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.

    Let your reputation grow with Reviews AI
    Moz Local

    Let your reputation grow with Reviews AI

    Learn more
  • 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. Can subdomains avoid spam penalizations?

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.

Can subdomains avoid spam penalizations?

Intermediate & Advanced SEO
3
8
1.5k
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.
  • fablau
    fablau last edited by Sep 12, 2016, 10:54 PM

    Hello everyone,

    I have a basic question for which I couldn't find a definitive answer for.

    Let's say I have my main website with URL:

    www.mywebsite.com

    And I have a related affiliates website with URL:

    affiliates.mywebsite.com

    Which includes completely different content from the main website. Also, both domains have two different IP addresses.

    Are those considered two completely separate domains by Google? Can bad links pointing to affiliates.mywebsite.com affect www.mywebsite.com in any way?

    Thanks in advance for any answer to my inquiry!

    1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
    • fablau
      fablau @Vijay-Gaur last edited by Sep 15, 2016, 3:06 PM Sep 15, 2016, 3:06 PM

      Sure, I understand, that makes sense. Thank you for your help!

      1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
      • Vijay-Gaur
        Vijay-Gaur @fablau last edited by Sep 15, 2016, 2:30 PM Sep 15, 2016, 2:30 PM

        Hi Fabrizo,

        As answered by Joshua Belland in above answer, you will need to be careful with how you plan it out.

        The IP and DNS need to be on a different server.

        Be careful about how prtovide link for these with each other.

        Regards,

        Vijay

        fablau 1 Reply Last reply Sep 15, 2016, 3:06 PM Reply Quote 0
        • fablau
          fablau @signet_int last edited by Sep 15, 2016, 1:53 PM Sep 15, 2016, 1:53 PM

          Sorry guys, I wasn't enough clear with my first question above, it was actually too generic.

          To cut to the chase, I am talking about our main website:

          www.virtualsheetmusic.com (IP 66.29.153.48)

          and our affiliate website which is:

          affiliates.virtualsheetmusic.com (IP 66.29.153.50)

          They have 2 different IPs, but they are on the same server and same network, of course their are on the same IP block.

          And I'd like to know to what extent the activity/status of one site can affect the other, but from what you are asking, I guess they could affect each other to some extent. I mean, Google could understand that they are part of the same "network" and then associate them anyway... right?

          Vijay-Gaur 1 Reply Last reply Sep 15, 2016, 2:30 PM Reply Quote 0
          • signet_int
            signet_int last edited by Sep 14, 2016, 8:32 PM Sep 14, 2016, 8:32 PM

            Are these subdomain properties on different A class ip blocks or different C class ip blocks?

            It think this all depends. If the IP addresses are in the same neighborhood or on the same subnets as each other then I would say yes. But beyond that you have to think about several other foot prints to look for:

            • Are the nameservers the same?
            • Are these ip addresses assigned to different regions?
            • Are you interlinking these web properties?
            • Even the fact that the subdomain is still associated with the domain makes nervous and only because that is easy for Google to track. If you think about how may other data points they use to find footprints in their algorithm, I don't see why that wouldn't be one of them.

            I would be careful with RankBrain continuously evolving and seeing how much turbulence there has been in the serps lately. Personally, my small PBN is completely on separate A Class IPs, with custom name servers, different hosts, and I only put premium content on it. It's not great for quick affiliate gigs, but it certainly helps sustain long term growth.

            fablau 1 Reply Last reply Sep 15, 2016, 1:53 PM Reply Quote 0
            • Vijay-Gaur
              Vijay-Gaur @fablau last edited by Sep 28, 2016, 5:36 PM Sep 14, 2016, 8:27 PM

              Hi Fabrizo,

              Yes, they would be treated as different entities, as a precaution, I would recommend the geographical location of the server IP to be far off and not from the same IP block.

              Thanks,

              Vijay

              1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
              • fablau
                fablau @Vijay-Gaur last edited by Sep 14, 2016, 8:19 PM Sep 14, 2016, 8:18 PM

                Thank you Vijay for your extensive answer, but as I wrote above, each sub-domain has its own separate IP address. So... if each sub-domain has its own IP address, are they treated as two completely different websites?

