undefined
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
    • MozCon
    • 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.

    Track AI Overviews in Keyword Research
    Moz Pro

    Track AI Overviews in Keyword Research

    Try it free!
  • 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. Subdomain replaced domain in Google SERP

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.

Subdomain replaced domain in Google SERP

Intermediate & Advanced SEO
5
10
2.9k
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.
  • chiplab
    chiplab last edited by Jun 6, 2016, 11:27 AM

    Good morning,

    This is my first post.  I found many Q&As here that mostly answer my question, but just to be sure we do this right I'm hoping the community can take a peak at my thinking below:

    Problem: We are relevant rank #1 for "custom poker chips" for example. We have this development website on a subdomain (http://dev.chiplab.com).  On Saturday our live 'chiplab.com' main domain was replaced by 'dev.chiplab.com' in the SERP.

    Expected Cause: We did not add NOFOLLOW to the header tag. We also did not DISALLOW the subdomain in the robots.txt. We could have also put the 'dev.chiplab.com' subdomain behind a password wall.

    Solution: Add NOFOLLOW header, update robots.txt on subdomain and disallow crawl/index.

    Question: If we remove the subdomain from Google using WMT, will this drop us completely from the SERP? In other words, we would ideally like our root chiplab.com domain to replace  the subdomain to get us back to where we were before Saturday.  If the removal tool in WMT just removes the link completely, then is the only solution to wait until the site is recrawled and reindexed and hope the root chiplab.com domain ranks in place of the subdomain again?

    Thank you for your time,

    Chase

    1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
    • eyepaq
      eyepaq @chiplab last edited by Jun 7, 2016, 4:52 AM Jun 7, 2016, 4:52 AM

      Hi Chase,

      Removing dev via web master tools should do the trick for now. Then since google won't get to dev anymore you should be safe.

      Adding both noindex and password protection is not needed. Since it's password protected Google won't get to see the noindex on the pages. So you should only do one of the two. No need to change now. The password protection is safe.

      As expected 'dev.chiplab.com' was removed from the SERP.  Now, I'm a bit worried that the link equity was transferred for good to the subdomain from 'www.chiplab.com'.  That's not possible, right?

      *** Yes, that's not possible so you are good.

      Only 301 redirections are "mandatory" for Google to pass equity - so all good.

      1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
      • LoganRay
        LoganRay @chiplab last edited by Jun 6, 2016, 8:56 PM Jun 6, 2016, 8:56 PM

        No worries, that's what this community is here for!

        Google views subdomains as different entities. They have different authority metrics and therefore different ranking power. Removing a URL on a subdomain won't have any affect on it's brother over on a different subdomain (for example: dev. and www.).

        Good call to keep the disallow: / on the dev.chiplab.com/robots.txt file - I forgot to mention that you should leave it there, for anti-crawling purpose.

        This is the query you'll want to keep an eye on. The info: operator is new and can be used to show you what Google has indexed as your 'canonical' homepage.

        1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
        • chiplab
          chiplab @LoganRay last edited by Jun 6, 2016, 6:40 PM Jun 6, 2016, 6:40 PM

          Hi Logan,

          Last follow-up.  I swear. 🙂

          Since I'm pretty new to this I got scared and cancelled the 'dev.chiplab.com' link removal request.  I did this because I didn't want to go up 14 days without any traffic (this is the estimated time I found that the Google SERP can take to be updated even though we "fetched as GoogleBot in GWT).  May be wrong on the SERP update time?

          So what I did was add a 301 permanent redirect from 'dev.chiplab.com' to 'www.chiplab.com'. I've kept the NOFOLLOW/NOINDEX header on all 'dev' subdomains of course.  I've kept the DISALLOW in robots.txt for the dev.chiplab.com site specifically.  So now I just plan on doing work in the 'dev' site (because I can't test anything with the redirects happening).  And then hopefull in 14 days or so the domain name will change gracefully in the Google SERP from dev.chiplab.com to www.chiplab.com.  I did all of this because of how many sales we would lose if it took 14 days to start ranking again for this term.  Good?

          Best,

          Chase

          LoganRay 1 Reply Last reply Jun 6, 2016, 8:56 PM Reply Quote 0
          • LoganRay
            LoganRay @chiplab last edited by Jun 6, 2016, 6:22 PM Jun 6, 2016, 6:22 PM

            You should be all set# I wouldn't worry about link equity, but it certainly wouldn't hurt to keep an eye on your domain authority over the next few days.

            chiplab 1 Reply Last reply Jun 6, 2016, 6:40 PM Reply Quote 1
            • chiplab
              chiplab @LoganRay last edited by Jun 6, 2016, 5:50 PM Jun 6, 2016, 5:50 PM

              Hi Logan,

              Thanks for fast reply!

