Switch to naked domain that has higher page authority
-
Brilliant Moz community!
I just started here and find it so helpful and am confident that I can get an answer to this.
Our domain is currently https://www.example.com. I have been wanting to move to https://example.com just for a cleaner URL.
To my surprise, https://example.com has the same DA but a significantly higher page authority than our current https://www.example.com.
Of course my immediate reaction is to 301 to the https://example.com but I wanted to get some advice and anything we should consider before doing this.
My other question would be - how is this possible? I don't remember that we ever used that domain but we also had some rather bad developers a couple of years back.
Thank you so much in advance!
-
Thank you, Rob! I'll let you know how it goes.
-
My pleasure sir - glad to be of help!
Yea I remember running the naked switch (sounds naughty) for our site a while back and I was a bit jittery but since we are operating with an algorithm the best thing to remember is that you can always make adjustments as long as you are making "educated guesses" with the intent of moving in the right direction.
From what I'm hearing you shouldn't have any issues with the switch - with the canonical tags you are avoiding any chance of duplicate pages and the naked url will give you slightly bigger boosts on the PA side - terrific for local organic ranking and SEO.
The primary focus of not changing URL structure is to avoid getting your link juice bottled up somewhere in your site (or the dreaded repetitive internal linking cycles). Changing domains isn't a terrible idea as long as it's done properly. Sounds like you've got it in hand though so best of luck in moving forward!
All the best,
Rob
-
Rob,
Thank you for such a fantastic and thorough answer. Helped immensely. We are about to move our site to a new host so I am thinking of having them change it all at that point.
So just to confirm, we are going to be changing our canonical domain from https://www. to https://(no www).
I've run many links through the Pro tool and seem to have same or higher PA for each.
I am not sure why, but it seems a little scary to do this :). I think it is because of how much I read about NOT changing domains/URL structure.
Very appreciative!
Kris
-
Hi Kris,
Yes PA will increase with a naked domain - Google has outlined that it enjoys seeing this and has directions on how to do it with Google Sites (Link Below):
https://support.google.com/a/answer/2518373?hl=en
Redirecting is a good move and can be done through your CMS - how you do this will depend on what you are using to operate your site. Keep in mind that redirects can affect the power of any links pointing to your Home Page and this will affect link juice flowing through the rest of your site to some degree. Depending on the scope of your service area and what kind of SEO you are running (Local, Global or PPC), this will have a greater or lesser impact on what you do moving forward.
In terms of what is creating the better PA - a combination of Google's approach to ranking sites and what your external links are pointing to are probably the answer. If external links are pointing to your naked domain instead of the www. version, this would explain what you are seeing.
Without knowing the site or the context it's hard to know for sure, but those are my guesses.
Hope this helps and fire any additional questions/info you want at me and I will try to help out as best I can.
Cheers,
Rob
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
-
Domain Transition: Leaving low quality content behind
We're in the initial stages of planning a domain transition / rebrand. We're considering 301'ing our low and high(er) quality content split to two different domains. One for the low quality, one for our high. Best practices normally tell you to not split your content between between multiple domains. However, what if the majority of pages on your site are thin/outdated, and attract low volume/long tail? Does it make sense to bring that low quality/volume content over the new domain, when you know you'll never have the resources (nor would it make sense to) mass improve the quality of these pages? I'm concerned the quality of these pages are affecting our overall domain authority. Some background on our site/business: Current site has 15,000+ pages. 98% of our site is a product directory of professional/enterprise business management software. While a small handful of our product pages have quality original long form content (maybe 50-100), most of the product pages are a combination of: thin, outdated, overly sales-y content provided directly from product developers, and/or catch only very low-volume/long tail organic traffic. 95% of our pages attract fewer than 20 visits/mo, 90% of our pages attract fewer than 10 visits/mo. We have a small business of about 10 employees. Most of which don't maintain our site. It's unrealistic for us to genuinely improve the quality of that many pages. Nor does it make sense to improve most of these pages, as they'll attract only very low volume keywords. Individually these low quality pages don't bring in many customers, but on aggregate they do. 70% of our organic conversions come from pages with less than 20 visits/mo. A few questions: Is this content negatively affecting our domain authority in any way? While I don't believe we've been hit with a penalty, Google knows that on average our pages aren't very helpful to many users, and I'm concerned that affects our ability to rank with pages that matter. None of the content was mass produced in any form of scraping efforts or anything nefarious like that. Would there be any negative/positive affect to offloading these low quality/volume pages to a different domain during the rebrand?
Branding | | dsbud0 -
In Google SERPs some companies / government agencies have a Google-generated card for their organization and it references their Wikipedia page. It does not show for all companies /orgs that have a Wikipedia page. What is the criteria to have it shown?
