Does a subdomain hurt/help a domain?
-
My organization's website currently hosts research databases on a subdomain. We're relatively new to MOZ and when I ran a crawl of my site, it came back with 30K issues.... 98% of which are on this subdomain. I wish I could just remove it and call it a day, however, real and active researchers use it regularly.
My question is: Does a subdomain hurt/help a domain?
I'm seeing mixed results via Google search and browsing this forum. I'm concerned that I will not be able to fix these 30K issues as I do have access to maintain this database... and just by looking at it you can tell it was built in 2005 and hasn't been updated from an SEO perspective since. Any suggestions?
-
As long as the subdomain is on a good host, has good UX/content and links well w/the parent. It also requires more maintenance than the parent. But if you can maintain everything then it's ok.
-
Hi there, in a similar vein to Kevin's comment - Google has said that subdomain/subdirectory isn't really a distinction they draw and that it's more to do with how much linking there is between the different parts whether they consider it to be the same website. That said, we don't have a good idea of what the threshold is or what historic data Google is using to make that call.
I would say this comes down to how people are using this subdomain. Do you get researchers landing on it from Google? Or is it something that they only use once they are already on your site? If you find enough researchers are coming to this subdomain from organic search then it's probably worth fixing it up because, entirely aside from the question of whether this subdomain is dragging your site down this could be a way to really strengthen your site and take advantage of a very popular resource to boost Google's respect for your site and help you rank for other things (not to mention giving your users what they want). If, on the other hand, you don't get users landing on this subdomain from organic search (you can check by going into Google Analytics for the subdomain and checking the source and medium of sessions landing on those pages) then it could be worth noindexing the subdomain. If, as you say, it's riddled with errors, you don't want Google to see it/waste time on it and users don't get there from search then by noindexing it you're saying "we don't want you to pay attention to this".
We can't know for sure how Google will treat the main domain based on this subdomain but we can plan a strategy based on use, which is often what Google tries to push webmasters towards.
-
Google says that they really don't care if the content is on a subdomain or subfolder & this is debated. I find that they both can rank well, but subdomains require more effort to maintain. As long as the subdomain is on a good host, has good ux/content and links well w/the parent, I wouldn't worry that much and I would leave as is. Good luck.
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
-
PA up for one domain and still no movement on the other two!
Hey guys! Just wanted to see if anyone can help me on this one! I have zenory.co.nz the PA on this is 21 and DA is 10 however my other two domains com and com.au have been stagnant at both PA and DA at 1 - any reason why this might be?
Moz Pro | | edward-may0 -
Do I need a new moz campaign for a subdomain?
Will moz automatically track my new subdomain or do I need to set up a new campaign for it?
Moz Pro | | SamCUK0 -
Duplicate page content on / and index.php
Hi I am new to SEOmoz and in the crawl diagnostics for one of my clients it came back duplicate content on the homepage www.myclient.co.uk and on the www.myclient.co.uk/index.php which is obviously the same page. I understand that the key is to do a 301 redirect from the index to /, however how will I know that this will not just create an ever ending loop on the server? From your experience how is the best way to tackle this crawl error? Also is there a specific question that I need to ask the server?
Moz Pro | | search_shop0 -
How do you tell SEOmoz to ignore a subdomain?
We have a subdomain that I don't want to show up in our root SEOmoz campaign. How do I tell SEOmoz to ignore it?
Moz Pro | | wcsjohn0 -
Press Release - using moz bar/OSE is reading domain not page? How? Why?
A question posed by Christopher Glaeser from early today:low PA high DA, had a follow up response from him providing 2 urls from PR WEB for separate press releases: http://www.prweb.com/releases/2011/11/prweb8923419.htm (HP White) On moz bar Page Analysis/Link Data = PA - 47 DA - 36 http://www.prweb.com/releases/2011/12/prweb9051351.htm (Golfer's Advice) On moz bar Page Analysis/Link Data = PA - 1 DA - 96 I kept scratching my head as to how a press release of 6 weeks ago had garnered such attention from a company that would not seem to have a huge traffic due to more obscure product offering and scientific subject (Analyses of Armor Industry versus Golf Advice).
Moz Pro | | RobertFisher
Then I realized that for HP White, Link Data was not about the PR. The url from mozbar was HPWhite.com not the above, I did not notice until I used OSE where same thing was happening. When I cut and pasted the above press release url for HP White and placed it in OSE this changed: PA - 49 DA - 96 (2 links 2 linking root domains) For Golfers advice (0 links from 0 linking domains) Note to all: the links to the PR WEB release for the HP included a low end directory type link and a link from PR WEB (. For Golfer's Advice there was not a link back to the release from PR WEB: Note that Golfer's Advice is a newer release (6 weeks). So, any link from HPWhite release would equal more juice to HP White and PR Web and Vocus. Any link to Golfer's Advice from release offers......???? to Golfer's Advice and who cares to Vocus and PR Web. So, I guess this begs a couple of questions: Why the mozbar link analysis difference for one versus the other? Does PR Web treat some differently than others? Who benefits most from me paying a PR Web to do press releases for a client, PR Web and Vocus or my client and I???? I have tried to order the images to make sense: L to R top, then bottom is last. [](<a href=)" target="_blank">a> [](<a href=)" target="_blank">a> [](<a href=)" target="_blank">a> [](<a href=)" target="_blank">a> [](<a href=)" target="_blank">a> [](<a href=)" target="_blank">a>0 -
How can I increase my domain authority score?
We've jumped up in our rankings, page authority scores, and our toolbar PR over the past year, but our domain authority score remains the same as it was this time last year. I have noticed that for most people's sites, domain authority is typically higher than page authority, and my suspicion is that our domain authority score staying static is capping our page authority potential to some degree. Our SEOmoz scores are quite low for our toolbar PR. I've looked at the SEOmoz page relating to domain authority, and it rather vaguely says 'improve SEO generally across your site'. Other than age, the only thing I can think of is that maybe we have backlinks ranging across too broad a spectrum of topics. Being a web hosting company, we get a lot of links from our customers' sites that aren't related to our industry. Anyone got any specific advice? To provide some context, it's a PR7 website that's around a decade old with links in the hundred thousands. We score just 59 for domain authority. Thanks in advance, Jenni
Moz Pro | | Jenni_HeartInternet0 -
Competitive Domain Analysis
In one of my campaigns, competitive domain analysis shows that the total links is always the same as ext. followed links. This can't be right as the site has both external links and internal links. What would be the possible issue here? Thanks for sharing your insight.
Moz Pro | | F-D0 -
On Page Report Card... with or w/o local modifiers?
Hey all! So I am curious how you recommend using the "on page report card" (which is really helpful) along with the concept of local modifiers. IE, here is a term I am going after: business forums but really I care about a specific location: business forums | Greensboro NC So the word I hear is typically to do your keyword research & page optimization FOR the primary term, but then tack on your local modifiers after. So which do you run reports on? Probably both is the best answer, eh? Obviously my local sites won't have a shot at ranking nationally/internationally for such a broad term as "business forums", especially with some monster sites out there with some serious clout. This is more of a best practices question. Thanks dudes.
Moz Pro | | nsmcseo20