              We did the following:

              1. Added NOINDEX on the entire subdomain
              2. Temporarily removed 'dev.chiplab.com' using Google Webmaster Tools
              3. Password protected 'dev.chiplab.com'

              As expected 'dev.chiplab.com' was removed from the SERP.  Now, I'm a bit worried that the link equity was transferred for good to the subdomain from 'www.chiplab.com'.  That's not possible, right?  Do we now just wait until GoogleBot crawls 'www.chiplab.com' and hope that it is restored to #1?

              Thank you for your time (+Shawn, +Matt, +eyqpaq),

              Chase

              LoganRay eyepaq 2 Replies Last reply Jun 7, 2016, 4:52 AM Reply Quote 0
              • eyepaq
                eyepaq last edited by Jun 6, 2016, 6:05 PM Jun 6, 2016, 1:39 PM

                noindex would be the easiest way.

                Seen some people having the same issue fixing it by adding rel canonical to dev pointing to the new site and so the main site got back step by step with no interruptions...

                Cheers.

                1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
                • Shawn_Huber
                  Shawn_Huber @LoganRay last edited by Jun 6, 2016, 12:29 PM Jun 6, 2016, 12:29 PM

                  Just like Chase said, noindex your dev site to let the search engines know that it should not show in search. I do this on my dev sites everytime.

                  1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                  • mattdinbrooklyn
                    mattdinbrooklyn last edited by Jun 6, 2016, 6:05 PM Jun 6, 2016, 12:21 PM

                    The most ideal method would be to make the dev page password protected. What I would do is to 301 redirect the dev page to the subsequent correct site pages and then when the SERP refreshes, I'd make the dev site a password protected site.

                    1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
                    • LoganRay
                      LoganRay last edited by Jun 6, 2016, 6:04 PM Jun 6, 2016, 12:20 PM

                      Hi Chase,

                      Removing the subdomain within Search Console (WMT) will not remove the rest of your WWW URLs. Since you have different properties in Search Console for each, they are treated separately. That removal is only temporary though.

                      The most sure-fire way to ensure you don't get dev. URLs indexed is to put a NOINDEX tag on that entire subdomain. NOFOLLOW simply means that links on whatever page that tag is on won't be followed by bots.

                      Remember, crawling and indexing are different things. For example, if on your live www. site you had an absolute link somewhere in the mix that had dev.chiplab.com in it, since you presumably haven't nofollowed your live site, a bot will still access that page. The same situation goes for a robots.txt disallow. That only prevents crawling, not indexing. In theory, a bot can get to a disallowed URL and still index it. See this query for an example.

                      Shawn_Huber chiplab 2 Replies Last reply Jun 6, 2016, 5:50 PM Reply Quote 2
                      • 1 / 1
                      1 out of 10
                      • First post
                        1/10
                        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

                      • gaiaslastlaugh

                        Does redirecting from a "bad" domain "infect" the new domain?

                        Hi all, So a complicated question that requires a little background. I bought unseenjapan.com to serve as a legitimate news site about a year ago. Social media and content growth has been good. Unfortunately, one thing I didn't realize when I bought this domain was that it used to be a porn site. I've managed to muck out some of the damage already - primarily, I got major vendors like Macafee and OpenDNS to remove the "porn" categorization, which has unblocked the site at most schools & locations w/ public wifi. The sticky bit, however, is Google. Google has the domain filtered under SafeSearch, which means we're losing - and will continue to lose - a ton of organic traffic. I'm trying to figure out how to deal with this, and appeal the decision. Unfortunately, Google's Reconsideration Request form currently doesn't work unless your site has an existing manual action against it (mine does not). I've also heard such requests, even if I did figure out how to make them, often just get ignored for months on end. Now, I have a back up plan. I've registered unseen-japan.com, and I could just move my domain over to the new domain if I can't get this issue resolved. It would allow me to be on a domain with a clean history while not having to change my brand. But if I do that, and I set up 301 redirects from the former domain, will it simply cause the new domain to be perceived as an "adult" domain by Google? I.e., will the former URL's bad reputation carry over to the new one? I haven't made a decision one way or the other yet, so any insights are appreciated.

                        Intermediate & Advanced SEO | Apr 3, 2021, 3:22 AM | gaiaslastlaugh
                        0
                      • moon-boots

                        Google Pagination Changes

                        What with Google recently coming out and saying they're basically ignoring paginated pages, I'm considering the link structure of our new, sooner to launch ecommerce site (moving from an old site to a new one with identical URL structure less a few 404s). Currently our new site shows 20 products per page but with this change by Google it means that any products on pages 2, 3 and so on will suffer because google treats it like an entirely separate page as opposed to an extension of the first. The way I see it I have one option: Show every product in each category on page 1. I have Lazy Load installed on our new website so it will only load the screen a user can see and as they scroll down it loads more products, but how will google interpret this? Will Google simply see all 50-300 products per category and give the site a bad page load score because it doesn't know the Lazy Load is in place? Or will it know and account for it? Is there anything I'm missing?

