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.
Linking from & to in domains and sub-domains
-
What's the best optimised linking between sub-domains and domains? And every time we'll give website link at top with logo...do we need to link sub-domain also with all it's pages?
If example.com is domain and example.com/blog is sub-domain or sub-folder...
-
Do we need to link to example.com from /blog?
-
Do we need to give /blog link in all pages of /blog?
-
Is there any difference in connecting domains with sub-domains and sub-folders?
-
-
np, you don't want to assume things.
this is what Matt Cutts said in 2012: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_MswMYk05tk
It is still advisable that most websites out there rather rely on pages and subdirectories for regular pages and content than subdomains, but nowadays it is a highly subjective thing, basically suit yourself on it.
But keep in mind the simple formula for decision making: Pros v Cons... which outweighs which and why.
subdomains can certainly cause you, the owner and web dev, more work and impose a higher "moving parts" risk under most typical circumstances where /page is a viable alternative.
also look at these
https://moz.com/community/q/link-juice-from-subdomain
https://moz.com/community/q/getting-mixed-signals-regarding-how-google-treats-subdomains
-
Thanks for the response.
We have 6 sub-domains like blog, etc. Our blog is a sub-domain but configured as example.com/blog (wordpress). Others are left as same. sub-domain.com, etc. We have thousands of visits on these sub-domains with hundreds and thousands of pages. So, we are not sure whether these will be treated as individual websites by Google or all together as same website. If they treat as individual website, will there be any link juice passing from and to domain and sub-domains? And my doubt is, what's the best way to link these sub-domains from our domain. I have gone through some posts saying too many links from sub-domain to domain may turn as spam for Google.
-
You really need to understand these terms correctly
sub.domain.com < this is a subdomain
domain.com/page < this is a page and it could also be a folder of your site depending on your config
The answer to your question depends on the need here. Why are you needing subdomains? for multi-lingual site? e.g. us.xyz.com or FR.xyz.com? or just for something like a shop or blog and you are having a debate between making them into a page or a subdomain?
I recommend you spend more time studying what you are attempting to accomplish here. Subdomains should be avoided unless absolutely necessary, each subdomain is treated separately for ranking purposes than pages on the top domain
so domain.com will be treated as one site by google and sub.domain.com will be a whole nother page receiving next to no authority or juice or anything from the main domain short of your internal links. I would roll with a page wherever applicable and possible instead of a subdomain.
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
-
Why some domains and sub-domains have same DA, but some others don't?
Hi I noticed for some blog providers in my country, which provide a sub-domian address for their blogs. the sub-domain authority is exactly as the main domain. Whereas, for some other blog providers every subdomain has its different and lower authority. for example "ffff.blog.ir" and "blog.ir" both have domain authority of 60. It noteworthy to mention that the "ffff.blog.ir" does not even exist! This is while mihanblog.com and hfilm.mihanblog.com has diffrent page authority.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | rayatarh5451230 -
Domain dominance
I've just started to work for a company who've purchased masses of domains with every conceivable permutation based on all their products with every extension possible e.g .biz . eu. .net (including .co.uk and .com of course). I have two questions: 1. Is it worth keeping all these (they want to add more) domains or let them expire? 2. All the purchased domains are online - is there any point (they redirect with a 301)?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | LJHopkins0 -
Does Disavowing Links Negate Anchor Text, or Just Negates Link Juice
I'm not so sure that disavowing links also discounts the anchor texts from those links. Because nofollow links absolutely still pass anchor text values. And disavowing links is supposed to be akin to nofollowing the links. I wonder because there's a potential client I'm working on an RFP for and they have tons of spammy directory links all using keyword rich anchor texts and they lost 98% of their traffic in Pengiun 1.0 and haven't recovered. I want to know what I'm getting into. And if I just disavow those links, I'm thinking that it won't help the anchor text ratio issues. Can anyone confirm?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | MiguelSalcido0 -
Using both dofollow & nofollow links within the same blog site (but different post).
Hi all, I have been actively pursuing bloggers for my site in order to build page rank. My website sells women undergarments that are more on the exotic end. I noticed a large amount of prospective bloggers demand product samples. As already confirm, bloggers that are given "free" samples should use a rel=no follow attribute in their links. Unfortunately this does not build my page rank or transfer links juice. My question is this: is it advisable for them to also blog additional posts and include dofollow links? The idea is for the blogger to use a nofollow when posting about the sample and a regular link for a secondary post at a later time. What are you thoughts concerning this matter?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | 90miLLA0 -
Best way to block a sub-domain from being indexed
Hello, The search engines have indexed a sub-domain I did not want indexed its on old.domain.com and dev.domain.com - I was going to password them but is there a best practice way to block them. My main domain default robots.txt says :- Sitemap: http://www.domain.com/sitemap.xml global User-agent: *
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | JohnW-UK
Disallow: /cgi-bin/
Disallow: /wp-admin/
Disallow: /wp-includes/
Disallow: /wp-content/plugins/
Disallow: /wp-content/cache/
Disallow: /wp-content/themes/
Disallow: /trackback/
Disallow: /feed/
Disallow: /comments/
Disallow: /category//
Disallow: */trackback/
Disallow: */feed/
Disallow: /comments/
Disallow: /?0 -
Redirect ruined domain to new domain without passing link juice
A new client has a domain which has been hammered by bad links, updates etc and it's basically on its arse because of previous SEO guys. They have various domains for their business (brand.com, brand.co.uk) and want to use a fresh domain and take it from there. Their current domain is brand.com (the ruined one). They're not bothered about the rankings for brand.com but they want to redirect brand.com to brand.co.uk so that previous clients can find them easily. Would a 302 redirect work for this? I don't want to set up a 301 redirect as I don't want any of the crappy links pointing across. Thanks!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | jasonwdexter0 -
Do links to PDF's on my site pass "link juice"?
Hi, I have recently started a project on one of my sites, working with a branch of the U.S. government, where I will be hosting and publishing some of their PDF documents for free for people to use. The great SEO side of this is that they link to my site. The thing is, they are linking directly to the PDF files themselves, not the page with the link to the PDF files. So my question is, does that give me any SEO benefit? While the PDF is hosted on my site, there are no links in it that would allow a spider to start from the PDF and crawl the rest of my site. So do I get any benefit from these great links? If not, does anybody have any suggestions on how I could get credit for them. Keep in mind that editing the PDF's are not allowed by the government. Thanks.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | rayvensoft0 -
How to do geo targeting for domain and sub directories in Webmaster tool?
Hello All, How can i do geo targeting in multiple countries on my ** root domain and sub **directories in Webmaster tool. My domain is "abc.com" and i want to target three countries UAE , Kuwait, Saudi arabia. So, Can i assign geo targeting in Webmaster tool , Root domain for UAE country and make other two sub directories for Kuwait and saudi ? abc.com - UAE (geo targeting) abc.com/kw - Kuwait (geo targeting) abc.com/sa - Saudi (geo targeting) Or Root doamain should be not assign for any country and Make three sub directories for UAE, Kuwait , and saudi and targeting them there geo locations. abc.com - Unlisted (geo targeting) abc.com/uae/ - UAE (geo targeting) abc.com/kw/ - Kuwait (geo targeting) abc.com/sa/ - Saudi (geo targeting)
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | rahul110