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.
Sub-Domain Google Search Nested under main Domain?
-
Hello,
I have a strange issue that I have not come across before:My subdomain is: michigan.dogdaycare.com.
Some of the Keyword searches show our subdomain being nested under the main domain for Google searches instead of being indexed individually.
Example search term: Dogtopia Bloomfield
https://www.google.com/?gws_rd=ssl#q=dogtopia+bloomfield
-This will show two subdomain links nested under the main domain
Example search term: Dogtopia Birmingham
https://www.google.com/?gws_rd=ssl#q=dogtopia+birmingham
-This shows the subdomain showing correctly in searches and not nested.
Any idea as to how to fix this?
Thanks in advance!
-
Thanks for your advice and tips!
-
I'm wondering if you can correct this with link building. Your domain has some decent authority, so it's probably a trust of the primary domain over the subdomain in this case.
In contrast, I have a subdomain that generated quite a bit of editorial coverage that stands on its own in SERPs, and I believe that is because of the link profile to it.
I'll leave you with a couple ideas...
- Get rid of the button link on the michigan.dogdaycare.com page to /bloomington/ and instead, link them the other way (ie corporate page to business listing on subdomain).
- Also, on the corporate domain, if you do any internal linking, switch them to the Michigan subdomain URL instead of /bloomfield/
- Do something to generate some inbound links to your subdomain listing, and do it without including links to anywhere on the main domain. Honestly, something as simple as Moz Local, a press release that gets picked up by some local publications, and maybe some links to that subdomain URL from some doggy daycare directories will help that, IMO.
- Moving forward, show no link love to the corporate domain page.
-
Within Webmaster Tools you could possibly exclude the subdomain pages from being listed as site links, but Google has stated they're trying to get better at associating when subdomains are similar to subfolders on a site. Rand recently discussed that aspect of it here: http://moz.com/blog/subdomains-vs-subfolders-rel-canonical-vs-301-how-to-structure-links-optimally-for-seo-whiteboard-friday. Cheers!
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
-
Is there any way to report a website that is not complying with webmaster guidelines to Google?
Like how we can "suggest an edit" in Google Business Listings, is there any way to report Google about the webmaster guidelines violation?
Local Website Optimization | Jan 21, 2019, 1:56 PM | Alagurajeshwaran0 -
Google for Jobs: how to deal with third-party sites that appear instead of your own?
We have shared our company's job postings on several third-party websites, including The Muse, as well as putting the job postings on our own website. Our site and The Muse have about the same schema markup except for these differences: The Muse...
Local Website Optimization | Aug 21, 2018, 9:50 AM | Kevin_P
• Lists Experience Requirements
• Uses HTML in the description with tags and other markup (our website just has plain text)
• Has a Name in JobPosting
• URL is specific to the position (our website's URL just goes to the homepage)
• Has a logo URL for Organization When you type the exact job posting's title into Google, The Muse posting shows up in Google for Jobs--not our website's duplicate copy. The only way to see our website's job posting is to type in the exact job title plus "site:http://www.oursite.com". What is a good approach for getting our website's posting to be the priority in Google for Jobs? Do we need to remove postings from third-party sites? Structure them differently? Do organic factors affect which version of the job posting is shown, and if so, can I assume that our site will face challenges outranking a big third-party site?1 -
I have a client in Australia that is going to set up a website that is in Chinese to service their Asian customer base (Indonesia, Singapore, HK, China). What domain should they use?
They're website is hosted on a .com.au domain. Should they host their Chinese language pages under their current domain (.com.au) using a subdirectory (i.e. /asia) or should they use another separate domain that they own that is a regular .com? Or does it really not matter?
Local Website Optimization | May 10, 2017, 1:49 PM | 100yards1 -
Should I open a new domain and website for a new location under one company?
Hi my name is Gina and I wanted to ask for some advice. I'm thinking opening a diff location and was thinking if its a good idea to open up a new domain and new website? And why that may be a good idea and why or a bad idea and why?