                Vijay-Gaur 1 Reply Last reply Sep 14, 2016, 8:27 PM Reply Quote 0
                • Vijay-Gaur
                  Vijay-Gaur last edited by Sep 14, 2016, 3:00 AM Sep 14, 2016, 3:00 AM

                  Hi Fabrizo,

                  A subdomain is treated a different entity, however since it comes from the same IP, it's risky to create backlinks to main the site and subdomain. Let me try to answer your question by giving you an example, where we experimented with the idea of subdomain and main site linking , it would help you understand how google treats them as different entities.

                  We had a client who runs one of his donation campaign for his project from his subdomain and used the main domain for commercial purpose.

                  He was linking both domains in reciprocal links to send traffic to donation subdomain from the main site and vice versa. The results were shocking as the donation website was ranking far better on even commercial keywords better than main website. We did a deeper analysis and found out the donation website was out-performing main website in terms of high authority contextual backlinks. After some time, the main site started dipping more on the organic traffic and results, we analysed and concluded it was reciprocal linking that was the source of the problem.

                  We had to make a choice either to remove reciprocal backlinks or test the subdomain on a separate IP. First, we removed the reciprocal links (even if the client was not ready easily) just to prove to the client that it was subdomain links that were causing the problem, the results were good as the main site recovered the ranks and traffic (we also implemented our planned off-page for both the sites) .

                  Now, this helped us conclude that same IP + subdomain was an issue but we were not sure whether moving to another server would help (not only IP, we had made clear that we wanted a separate location for server IP from hosting company). We shifted the IP first and then watched the results , the donation site was steadily improving on donation related keywords and dipping on commercial keywords, on the other hand, the main website crept up slowly in ranks on commercial keywords (they were medium-high competition keywords).

                  We made it clear to the client, that this time the links won't be reciprocal and he has to decide his priority about which site he wants to give follow and no follow links. The client wanted the backlinks from donation to the main site with do-follow links, so we created the same. This further helped our commercial website rank to improve, we are still running the websites in the same mode and the results are good.

                  I hope this answers your query and would help you have a decision. if you have further questions, please feel free to respond and ask.

                  Regards,

                  Vijay

                  fablau 1 Reply Last reply Sep 14, 2016, 8:18 PM Reply Quote 0
                  • 1 / 1
                  1 out of 8
                  • First post
                    1/8
                    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

                  • WhoseNo

                    My website is penalized from google with no message in GWT.

                    On 26 of October 2018 My website have around 1 million pages indexed on google. but after hour when I checked my website was banned from google and all pages were removed. I checked my GWT and I did not receive any message. Can any one tell me what are the possible reasons and how can I recover my website? My website link is https://www.whoseno.com

                    Intermediate & Advanced SEO | Oct 29, 2018, 1:28 PM | WhoseNo
                    0
                  • joemaresca

                    Can a .ly domain rank in the United States?

                    Hello members. I have a question that I am seeking to confirm whether or not I am on the right track. I am interested in purchasing a .ly domain which is the ccTLD for Libya. The purpose of the .ly domain would be for branding purposes however at the same time I do not want to kill the websites ability to rank in Google.com (United States searches) because of this domain. Google does not consider .ly to be one of those generic ccTLDs like. io, .cc, .co, etc. that can rank and Bitly has also moved away from the .ly extension to a .com extension. Back in 2011 when there was unrest in Lybia, a few well known sites that utilized the .ly extension had their domains confiscated such as Letter.ly, Advers.ly and I think Bitly may have been on that list too however with the unrest behind us it is possible to purchase a .ly so being able to obtain one is not an issue. From what I can tell, I should be able to specify in Google Search Console that the website utilizing the .ly extension is a US based website. I can also do this with Google My Business and I will keep the Whois info public so the whois data can been seen as a US based website. Based on everything I just said do any of you think I will be OK if I were to register and use the .ly domain extension and still be able to rank in Google.com (US Searches). Confirmation would help me sleep better. Thanks in advance everyone and have a great day!!

                    Intermediate & Advanced SEO | Jun 28, 2017, 5:34 PM | joemaresca
                    0
                  • Bryggselv.no

                    How can I make a list of all URLs indexed by Google?

