Can a domain rank for a competitive term with no links?
-
Hi,
I know that this topic has received a lot of attention recently (Not all of it good) and I am not normally one to re-open a can of worms but the whole 'Camper Mens Shoes' fiasco has got me thinking.
If you're not familiar with the story then you can get the highlights of it here - http://martinmacdonald.net/the-curios-case-of-camper-shoes/
My question is this - Say that you had a domain (Domain A) that was ranking well for a competitve keyword and that it had a good backlink profile. If you used rel="canonical" on every page of Domain A to point to a duplicate site on a different domain (Domain B) , would Domain B then rank well in place of Domain A?
I know that this probably doesn't have much practical use but I am trying to get a better understanding of the effect of using rel="canonical"
Would the result of doing the above mean that Domain B would rank well without having any links pointing directly to it?
-
Yep I have actually done this (kinda! as a test).
EMD after 3 months of ranking 3rd, redirected it to a non-EMD. They swapped places for about 2 weeks... then it dropped 10+ pages deep.
I cant help but think, if I had increased link building effort over the 2 weeks it might have stayed up.
-
I agree with @activitysuper - it would work like a 301-redirect and Domain B would inherit the ranking power. Actually, I've seen that in action - some people even use a cross-domain canonical in place of 301s (it can be faster, but that's a tricky choice).
Even if Domain B had no relevance to Domain A, you might see some short-term rankings. In that case, though, the rankings would probably fall off quickly once Google re-evaluated Domain B.
-
Thanks again for the info. I am already using the link tag so hopefully I aqm on the right path.
Appreciate your comments on Teapot Creative
Have just had a look at Dribbble and it is on the list of things to do!
-
I did have to think twice about the tag linking to a external page on a different domain - but had a rummage and found this - http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.co.uk/2009/12/handling-legitimate-cross-domain.html
That link might be a closer fit to the answer your looking for.
p.s like your work on teapot creative, nice and clean.
You on dribbble?
-
Hi activitysuper,
Your expination and link is pretty much my understanding but I wondered if I was missing something.
Thanks for your reply.
-
He is a reference to what Google says it's supposed to be used for as well.
http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.co.uk/2009/02/specify-your-canonical.html
I personally would say it would have the same effect as if you did a redirect on Domain B pages.
Domain B would rank but Domain A would drop off.
I've never tried it but I'm taking an educated guess.
If Domain A was sitting on say a exact match domain and Domain B was not, then I don't think rankings would be mirrored. So it's not a straight forward flip.
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
-
Ranking 2 pages on the same domain in the same SERP
I thought it was generally said that Google will favour 1 page per domain for a particular SERP, but I have seen examples where that is not the case (i.e. Same domain is ranking 2 different pages on the 1st page of the SERPs...) Are there any "tricks" to taking up 2 first page SERP positions, or am I mistaken that this doesn't always happen?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Ullamalm0 -
Rank Without any back linking ?
Hello, I am thinking , I will rank my site without SEO . I will add quality content on my site . Will not do any backlinking ! Can anyone suggest me if it is really possible. I know some guys or some websites those are ranked without any SEO attempts. Thanks
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | businessowner0 -
Domain Authority... http://www.domain.com/ vs. http://domain.com vs. http://domain.com/
Hey Guys, Looking at Page Authority for my Site and ranking them in Decending Order, I see these 3 http://www.domain.com/ | Authority 62 http://domain.com | Authority 52 http://domain.com/ | Authority 52 Since the first one listed has the highest Authority, should I be using a 301 redirects on the lower ranking variations (which I understand how works) or should I be using rel="canonical" (which I don't really understand how it works) Also, if this is a problem that I should address, should we see a significant boost if fixed? Thanks ahead of time for anyone who can help a lost sailor who doesn't know how to sail and probably shouldn't have left shore in the first place. Cheers ZP!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Mr_Snack0 -
Will adding 1000's of outbound links to just a few website impact rankings?
I manage a large website that hosts 1000's of business listings that comprise an area that covers 7 state counties. Currently a category page (such as lodging) hosts a group of listings which then link to it's own page. From these pages links are present directly to the business it represents. The client is proposing that we change all listings to link to the representative county website and remove the individual pages. This essentially would create 1000's of external links to 7 different websites and remove 1000's of pages from our site.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Your_Workshop
Does anyone have thoughts on how adding 1000's of links (potentially upwards of 3000) to only 7 websites (that I would deem relevant links) would affect SEO? I know if 1000's of links are added pointing to 1000's of websites the site can be considered a link farm, but I can't find any info online that speaks of a case like this.0 -
Sub domain on root domain
Hello,
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | dror999
I have a question that I can't find a good answer on.
I have a site, actually a "portal"/ "directory" for service providers.
Now, for start, we opened every service provider own page on our site, but now we get a lot of applications from those providers that thy want sites from their own.
We want to make every service provider his own site, but on sub domain url. ( they don’t mind… its ok for them)
So, my site is www.exaple.com
There site will be: provider.exaple.com
Now I have two questions:
1. can it harm my site in SEO?
2. if one from those sub domain , punished by google because is owner do "black hat seo" , how it will affect the rood domin? It can make the root domain to get punished?
Thanks!!0 -
Losing Rank As A Result Of Domain Change
I have a client who is wishing to switch from an established, but unattractive domain, to a domain he just purchased that is more attractive. For example purposes, his existing site is "His-Company-Website.com" and the site he just purchased and wants to transfer to is "HisCompanyWebsite.com." The only difference is the old site has hyphens in between the words and the new one does not. He is not making this choice from an SEO perspective, but more of a "I don't want to keep saying all those hyphens when telling people about my website." But he said he doesn't want to lose his search engine rankings as a result. So he knows this won't necessarily increase his ranks, but doesn't want them to drop as a result. When speaking with him, I thought we could simply toss in a 301 redirect at the root level and pipe them over to the other site, but he wanted some actual proof. I went back to look at what I thought would be a similar case that I did earlier in the year (transferring from a .net to a .com) and noticed that we did see some rather substantial drops in at least traffic, so I am not so sure about this plan any longer. So my questions for my far more insightful colleagues... What would be your suggestion on this problem? Transition to the more user friendly domain or stick with the unfriendly domain? If he does elect to transition to the new domain, what all can I do to preserve his search engine rankings? Should a rankings and/or traffic drop be predicting when completing this? Thank you all in advance. Any other tidbits anyone has to offer would be great. Looking forward to your replies.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | ClayPotCreative0 -
Will changing domain registration details affect ranking?
Hi all, I've got a .co.uk site that I want to update the domain registrant account details for. The change will involve registering the domain to a limited company name rather than an individual and possibly changing the registered address. Does anyone know whether this could affect google rankings? I've heard of stories of sites losing their PR because the registrant details have changed and I don't really want that to happen! Thanks in advance for any help
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | PeterAlexLeigh0 -
Link building maximum to different sub domains?
Hi All, I'm launching a new website with a number of country specific sub-domains and I wanted to know if Google will calculate the number of new links as a root domain or if it will treat each subdomain seperately? For instance if I built 50 links per month to each of my five proposed subdomains would google see it as 250 links built to one root domain(and penalise me as a result) or will they view these subdomains independantly and accept these 50 links per page as an acceptable amount per sub domain. Thanks in advance. Ross
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Mulith0