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. Technical SEO
    4. Moving E-Commerce Store to Subdomain?

    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.

    Moving E-Commerce Store to Subdomain?

    Technical SEO
    5
    9
    3019
    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.
    • suarezventures
      suarezventures Subscriber last edited by

      Hi all,

      We have a customer who currently uses Square for their in-store point-of-sale system as well as for their e-commerce website. From my understanding, a Square site is a watered-down version of Weebly, and is proving to be highly restrictive from an SEO and content structuring standpoint. It's been an uphill battle to try and get traction for their site in SERPs. Would it be a bad idea to move the entire Square online store to a subdomain, and install WordPress on the root domain? This way their online store would remain as-is, but the primary pages on the site would be on WordPress which would give us a lot more control over the content. I just want to make sure this doesn't negatively impact their SEO.

      Thanks!

      1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
      • Everett
        Everett @suarezventures last edited by

        Thanks for the clarification on the platform Suarezventures.

        I have worked with plenty of brands that have a similar setup on Shopify. They usually put the blog on a subdomain because Shopify's content management system - let's see, how do I say this nicely... sucks. These clients put up Wordpress on a subdomain. Some also put up a landing page platform like Hubspot or Unbounce to which they send paid traffic.

        Your plan to put the eCommerce site on a subdomain has some benefits in that the content side won't be affected by future platform migrations on the eCommerce site. However, the content side will benefit the most from being at the main level with the homepage and most of the backlinks. Thus, organic search traffic to the eCommerce site could be harmed by this move. I normally wouldn't recommend it for that reason (because the business is eCommerce, which is what pays for the content) but in your case, it sounds like the eCommerce site doesn't bring in much traffic as it is.

        Good luck. Let us know how it turns out. 🙂

        1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
        • suarezventures
          suarezventures Subscriber @Everett last edited by

          Hi Everett,

          In this case both the sites would be tied into each other and aren't that different, but my thought was that separating the online store would give us more flexibility with the root domain. If I implemented this, their WP site would be customersite.com and the e-commerce side of it would be at shop.customersite.com.

          Their current website is through Square (not Squarespace), and it's a watered-down version of Weebly. Square also handles their online payments, in-store payments, customer loyalty system, and inventory management, so that's why we were thinking of relegating it to a subdomain instead of switching everything over to WordPress. Thankfully, Square makes it really easy to change the site address to a subdomain, so there isn't going to be a ton of migration work involved.

          Everett 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
          • suarezventures
            suarezventures Subscriber @seoelevated last edited by

            Thank you for the detailed response! The client has the same inventory for in-store sales and online sales, so their physical and virtual storefronts are both important to them. As for restrictions on the current platform, they're using a website through Square (which is a watered-down Weebly I believe) and it doesn't even have proper blogging functionality which is one of our primary points of concern.

            1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
            • RossKernez
              RossKernez @suarezventures last edited by

              If they are not planning to do any link building then you should be fine with setting up everything on the subdomain.

              Ross

              1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
              • Everett
                Everett last edited by

                Hi Suarezventures,

                I typically draw the subdomain vs top-level domain line at whether the two sites / experiences and purposes are vastly different. For example, a site like blogspot that hosts different websites on subdomains, or a brand that has a forum community on a subdomain because it runs on a different server and has a much different purpose than the main domain.

                Ideally, if you're moving to Wordpress you'd have the content and the store on the same site (e.g. https://site.com). If this isn't possible for them, having one or the other on a subdomain would be better than having them on (Squarespace?).

                What about having the new site on a subdomain so you don't have to deal with migrating the existing site? Can' t you leave it there and put up store.site.com on WP?

                suarezventures 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
                • seoelevated
                  seoelevated Subscriber last edited by

                  I think that might be a successful approach under some circumstances. For example, if the company is a brand, and their storefront is only one aspect of that brand but you think that they might otherwise rank for searches of non-transactional intent. An example might be a museum which also runs a gift shop. Or a manufacturer who also manages a direct-to-consumer storefront but where that is not the focus of their business. In these and similar cases, having a separate set of pages (whether on a subdomain or preferably just in a subfolder if feasible) for the commerce isn't necessarily a bad idea. I'm assuming when you wrote "proving to be highly restrictive", you meant more than just for example not being able to set the exact H1 tags you might want on a page or not being able to insert schema markup for certain types of objects. There are going to be those kinds of tactical challenges for on-page SEO in every platform, just varying degrees between the platforms, and I wouldn't take a drastic approach like separating the storefront just because of those kinds of issues. But, if the SEO challenges with the current platform are really of the highest severity and can't be addressed within that platform, then the approach of a separate storefront might make sense in the kinds of scenarios like the museum or the manufacturer mentioned above.

                  suarezventures 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
                  • suarezventures
                    suarezventures Subscriber @RossKernez last edited by

                    Hi Ross,

                    Would it still be a bad idea if we're not really planning to rank category pages or products on the subdomain? Or if they don't have much SEO traction at all at the moment anyway? Ideally we would love to switch them to WordPress + WooCommerce in the long term but everything in their business is tied to Square (including physical operations, email list and even their loyalty program) and they don't have the budget to switch everything over completely.