                        Intermediate & Advanced SEO | May 24, 2019, 12:50 AM | moon-boots
                        0
                      • BHeffernan

                        Can subdomains hurt your primary domain's SEO?

                        Our primary website https://domain.com has a subdomain https://subDomain.domain.com and on that subdomain we have a jive-hosted community, with a few links to and fro. In GA they are set up as different properties but there are many SEO issues in the jive-hosted site, in which many different people can create content, delete content, comment, etc. There are issues related to how jive structures content, broken links, etc. My question is this: Aside from the SEO issues with the subdomain, can the performance of that subdomain negatively impact the SEO performance and rank of the primary domain? I've heard and read conflicting reports about this and it would be nice to hear from the MOZ community about options to resolve such issues if they exist. Thanks.

                        Intermediate & Advanced SEO | Feb 7, 2019, 9:42 AM | BHeffernan
                        1
                      • smpomoryCRH

                        How Can I Redirect an Old Domain to Our New Domain in .htaccess?

                        There is an old version of http://chesapeakeregional.com still floating around the web here: http://www.dev3.com.php53-24.dfw1-2.websitetestlink.com/component/content/category/20-our-services. Various iterations of this domain pop up when I do certain site:searches and for some queries as well (such as "Diagnostic Center of Chesapeake"). About 3 months ago the websitetestlink site had files and a fully functional navigation but now it mostly returns 404 or 500 errors. I'd like to redirect the site to our newer site, but don't believe I can do that in chesapeakeregional.com's .htaccess file. Is that so and would I need access to the websitetestlink .htaccess to forward the domain? Note* I (nor anyone else in our organization) has the login for the old site. The new site went live about 9 months before I arrived at the organization and I've been slowly putting the pieces together since arriving.

                        Intermediate & Advanced SEO | Jan 18, 2017, 9:25 PM | smpomoryCRH
                        0
                      • Agguk

                        Backlinks from old domain

                        Hi, We have gone through a change of company brand name including a new domain name.
                        We followed google recommendations at: https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/83106?hl=en and it seems to have worked really well, the new domain has replaced the old in the google search results. My question: Still most of our backlinks, both anchor text and links use the old brand name and domain and it´s a slow process trying to update all references. Although they get redirected fine to the new domain (also following google recommendations), I wonder if the current scenario is doing any harm, SEO wise (other than the missed visual exposure of the new brand name) ? ...since the old brand name is not present at the new site I´m thinking of including "New brand name - previously old brand name" somewhere just to provide some sort of connection to all old backlinks, would that be unnecessary? I should mention that the old brand name actually includes our most important keyword but the new brand name does not. Thanks!

                        Intermediate & Advanced SEO | Oct 6, 2016, 10:26 AM | Agguk
                        0
                      • SolveWebMedia

                        My site shows 503 error to Google bot, but can see the site fine. Not indexing in Google. Help

                        Hi, This site is not indexed on Google at all. http://www.thethreehorseshoespub.co.uk Looking into it, it seems to be giving a 503 error to the google bot. I can see the site I have checked source code Checked robots Did have a sitemap param. but removed it for testing GWMT is showing 'unreachable' if I submit a site map or fetch Any ideas on how to remove this error? Many thanks in advance

                        Intermediate & Advanced SEO | Nov 23, 2015, 1:10 PM | SolveWebMedia
                        0
                      • intentionally

                        Unique domains vs. single domain for UGC sites?

                        Working on a client project - a UGC community that has a DTC model as well as a white label model. Is it categorically better to have them all under the same domain? Trying to figure which is better: XXX,XXX pages on one site vs. A smaller XXX,XXX pages on one site and XX,XXX pages on 10-20 other sites all pointing to the primary site. The thinking on the second was that those domains would likely achieve high DA as well as the primary, and would passing their value to the primary. Thoughts? Any other considerations we should be thinking about?

                        Intermediate & Advanced SEO | Sep 23, 2014, 12:25 AM | intentionally
                        0
                      • imran2078

                        Should I redirect my Google Update Effected Domain to brand new Domain?

                        Hey Moz experts, I had a domain which was really doing better but after the Humming Bird update my traffic was decreased up to 90%. There are plenty of posts on my existing blog, Now what should I do? I mean should I redirect it to a brand new domain or Copy all the posts to a brand new domain and delete my existing domain? Note that the Old domain has PR1, DA 19 and PA 30.

                        Intermediate & Advanced SEO | Mar 16, 2014, 3:18 PM | imran2078
                        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
                      • Digital Marketers
                      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.