Does Google have specific criteria to show a large card in the top right of SERPs that links to a national organization's Wikipedia-referenced info? These do not appear to be the Google Business Card created by individual organizations. Example having the card and org is on wikipedia: https://www.google.com/?ion=1&espv=2#q=u.s. department of labor Example no card shown and org is on wikipedia: https://www.google.com/?ion=1&espv=2#q=Occupational+Information+network
Branding | | Shirley.Fenlason0 -
Moving to a new domain
Hi, We are about to rebrand. This means we need to move all of our content on to a new domain. I want to make sure this process is as smooth as possible and we don't lose too much by way of rankings. I have read this page: http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.co.uk/2008/04/best-practices-when-moving-your-site.html and plan on following the instructions to the letter, but was wondering if anyone had any additional tips? Also, the article linked above is OLD. From 2008, is there anything'new' that I should know? Thank you (in advance) for any help you can offer, it is much appreciated! Best wishes, Amelia EDIT: I forgot quite a big element when first posting this question! We are merging two existing websites into the new URL. The two sites are for two different products we offer, but we'll now be offering both products under the same URL.
Branding | | CommT0 -
Moving to new domain - Social and Branding Questions?
Hi, We are moving to a new domain because our rankings drastically dropped and we want to "start over". For example - If my company is called Joes Computers and the domain was JoesComputers.com and the new domain which will hold our e-commerce website will be completely different for example - BestComputers.com - which do I brand? Which do I put as suffix in all titles?
Branding | | BeytzNet
COOL TITLE FOR PRODUCTS | Best Computers
or
COOL TITLE FOR PRODUCTS | Joes Computers Which name do I take for social profiles? Company or Domain?
(We currently have for the company since it was the same). Please note that our company name is already a little bit known... and therefore inside the website it will be labeled in Logos etc. We would also state "Best Computers by Joes Computers" (as if it is a sub brand or daughter company). Thanks,0 -
Why has Google started to re-write my page titles?
Since earlier this week I've noticed that Google has started to re-write several of our page titles and I'm not entirely sure why - does anyone have any info? We are a UK business and currently have top spot for the keyword 'toilet cubicles' - however, our index.html page title has changed as follows: FROM: Toilet Cubicles | WC Panel Systems for Washrooms | Cubicle Centre TO: Cubicle Centre: Toilet Cubicles | WC Panel Systems for Washrooms Is this Google favouring a more brand-led approach to search? Be interesting to hear everyone's thoughts... Cheers, Craig.
Branding | | cubicle_Craig0 -
Social Media Icons for trust - have link land them on a social media page or have them stay on the page with like, tweet, +,etc?
An interesting question arises out of a conversation with one of my team. We were talking about FB pages in particular regarding a client and I am for icons that allow for trust without leaving the client's site page (I am from a direct marketing background originally and am against sending them somewhere else). She was pointing out that we had a client who has a FB page and we were not sending them to that page. I explained how I do not like to gain a bit of trust by sending them off site because it is the opportunity to lose a conversion by them becoming distracted. I also thought of a client who has over 100,000 likes, shares, etc. and who still is in the direct sales business at the end of the day; were they better off with a prospective client/customer to send them to their FB page/Twitter page, etc. or should they stay on the commercial site? I still believe that in the bricks and mortar world, I would not have a customer who came in to buy/look at a TV first go down the street to a social club for people who liked my company and then hope they come back and buy. Also, is there an opportunity to close a sale that would not have been closed by virtue of sending them away or to increase the size of the sale (remember, this must be such a sale increase or probability of sale increase as to outweigh the risk of loss of a client who would have bought)? I look forward to your assistance.
Branding | | RobertFisher0 -
Should we have customers like our URL or our Facebook brand page?
(Note: main question in bold) I know this post basically establishes that Facebook shares are not a strong cause of increased rankings. But what about likes? I've searched and read through the forum and YouMoz blog but haven't really found this question answered. We just redesigned our site and we're implementing sharing options in the booking and order completion processes - should we point the Facebook Like button to like our URL or our Facebook brand page (currently with 3,800+ likes)? Seems that a like of the URL would be more direct ranking value (what we're going for), but according to that same post mentioned above, Google doesn't crawl or index FB wall pages... so is all Facebook activity - shares, url likes, brand page likes - for naught? (at least for now, till Google starts using that info)
Branding | | DanielH0 -
I need to get my hands on some already registered domains?!?
Hi Guys & Gals, There are a couple of already registered domains i'd like to get my hands on, but i'm coming up against a brick wall. I have already tried contacting the domain owners directly if there contact info is available through whois and tried using a domain brokerage service from the likes of SEDO to try and acquire the domain on my behalf...but they seem to only work they have solid whois contact info to use. My problem is that where do I turn now after the above routes failing? Are there any good domain brokerage services you are aware off or any other approach I could try to aquire such domains?? Thanks James
Branding | | cewe0