Local Website Optimization | Dec 8, 2015, 7:01 PM | LittleDog0 -
How Google's Doorway Pages Update Affects Local SEO
Hey Awesome Local Folks! I thought I'd take a proactive stance and start a thread on the new doorway pages update from Google, as I feel there will be questions coming up about this here in the forum: Here's the update announcement: http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com/2015/03/an-update-on-doorway-pages.html And here's the part that will make local business owners and Local SEOs take a second glance at this: Here are questions to ask of pages that could be seen as doorway pages: Do the pages duplicate useful aggregations of items (locations, products, etc.) that already exist on the site for the purpose of capturing more search traffic? I think this will naturally lead to questions about the practice of creating local/city landing pages. At this point, my prediction is that this will come down to high quality vs. crummy quality pages of this type. In fact, after chatting briefly with Andrew Shotland, I'm leaning a bit toward seeing the above language as being strongly geared toward directory type sites and large franchises. I recommend reading Andrew's post about his take on this, as I think he's on the right track: http://www.localseoguide.com/googles-about-to-close-your-local-doorway-pages/ So, I'm feeling at this point that if you've made the right efforts to develop unique, high quality local landing pages, you should be good unless you are an accidental casualty of an over-zealous update. We'll see! If anyone has thoughts to contribute on this thread, I hope they will, and if lots of questions start coming up about this here in the community, feel free to link back to this thread in helping your fellow community members 🙂 Thanks, all!
Local Website Optimization | Mar 9, 2016, 8:50 PM | MiriamEllis9 -
Rebranding a Website to a new Domain Name
Hi All, I'm looking to rebrand my current website to a new domain name.
Local Website Optimization | Jul 7, 2014, 4:13 PM | Mark_Ch
In short the current website has out grown it's potential. The domain name is not memorable nor is it attracting a wider audience.
I will create my new website and 301 redirect the old website to the new, hence pass SEO value. Google Places
Having spoken to Google they tell me that I can simply change the URL in Google Places to the new URL. Articles on my current website
I have a number of rich content articles on my current website, can I simply create my new website and copy & paste these previously written articles? Google+, Twitter, Facebook, etc.
What should I do for accounts associated with the current website? Any other useful information would be much appreciated. Regards Mark0 -
SEO: .com vs .org vs .travel Domain
Hi there, I am new to MOZ Q&A and first of all I appreciate all the folks here that share their expertise and make everyone understand 'the WWW' a bit better. My question: I have been developing a 'travel guide' site for a city in the U.S. and now its time to choose the right domain name. I put a strong focus on SEO in terms of coding, site performance as well as content and to round things up I'd like to register the _best _domain name in terms of SEO. Let's suppose the city is Atlanta. I have found the following domain names that are available and I was wondering whether you guys could give me some inside on which domain name would perform best. discoveratlanta.org
Local Website Optimization | Apr 29, 2014, 7:33 AM | kinimod
atlantaguide.org
atlanta.travel
atlantamag.com Looking at the Google Adwords Keyword tool the term that reaches the highest search queries is obviously "Atlanta" itself. Sites that are already ranking high are atlanta.com and atlanta.gov. So basically I am wondering whether I should aim for a new TLD like atlanta.travel or rather go with a .org domain. I had a look around and it seems that .org domains generally work well for city guides (at least a lot of such sites use .org domains). However, I have also seen a major US city that uses .travel and ranks first. On the other hand in New York, nycgo.com ranks well. Is it safe to assume that from the domain names I mentioned it really doesn't matter which one I use since it wouldn't significantly affect my ranking (good or bad)? Or would you still choose one above the other? What do you generally thing about .travel domain names (especially since they are far more expensive then the rest)? I really appreciate your response to my question! Best,
kinimod0 -
International Site Geolocation Redirection (best way to redirect and allow Google bots to index sites)
I have a client that has an international website. The website currently has IP detection and redirects you to the subdomain for your country. They have currently only launched the Australian website and are not yet open to the rest of the world: https://au.domain.com/ Google is not indexing the Australian website or pages, instead I believe that the bots are being blocked by the IP redirection every time they try to visit one of the Australian pages. Therefore only the US 'coming soon' page is being properly indexed. So, I would like to know the best way to place a geolocation redirection without creating a splash page to select location? User friendliness is most important (so we don't want cookies etc). I have seen this great Whiteboard Friday video on Where to Host and How to Target, which makes sense, but what it doesn't tell me is exactly the best method for redirection except at about 10:20 where it tells me what I'm doing is incorrect. I have also read a number of other posts on IP redirection, but none tell me the best method, and some are a little different examples... I need for US visitors to see the US coming soon page and for Google to index the Australian website. I have seen a lot about JS redirects, IP redirects and .htaccess redirects, but unfortunately my technical knowledge of how these affect Google's bots doesn't really help. Appreciate your answers. Cheers, Lincoln
Local Website Optimization | Jan 16, 2014, 12:30 AM | LincolnSmith0