I have consolidated my subdomains into subfolders; should i remove the subdomains also?
-
Hi,
I have consolidated my website's many sub-domains into sub-folders. We had ~20 sub-domains. The sub-domains and the root domain shared the same code-base and sub-domain specific features were controlled using Apache's SetEnv directive in the httpd.conf includes.
Now they are consolidated. I have redirected all of the sub-domains to the relevant sub-folder; so http://sub1.mysite.com now 301 redirects to http://www.mysite.com/sub1.The redirects happen in the htaccess file and all sub-domains and the root are still pointing to the same code-base.
However, the Moz campaign tracker still occasionally tells me that i have optimisation opportunities at http://sub1.mysite.com and in both Bing and Google webmaster tools traffic to those sub-domains is mentioned.
Should i delete the subdomains?
Cheers
-
Robots.txt! That makes sense. I'll do that.
Thanks for your response.
-
If everything is redirecting properly, you shouldn't have an issue, and the subdomain still being present will actually be helpful to any folks with an outdated link or bookmark.
You may want to add noindex to the pages on those subdomains, or block them with robots.txt. Over time, that would get them out of the search results in favor of the new, up-to-date subfolders. Removing them, though, isn't necessary.
-
Hi Jimmy,
Thanks for responding and for the advice. When i hit the old sub-domain with Screaming Frog i get 301 moved permanently and nothing further is crawled. I Frog-crawled a number of the old URLs and they are all redirecting correctly with 301s. It looks like there is no duplicate content but i am still a bit uneasy that the old sub-domain shows up in Moz and the webmaster tools..
-
Hi,
To avoid any duplicate content, not having the subdomains is the safest way to do so.
Check the subdomains with something like the screaming frog, for what is returned, if there is content then you will need to redirect that content.
Kind Regards
Jimmy
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
-
If I get spammy backlinks removed is it still necessary to disavow?
Now there is some conflicting beliefs here and I want to know what you think. If I got a high spam website to remove my backlink, is a disavow through search console still necessary ? Keep in mind if it helps even in the slightest to improve rankings im for it!
Technical SEO | | Colemckeon1 -
Canonical vs Alternate for country based subdomain dupe content?
What's the correct method for tagging dupe content between country based subdomains? We have: mydomain.com // default, en-us www.mydomain.com // en-us uk.mydomain.com // uk, en-gb au.mydomain.com // australia, en-au eu.mydomain.com // europe, en-eu In the header of each we currently have rel="alternate" tags but we're still getting dupe content warnings in Moz for the "WWW" subdomain. Question 1) Are we headed in the right direction with using alternate? Or would it be better to use canonical since the languages are technically all English, just different regions. The content is pretty much the same minus currency and localization differences. Question 2) How can we solve the dupe content between WWW and the base domain, since the above isn't working. Thanks so much
Technical SEO | | lvdh11 -
Why google removed my landing pages from index?
I made new website meko.lv. I put many work to it, to make page SEO friendly, sprites, reduced requests added SSL, got google page speed insights score 100/100, but in 2. october all pages in google webmasters disappeared from index. Could you please look at website and say whats wrong with it? They are all search results present in google but for how long. it is so annoying, you put so many work but in result get high spam score. It is obvious that new pages can not get good links in one month https://meko.lv/ google webmasters google page speed score: https://developers.google.com/speed/pagespeed/insights/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fmeko.lv%2F&tab=mobile q1LDHTn
Technical SEO | | Mekounko0 -
Blocking subdomains without blocking sites...
So let's say I am working for bloggingplatform.com, and people can create free sites through my tools and those sites show up as myblog.bloggingplatform.com. However that site can also be accessed from myblog.com. Is there a way, separate from editing the myblog.com site code or files, for me to tell google to stop indexing myblog.bloggingplatform.com while still letting them index myblog.com without inserting any code into the page load? This is a simplification of a problem I am running across. Basically, Google is associating subdomains to my domain that it shouldn't even index, and it is adversely affecting my main domain. Other than contacting the offending sub-domain holders (which we do), I am looking for a way to stop Google from indexing those domains at all (they are used for technical purposes, and not for users to find the sites). Thoughts?
Technical SEO | | SL_SEM1 -
How to remove all sandbox test site link indexed by google?
When develop site, I have a test domain is sandbox.abc.com, this site contents are same as abc.com. But, now I search site:sandbox.abc.com and aware of content duplicate with main site abc.com My question is how to remove all this link from goolge. p/s: I have just add robots.txt to sandbox and disallow all pages. Thanks,
Technical SEO | | JohnHuynh0 -
Creating a Blog of Rodent Removal Companies?
I am helping a small company. Lets say rodent removal is their service. But local SEO for rodent removal is very very competitive in my town and across America. Would a website/blog dedicated to highlighting rodent removers across America be good for my company? We have had nice success with wordpress.com blogs. Supposing I gave 6 other rodent removal companies a free guest post (always 300 words or more) or whatever to post on my blog. Of course, none of these companies would be in my market. Would that help my local SEO? I am thinking long term here?
Technical SEO | | greenhornet770 -
Removal request for entire catalog. Can be done without blocking in robots?
Bunch of thin content (catalog) pages modified with "follow, noindex" few weeks ago. Site completely re-crawled and related cache shows that these pages were not indexed again. So it's good I suppose 🙂 But all of them are still in main Google index and shows up from time to time in SERPs. Will they eventually disappear or we need to submit removal request?Problem is we really don't want to add this pages into robots.txt (they are passing link juice down below to product pages)Thanks!
Technical SEO | | LocalLocal0 -
Blogs are best when hosted on domain, subdomain, or...?
I’ve heard the it is a best practice to host your blog within your site. I’ve also heard it’s best to put it on a subdomain. What do you believe is the best home for your blog and why?
Technical SEO | | vernonmack0