Are links between a subdomain and a root domain internal or external?
-
We have a microsite on a subdomain that is kind of a community site that has articles posted to it several times per week. The articles are often relevant to topics covered on the root domain, so links are often included. My question is, are links between the subdomain and root domain considered internal or external? Also, how much of a difference does the location of the links make? For example, if we have a related links menu with links to the root domain is that good enough, or is it that much better to have the links embedded in the article text (toward the beginning of the article)?
-
I've just go trough with your line " (not to mention the subdomain is usually far lower authority than the primary.)" so I want to know you are talking about Domain Authority or Page Authority?
-
Thanks Paul! This is very helpful information!
-
In my experience, Carolyn, links between subdomain and primary get the worst of both worlds.
The search engines can clearly see that two sites are interrelated so the links between them aren't entirely "natural". Therefore I don't find the links carry the full amount of their influence across (not to mention the subdomain is usually far lower authority than the primary.)
On the other hand, the search engines still seem to consider subdomains as stand-alone sites which must earn their authority on their own, so they don't directly benefit from the halo of authority of the primary site.
See what I mean by "the worst of both worlds"?
The blog post Thomas refers to is quite specifically only related to how links between subdomains and primary are reported in Google Webmaster Tools, so I'd be careful about extrapolating it too far into ranking factors. (Though in essence I agree with him that these types of links seem to function more like internal than external as far as value is concerned)
As far as the location of the links on the subdomain's page, typically links in menus & sidebars (especially if they are site-wide menus) contribute a smaller percentage of whatever influence they have than if they were a natural part of the content.
And from a user's perspective (which I prefer to think of first, before SEO considerations) it probably makes more sense to include the link to related info right in the article rather than making them go looking for it elsewhere on the page after finishing the article.
You've asked a good question, and it's answer really starts to get into the "art" part of SEO as few pure data points are viable to use when answering. Which will be why you will get a range of perspectives in the answers.
Hope that helps?
Paul
[Edited to add: If the microsite is so closely tied to the topics and purpose of the main site, it may be worth considering moving it to a subdirectory of the primary so the two sets of content can better support each other's rankings.]
-
Classic answer, ..."It depends."
At one time theses links would have been considered external. But Google has grown up and realizes that most of these are internal links. Maybe it had something to do with Hubpages using sub-domains to escape the panda.
While this article is not specific to your link graph, it may help to realize that google is on to this type of linking... http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com/2011/08/reorganizing-internal-vs-external.html
However, the "it depends" can come into play when you don't own the domain, say wordpress.com. Those subdomains are likely treated very differently. Each subdomain on wordpress.com is unique it's authors. Perhaps this is why Google wants to push authorhship.
-
A search engine considers a subdomain to be a different entity from the root domain and links to and from are considered external. Don't be counting on those links from the subdomain to be doing much for the root domain, though, unless your root domain is a strong entity unto itself. A few links from separate pages may be helpful but engines won't be oblivious to the fact that their coming from the same IP address as the root domiain (as most subdomains are).
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
-
Tool to get all the Social Shares for a Domain
Does anyone know of a tool that can get you the total, or close to it, social shares an entire domain has received? I know of... http://www.sharedcount.com/ - but this only gets shares for the entered URL not the entire domain. http://www.pagesort.com/ - this seems to dig a little deeper but not deep enough. I know opensite explorer gets some data as well but still seems very limited.
Social Media | | eyeflow0 -
Best directory or subdomain for a blog
We are planning to set up a blog using wordpress to help improve domain authority and rankings. Is there a preferred site to put this? ie is it best to create a subdomain, or put it in the root directory or put it in a completely different domain? Or will there be no resulting difference ?
Social Media | | FFTCOUK0 -
Twitter and Facebook Back-link Aquisition procedure?
This is another novice question that I hope is easy to answer for someone out there. How do you get a backlink from twitter or facebook? Either Open Site Explorer is not recognizing my accounts or twitter and facebook are not reporting it for some reason. I have looked at other competitors and they have twitter and facebook that show up as linking to them. Do you have to do something special to get a link? Utah Tiger
Social Media | | Boodreaux0 -
Find Facebook Likes and Google +1's Across An Entire Domain?
Does anyone know a good way to find the number of Facebook Likes or Google +1's across an entire domain? It looks like SEOMoz only shows these metrics for individual pages.
Social Media | | SparkplugDigital0 -
What Social Media Buttons/Links When & Where?
Our web development team members are having a debate on when and where to add various social media buttons / links. The crux of the debate is when does adding various calls to social media services become detrimental to page load time. We have really been focusing recently on optimizing page load speed using YSlow and Google Page Speed tools to tweak templates and pages as much as possible. Our webmaster argues that we should be selective on what pages we add Google+, Facebook LIKE, Twitter/Follow buttons. e.g. just 'important' pages such as the home page. Here is a forum link that speaks of this... http://www.webmasterworld.com/google/4358033.htm Bottom line? What are your thoughts on when and where to place various social media buttons and links for Google+, Facebook LIKE and Twitter/Follow. Thanks,
Social Media | | RoyMcClean
Roy McClean P.S. We have pretty much agreed to use AddThis button set on our clients' blog pages that includes FB LIKE and SEND, Google+, Twitter and the AddThis general share buttons.1 -
What are the issues with changing my domain?
I have a self-hosted wordpress blog that I have been authoring for 5 years. It resides at www.ready2spark.com. I have built a static wordpress website (fyi - it's a different wp theme from the blog) to promote my company, named READY2SPARK. The site location is temporarily http://www.ready2spark.com/staticwebsite. Since this will be my main company website, it makes the most sense to have the static site reside at www.ready2spark.com and the blog reside at www.ready2spark.com/blog (or, at least, I think). I'm hoping some of you experts can let me know what the issues with changing my domain would be or provide suggestions on what the optimal architecture should be.
Social Media | | LaraMcCulloch0 -
If I move my blog from subdomain to root, will my blog lose all of its authority? Social signals?
Moving my blog from blog.site.co.uk to site.co.uk/blog and just wondered if all the social data for each post will be lost including the blog authority which has been built up over time? Is 301 redirects enough to keep any of it?
Social Media | | SDOwner0