    WhoWuddaThunk 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
                    • knielsen
                      knielsen @WhoWuddaThunk last edited by

                      1. it sounds like you think there could be downside in having this many links. Again, it is from a main tab on their homepage, and since the main tabs follow on all pages, so does my website link. I understand if the site linked to my site from different locations (main tab, in article, footer etc etc) that looks odd. But since it is from a main tab that creates thousands of links I can't understand why that could be a negative.
                      VentaMarketing WhoWuddaThunk 5 Replies Last reply Reply Quote 0
                      • WhoWuddaThunk
                        WhoWuddaThunk last edited by

                        1. To answer your first question, it does count all the links.  However, there is a massive diminishing return for anything over 2 links on one site.  So, having 1,000 links from one site would not be beneficial.  Instead, have them change it so you get one link on their top two pages, and none anywhere else.  You can use Opensiteexplorer.org and the top landing pages tab to find which two pages to request a link from.

                        2. A sub-domain is a separate site, and would therefor have its own ranking ecosystem.  Even a www.abc.edu is a sub-domain of abc.edu.  So, getting a link from a sub-domain would be as beneficial, everything else being equal, as getting it from the root domain.   Just make sure it's just a link or two, and not site wide like you suggested you currently have.

                        knielsen VentaMarketing 2 Replies Last reply Reply Quote 1
                        • knielsen
                          knielsen @VentaMarketing last edited by

                          thank you. This does make sense and I appreciate the insight. I am still curious if anyone may have even more specific insight on the matter. It would be interesting to know how much the SEO value gets reduced in both cases

                          1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                          • VentaMarketing
                            VentaMarketing last edited by

                            These links do not count as 1,000 links from 1,000 seperate website, since Google does recognize linking root domains.

                            The most important link to your website would be from the page with the highest page authority, which is almost always the home page.

                            I am not 100% sure, but I remember reading about a recent Google algorithm update that targets multiple links from one domain. Web design firms were affected, since they typcally sign the footer, which creates a link on every page of the website.

                            The subdomain, works similar to a subpage. Google will notice the root dominan, which is abc.edu.

                            I do not think you are at risk of a penalty or anything like that, but if you want to continue to increase your rankings, once you get a link from a domain, I would focus my efforts on getting another link from a separate root domain, instead of a link from a subpage or subdomain from the same root domain.

                            knielsen 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
                            • 1 / 1
                            • First post
                              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

                            • jdenbo_edf

                              Is an iframe redirect on the same Domain bad for SEO

                              Good morning. We have a vendor that has created a landing page with content  that we want to use.  Because of the way we built the site, the only way to use the content is to create an i-frame.  The i-frame is re-directingon the same Domain.  Would we benefit from the SEO Content?

                              Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | jdenbo_edf
                              0
                            • kcb8178

                              Sub Domain Usage

                              I see that the gap uses gap.com, oldnavy.gap.com and bananarepublic.gap.com.  Wouldn't a better approach for SEO to have oldnavy.com, bananarepublic.com and gap.com all separate?  Is there any benefit to using the approach of store1.parentcompany.com, store2.parentcompany.com etc?  What are the pros and cons to each?

                              Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | kcb8178
                              0
                            • piazza

                              Changing Brand and Domain Name - SEO Impacts

                              Hi everyone I'm hoping a few of you can help me out... We're an online-one retailer and we're currently looking at rebranding.
                              This is for commercial reasons: Our current name is difficult for customers to spell It's not wholly representative of what we now offer We want to push offline and social marketing to help increase or DA In a nutshell, our current name implies 'cheap' and we're moving more upmarket.
                              Our DA is only 10, and a re-brand will make our brand more marketable.
                              A stronger brand and DA will help us climb up the rankings quickly - last year we ranked no 1 for a relatively competitive term before dropping a few places. In terms of current traffic: 30% is via SEO (we have a low DA but rank ok for certain phrases) 70% is via adwords We had our website redesigned last year and it performs well. 
                              The idea is to have a new brand logo and colours and move to a new domain.
                              We will keep all our existing products and content. Please could anyone let me know the implications of this move?
                              What are potential pitfalls, and what will we need to do to alert Google?
                              I have read about 301 redirects, would these be required? As always, any help is very much appreciated. Many thanks Abs

                              Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | piazza
                              0
                            • Tormar

                              Bit.ly backlinks

                              Hi all, what experience do you have with Bit.ly links? Can I use it for backlinking management?

