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  4. Does using a reverse proxy to make a subdomain appear as a subdirectory affect SEO?

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Does using a reverse proxy to make a subdomain appear as a subdirectory affect SEO?

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  • rodelmo4
    rodelmo4 last edited by Aug 30, 2016, 4:04 PM

    Using a reverse proxy only makes it appear that a subdomain is really a subfolder. However, links in the end remain the same. Does this have any negative (or positive) impact on SEO? Does it make it difficult from the blog's (subdomain's) sitemap or robots.txt file to be properly read by search engines?

    1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
    • joshibhargav_20
      joshibhargav_20 last edited by Mar 19, 2020, 2:14 AM Mar 19, 2020, 2:14 AM

      Hi,

      I have similar query for the specifc case. This also involves tracking on Google Analytics and Search Console Setup. Could you have a look at this question and share your thoughts? https://moz.com/community/q/using-a-reverse-proxy-and-301-redirect-to-appear-sub-domain-as-sub-directory-what-are-the-seo-risks

      1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
      • topic:timeago_earlier,4 years
      • rodelmo4
        rodelmo4 @max.favilli last edited by Aug 31, 2016, 2:06 PM Aug 31, 2016, 2:06 PM

        Also, quick question: when you say to be careful not to serve the robots file under the subfolder, should we delete it then? The subdomain is actually a wordpress site that serves as a blog, and so it's got its own robots file. So, right now, both robots files (main site + wordpress) are coexisting.

        1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
        • rodelmo4
          rodelmo4 @max.favilli last edited by Aug 31, 2016, 1:26 PM Aug 31, 2016, 1:26 PM

          Awesome! Thank you!

          1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
          • max.favilli
            max.favilli last edited by Aug 31, 2016, 1:26 PM Aug 31, 2016, 1:08 PM

            You can set it up to have the subdomain completely hidden behind the reverse proxy, if you do so, google won't notice any difference. If the subdomain is in the same local network you can just disconnect it from the internet, if you can't you can still set the subdomain robots.txt to reject crawlers. Just be carefull to do not serve the robots txt under the subfolder.

            rodelmo4 2 Replies Last reply Aug 31, 2016, 2:06 PM Reply Quote 0
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