                    I started working for this eCommerce site 2 months ago, and my SEO site audit revealed a massive spider trap. The site should have been 3500-ish pages, but Google has over 30K pages in its index. I'm trying to find a effective way of making a list of all URLs indexed by Google. Anyone? (I basically want to build a sitemap with all the indexed spider trap URLs, then set up 301 on those, then ping Google with the "defective" sitemap so they can see what the site really looks like and remove those URLs, shrinking the site back to around 3500 pages)

                    Intermediate & Advanced SEO | Nov 24, 2016, 8:45 AM | Bryggselv.no
                    0
                  • MarkWill

                    Blog subdomain not redirecting

                    Over the last few weeks I have been focused on fixing high and medium priority issues, as reported by the Moz crawler, after a recent transition to WordPress. I've made great progress, getting the high priority issues down from several hundred (various reasons, but many duplicates for things like non-www and www versions) to just five last week. And then there's this weeks report. For reasons I can't fathom, I am suddenly getting hundreds of duplicate content pages of the form http://blog.<domain>.com</domain> (being duplicates with the http://www.<domain>.com</domain> versions). I'm really unclear on why these suddenly appeared. I host my own WordPress site ie WordPress.org stuff. In Options / General everything refers to http://www.<domain>.com</domain> and has done for a number of weeks. I have no idea why the blog versions of the pages have suddenly appeared. FWIW, the non-www version of my pages still redirect to the www version, as I would expect. I'm obviously pretty concerned by this so any pointers greatly appreciated. Thanks. Mark

                    Intermediate & Advanced SEO | May 13, 2015, 2:36 PM | MarkWill
                    0
                  • Bio-RadAbs

                    PDFs and images in Sub folder or subdomain?

                    What would you recommend as best practice? Our ecommerce site has a lot of PDFs supporting the product page. Currently they are kept in a sub domain and so are all images. Would it be better to keep them all in a subfolder? I've read about blogs being hosted on a subfolder to be better than subdomain but what about pdfs and images? thoughts?

                    Intermediate & Advanced SEO | Jan 30, 2013, 1:20 PM | Bio-RadAbs
                    0
                  • Carlos-R

                    Disavow Subdomain?

                    Hi all, I've been checking and it seems like there are only 2 options when disavowing links with Google's tool. Disavow the link: http://spam.example.com/stuff/content.htm Disavow the domain: domain: example.com What can I do if I want do disavow a subdomain? i.e. spam.site.com I'm also assuming that if I were to disavow the domain it would include all subdomains? Thanks.

                    Intermediate & Advanced SEO | Dec 4, 2012, 10:25 AM | Carlos-R
                    0
                  • HaCos

                    Use of subdomains, subdirectories or both?

                    Hello, i would like your advice on a dilemma i am facing. I am working a new project that is going to release soon,  thats a network of users with personal profiles seperated in categories for example lets say the categories are colors. So let say i am a member and i belong in red color categorie and i got a page where i update my personal information/cv/resume as well as a personal blog thats on that page. So the main site is giving the option to user to search for members by the criteria of color. My first idea is that all users should own a subdomain (and this is how its developed so far) thats easy to use and since the domain name is really small (just 3 letters) i believe subdomain worth since personal site will be easy to remember. My dilemma is should all users own a subdomain, a subdirectory or both and if both witch one should be the canonical? Since it said that search engines treat subdomains as different stand-alone sites, whats best for the main site? to show multiple search results with profiles in subdomains or subdirectories? What if i use both? meaning in search results i use search directory url for each profile while same time each profile owns a subdomains as well? and if so which one should be the canonical? Thanks in advance, C

                    Intermediate & Advanced SEO | Oct 3, 2012, 8:47 AM | HaCos
                    0
                  • julienraby

                    Redirect a subdomain to a subdirectory for SEO purposes.

                    Hi, I have a site on wordpress and I want to add eCommerce to it. We want to go with Shopify but Shopify only allows to host their platform on a subdomain. I like to have it on a subdorectory, so my question is: Would it make sense to redirect the whole subdomain to a subdirectory (move everything from shop.domain.com to domain.com/shop) for SEO purposes? Would Google see these pages as if they were part of the main domain? Thanks! Julien

                    Intermediate & Advanced SEO | Oct 10, 2011, 1:17 PM | julienraby
                    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.