                              Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Tormar
                              3
                            • JonathonOhayon

                              How does having multiple pages on similar topics affect SEO?

                              Hey everyone, On our site we have multiple pages that have similar content. As an example, we have a section on Cars (in general) and then specific pages for Used Cars, European Cars, Remodeled Cars etc. Much of the content is similar on these page and the only difference is some content and the additional term in the URL (for example car.com/remodeled-cars and /european-cars). In the past few months, we've noticed a dip in our organic ranking and started doing research. Also, we noticed that Google, in SERPs, shows the general page (cars.com/cars) and not the specific page (/european-cars), even if the specific page has more content. Can having multiple pages with similar content hurt SEO? If so, what is the best way to remedy this? We can consolidate some of the pages and make the difference between them a little clearer, but does it make that much of a difference for rankings? Thanks in advance!

                              Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | JonathonOhayon
                              0
                            • DarinPirkey

                              Best Practices for Moving a Sub-Domain to a Sub-Folder

                              One of my clients is moving their subdomain to a subfolder on their main domain.  (ie.  blog.example.com to example.com/blog) I just wanted to get everyone's thoughts on some best practices for things we should be doing/looking for when making this move.? ie WMT, .htaccess, 301s etc? Thanks.

                              Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | DarinPirkey
                              0
                            • eukmark

                              What are the effects of having Multiple Redirects for pages under the same domain

                              Dear Mozers, First of all let me wish you all a Very Happy, Prosperous, Healthy, Joyous & Successful New Year ! I'm trying to analyze one of the website's Web Hosting UK Com Ltd. and during this process I've had this question running through my mind. This project has been live since the year 2003 and since then there have be changes made to the website (obviously). There have also been new pages been added, the same way some new pages have even been over-written with changes in the url structures too. Now, coming back to the question, if I've have a particular url structure in the past when the site was debuted and until date the structure has been changes thrice (for example) with a 301 redirect to every back dated structure, WOULD it impact the sites performance SEOwise ? And let's say that there's hundreds of such redirections under the same domain, don't you think that after a period of time we should remove the past pages/urls from the server ? That'd certainly increase the 404 (page not found) errors, but that can be taken care of. How sensible would it be to keep redirecting the bots from one url to the other when they only visit a site for a short stipulated time? To make it simple let me explain it with a real life scenario. Say if I was staying a place A then switched to a different location in another county say B and then to C and so on, and finally got settled at a place G. When I move from one place to another, I place a note of the next destination I'm moving to so that any courier/mail etc. can be delivered to my current whereabouts. In such a case there's a less chance that the courier would travel all the destinations to deliver the package. Similarly, when a bot visits a domain and it finds multiple redirects, don't you think that it'd loose the efficiency in crawling the site? Ofcourse, imo. the redirects are important, BUT it should be there (in htaccess) for only a period of say 3-6 months. Once the search engine bots know about the latest pages, the past pages/redirects should be removed. What are your opinions about this ?

                              Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | eukmark
                              0
                            • Rocket.Fuel

                              Keep multiple domains or combine them?

                              I need some help figuring out if I should combine multiple domains or if I should let them be separate? I have domain1.com, domain2.com, and domain3.com. Well, domain1.com owns domain2.com and domain3.com. And currently domain1.com points to domain2.com and domain3.com from the homepage. They are going through some changes at their business, and now the option is on the table to combine the domains or still let them be separate as long as they link to each other. What is the best way to handle this and are there more things I should go through before making a decision? None of them have a ton of links to them, and they aren't super robust, but would just to have some advice. Thanks a lot

                              Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Rocket.Fuel
                              0

                            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.