How do I optimize a website for SEO for a client that is using a subdirectory as a seperate website?
-
We launched a subdirectory site about two months ago for our client. What's happening is searches for the topic covered by the subdirectory are yielding search results for the old site and not the new site. We'd like to change this.
Are there best practices for the subdirectory site
Specifically we're looking for things we can do using sitemapping and Webmaster tools.
Are there other technical things we can do?
Thanks you.
-
Hi Dov,
You can definitely create separate sitemaps and GWT accounts for your two subdirectories if you prefer, but I don't think that it'll solve your problem. It sounds like the problem is, pages on the original subdirectory probably have a higher Page Authority and are outranking your new pages.
When there are two pages on the same site that are both relevant for a search term, Google tries to only display one. So, your best bet is to make sure that there aren't any pages on the old subdirectory that are relevant to the keywords that you want the new subdirectory to rank for. You have two options here:
- Remove pages from the old subdirectory that are ranking for terms that you want the new subdirectory to rank for. 301 redirect their URLs to the new subdirectory.
- For pages that you would like to stay on the site, change the wording so it doesn't compete with the new subdirectory.
I realize this is really general guidance, but it's tough to give more specific feedback unless I can see the site.
Hope this helps,
Kristina
-
The "new site" is meant to be a trendy informational source that's laid out in a blog format. Where as the "old site" is more so their marketing site.
The content in the "new site" is different from the "old one".
What we're looking for is more so how should we handle the subdirectory with regards to webmaster tools and sitemaps?
And if there are other technical things we should do.
And if we were to move or redirect the content on the "old site" to the "new site" would we need to do anything special?
-
Hi! Thanks for your question. I am curious, why did you launch the "new site" in a subdirectory of the "old site"? Is the content in the subdirectory ("new site") different from the content on the rest of the domain ("old site")? Finally, if you are able to share the domain, that would be very helpful.
Christy
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
-
John Mueller says don't use Schema as its not working yet but I get markup conflicts using Google Mark-up
I watched recently John Mueller's Google Webmaster Hangout [DEC 5th]. In hit he mentions to a member not to use Schema.org as it's not working quite yet but to use Google's own mark-up tool 'Structured Data Markup Helper'. Fine this I have done and one of the tags I've used is 'AUTHOR'. However if you use Google's Structured Data Testing Tool in GWMT you get an error saying the following Error: Page contains property "author" which is not part of the schema. Yet this is the tag generated by their own tool. Has anyone experienced this before? and if so what action did you take to rectify it and make it work. As it stands I'm considering just removing this tag altogether. Thanks David cqbsdbunpicv8s76dlddd1e8u4g
Technical SEO | | David-E-Carey0 -
Redesigning client website and will be losing a lot of landing pages. How to avoid tanking search traffic?
We are working with a client who is changing the direction of the company's marketing efforts. The current site includes many (approx 100) pages for each partner they work with (each partner has its own page). The new site will be losing many of these and we want to be sure we don't destroy organic traffic/rankings in the process. These landing pages don't directly garner the most traffic but it will definitely be a big change in the size of the site. Any advice for how to best handle the redesign is appreciated, thanks!
Technical SEO | | KMofOutlier0 -
Using 302 redirect for SEO
Hello, I'm in charge of SEO for an information website on which articles are only accessible if you have a login and password. Most of the natural links we get point to our subscribers' subomain : subscribers.mywebsite.com/article1 If they follow these natural links, visitors who are not logged get redirected (302) to www.mywebsite.com/article1 on which there is an extract of the article and they can request a free test subscription to read the end of the article. My goal is to optimize SEO for the www.mywebsite.com/article1 page. Does this page benefit from the links I get to the subscribers.mywebsite.com/article1 page or are theses links lost in terms of SEO? Thanks for your help, Sylvain
Technical SEO | | Syl200 -
Launching Website
We are developing a new website and thinking google would not find it because of the directory we put it in (no homepage yet) and because there are no links to it. For example, we are building it in this directory example.com/wordpress/ but somehow google found it and indexed pages not ready to be indexed. What should we do to stop this until we are ready to launch? Should we just use a robots.txt file with this in it? User-agent: *
Technical SEO | | QuickLearner
Disallow: / Will this create repercussions when we officially launch?0 -
Only my website homepage is appearing in search and the other indvidual pages are not coming up?This happened after the website revamp
We have revamped our website http://www.wsinetpower.com/ after te revamp the SEO rankings went down and the inner pages are not appearing in serach. What could be the reason
Technical SEO | | Muna0 -
4XX(Client Error)
Hello there Please help! I am getting this kind of error in the whole site. http://www.mileycyrus-online.co.uk/leaked-hannah-montana-the-movie-pictures.html/comments Running on wordpress site. I chagned the template few times.. most of the error ends with a /comments. Infact all my post has the same issue: http://www.mileycyrus-online.co.uk/miley-cyrus-at-golden-globes-ceremony.html/comments http://www.mileycyrus-online.co.uk/miley-cyrus-at-president-obamas-inauguration-concert.html/comments 404 Error.
Technical SEO | | ExpertSolutions0 -
As a wholesale website can our independent retailer's website use (copy) our content?
As a wholesaler of villa rentals, we have descriptions, images, prices etc can our agents (independent retailers) use the content from our website for their site or will this penalize us or them in Google rankings?
Technical SEO | | ewanTHH0 -
Optimizing the canibalization
My client has a website that ranks 1st on ex: widget for website.com The domain also has a section website.com/widgets that ranks lower in the SERP The question is... are there any on-page elements or tactics to improve that specific page without affecting the overall home page performance?
Technical SEO | | mosaicpro0