                    Thanks!

                    RossKernez 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                    • RossKernez
                      RossKernez last edited by

                      Hi there,

                      I think it is a bad idea if you are planning to rank category pages or products on that subdomain. The best option is to set up everything on WordPress with the Woocomerce plugin. The WordPress CMS is very flexible, SEO friendly and you have an access to your server if you need to pull server logs from it.

                      Ross

                      suarezventures 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
                      • 1 / 1
                      • First post
                        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

                      • WeAreDigital_BE

                        Subdomain 403 error

                        Hi Everyone, A crawler from our SEO tool detects a 403 error from a link from our main domain to a a couple of subdomains. However, these subdomains are perfect accessibly. What could be the problem? Is this error caused by the server, the crawlbot or something else? I would love to hear your thoughts.
                        Jens

                        Technical SEO | | WeAreDigital_BE
                        0
                      • SS.Digital

                        Google Indexed a version of my site w/ MX record subdomain

                        We're doing a site audit and found "internal" links to a page in search console that appear to be from a subdomain of our site based on our MX record.  We use Google Mail internally.  The links ultimately redirect to our correct preferred subdomain "www", but I am concerned as to why this is happening and if it can have any negative SEO implications. Example of one of the links: Links aspmx3.googlemail.com.sullivansolarpower.com/about/solar-power-blog/daniel-sullivan/renewable-energy-and-electric-cars-are-not-political-footballs I did a site operator search, site:aspmx3.googlemail.com.sullivansolarpower.com on google and it returns several results.

                        Technical SEO | | SS.Digital
                        0
                      • Creditsafe

                        No index on subdomains

                        Hi, We have a subdomain that is appearing in the search results - I want to hide this as it looks really bad. If I were to add the no index tag to the sub domain would URL would this affect the whole domain or just that sub domain? The main domain is vitally important - it is just that sub domain I need to hide. Many thanks

                        Technical SEO | | Creditsafe
                        0
                      • schof

                        Should we move our documentation off subdomain?

                        Background: We have a popular open source e-commerce platform at http://spreecommerce.com.  Right now the documentation is on http://guides.spreecommerce.com.  We have "edge" documentation (for stuff that's not yet released) on http://edgeguides.spreecommerce.com but since it's largely duplicative we've told google not to index any of the edge stuff (via robots.txt). Question: Should we consider moving the guides under the main website under /docs or something like this?  There's a ton of great content that people often read to learn more about the platform.  Seems like we might be diluting our juice a bit to have it on a separate domain.  WDYT?

                        Technical SEO | | schof
                        0
                      • littlesthobo

                        Moving from a .com to .co.uk

                        I need to migrate a wordpress site from domainname.com to domainname.co.uk. If I just put a 301 on every page on the .com will that cover it? Would it make sense to go and change all the backlinks/profile links to the new .co.uk site or doesn't it matter if you have a 301 redirect on it? Thanks

                        Technical SEO | | littlesthobo
                        0
                      • Dan-Lawrence

                        Best geotargeting strategy: Subdomains or subfolders or country specific domain

                        How have the relatively recent changes in how G perceives subdomains changed the best route to onsite geotargeting i.e. not building out new country specific sites on country specific and hosted domains and instead developing sub-domains or sub-folders and geo-targeting those via webmaster tools ? In other words, given the recent change in G perception, are sub-domains now a better option than a sub-folder or is there not much in it ? Also if client has a .co.uk and they want to geo-target say France, is the sub-domain/sub-folder route still an option or is the .co.uk still too UK specific, and these options would only work using a .com ? In other words can sites on country specific domains (.co.uk , .fr, .de etc etc) use sub-folders or domains to geo-target other countries or do they have no option other than to develop new country specific (domains/hosting/language) websites ? Any thoughts regarding current best practice in this regard much appreciated.  I have seen last Febs WBF which covers geotargeting in depth but the way google perceives subdomains has changed since then Many Thanks Dan

                        Technical SEO | | Dan-Lawrence
                        0
                      • martyc

                        Exact match subdomains

                        Hi, I have seen significant SEO benefits from owning exact match domains and was wondering whether exact match subdomains hold the same (or some) of these benefits? eg. halloweencostumes.co.uk vs. halloween [dot] costumes.co.uk Many thanks.

                        Technical SEO | | martyc
                        0
                      • GriffinHansen

                        What are the pros and cons of moving one site onto a subdomain of another site?

                        Two sites. One has weaker sales. What would the benefits and problems for SEO of moving the weak site from its own domain to a subdomain of the stronger site?

                        Technical SEO | | GriffinHansen
                        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.