Sub domain on root domain
-
Hello,
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!! -
Federico brought up some good points when he suggested sub-directories above, but I'd go with sub-domains in this case. If a service provider can't figure out how to build their own website they are unlikely to get any decent links, let alone one from CNN. Policing them all would be expensive, possibly even unscaleable for the business model.
I think the use of subdomains as outlined in his original question would be one of the few proper reasons to have them.
Just make sure you verify each and every one of them in GWT so you know if/when any "manual actions" or important messages come through from Google.
Getting SEOs to agree on sub-domain Vs sub-directory Vs separate TLD can be like trying to herd cats sometimes. That's just the way it is.
-
Nope, that post is completely wrong my friend. Besides being from 2011 or even earlier, the writer probably misunderstood to how Google handles external/internal links in WMT.
What is confirmed is that www.domain.com and other.domain.com ARE different domains and a penalty to other.domain.com DOES NOT affect www.domain.com. Otherwise, all blogspot, wordpress.com and others should be penalized by now.
-
That is how it used to be now it is different
http://www.organicseoconsultant.com/subdomain-spam-eliminated-by-google/
Google is treating the domain as one domian
-
The way you are thinking of going has its pros and cons.
As subdomains are treated like different domains, a penalized subdomain won't affect your root domain. But neither will be the GOOD thinks that a subdomain may get.
Suppose one of your service providers gets a "super-cool" backlink from an outside source, say CNN links to it. Then all that juice will only go to that provider, you, the root domain, don't get ANY benefit from it, (just like when that subdomain gets a penalty, you don't get it).
Now, the way I would go instead, is simpler, plus you can benefit for any pagerank flowing to your root domain: domain.com/provider then you simply monitor your "provider" and if you detect any black hat SEO, just penalize them yourself by having their site removed (make sure you write a good TERMS OF SERVICE to explain all the rules). So, if any provider gets a penalty, you just remove their site and a 404 code return will be enough, as links to 404s are not flowing pagerank to your site.
Hope that helps!
-
your questions or
1. can it harm my site in SEO? YES
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!!Absolutely you're talking about giving people access to your website essentially. Or your domain to be more granular. Google and moreover Moz have domain trust rankings and if somebody is doing black hat SEO such as building links that are from link farms or penalized websites to your subdomain which is still on your company's domain. It will affect your overall domain trust and rank
What you have to think about it is your letting these people control a part of your website. If they do things that are not kosher with Google then you will pay the price.
Sorry for the short answer to the top question I think I answered both questions in the 2nd answer.
I would use a .org , .net or .co if you are going to allow people to build something on your network don't give them access to your domain.
If they did all positive things it would help you obviously. However I don't know what you think these people's intentions are going to be.
I hope I was of help,
Thomas
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
-
Is an iframe redirect on the same Domain bad for SEO
Good morning. We have a vendor that has created a landing page with content that we want to use. Because of the way we built the site, the only way to use the content is to create an i-frame. The i-frame is re-directingon the same Domain. Would we benefit from the SEO Content?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | jdenbo_edf0 -
Domain Migration Hell!
5 weeks ago we migrated our site to a new domain. We also installed an SSL certificate on the new domain. The new domain was purchased 5 years ago but we only used it as a redirect address. It was more consistent with our brand so we decided to migrate to it. Great care was taken setting up page to page redirects. A formal domain change request was made to Google. In fact the move was implemented with only a handful of broken links on a 500 page site. Those links were quickly fixed. Our traffic declined from about 350 visitors a week to as low as 40 visitors the first full week after the move. Now the number of organic Google visits is up to 80, a drop of 75% !!! All except 20 (out of 500) pages are reindexed on Google Search Console. MOZ domain authority for the new domain has climbed from 5 to about 12. The old domain had a DA of 23. In Google Search Console hundreds of "URL Not Allowed" errors are the site map for our previous domain that redirects to our new domain. Attached please see image of this. The site map for the new domain appears normal, but about 160 pages are indexed that are not in the sitemap. I wonder if these two issues have somehow contributed to the drop in ranking. I have included images showing GCT for the 2 domains. I posted on MOZ a month ago and was told it just might take time. No improvement and now I am wonder if there is not some issue with the sitemaps causing havoc. Are traffic is down more than 80%. This does not seem normal. Any advice? Any suggestions as to how to expedite recovery? Thanks,
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Kingalan1
Alan0 -
SEO for a redirected domain name
Our client is a law firm with a name that is challenging to spell. We have procured a domain name for them that is catchy, easy to spell, and plays well into their brand, or at least the current campaign. We're using the campaign domain to direct traffic to their website with a 301 redirect. We have placed the campaign domain in a variety of offline mediums including print and outdoor. The client is currently in the number 1 spot for a good number of our highest priority keywords, so I do not want to do anything to jeopardize that. I'm also not sure this campaign will be their "brand" long-term so I don't want to risk making a switch and making it back. So for now, I'm most comfortable leaving the campaign domain as a redirect to their primary domain. Recently, the client approached me complaining (legitimately) that when people google the campaign domain, they are brought to search results for an entirely different domain because Google "corrects" the domain name for them. This is obviously a bad thing, with many users defaulting to entering urls into Google instead of the address bar. If you tell Google that it was wrong about the autocorrection, our site is in the number 1 position. I liken the situation to Overstock.com using O.co as their offline domain, but overstock.com as their online domain. But imagine if you googled o.co and google brought you to a list of results for "on.co" because it assumed you fat-fingered it. Is there anything I can do to prevent the domain name from getting corrected by Google?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | steverobinson0 -
Simple ways to boost Domain Authority
Hi, Any simple methods to boost Domain Authority? Thanks, Ben
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | bjs20100 -
Sub Domain or New Domain?
Hi All, We have a client that has a business with three different services. 2 of these services compliment each other in a really obvious way, but the 3rd, while related is not such a obvious complimentary service. For this reason, service 3 kind of weakens the content of the website SEO wise for the two main services. Also, internally at the business it is run by an entirely different team so it feels culturally somewhat different. So, the client wants to pull all the content about service 3 and put it on a different website. Which would you chose as a domain for this new site: service3.existingdomain.co.uk or www.service3+brandname.co.uk
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | NoisyLittleMonkey0 -
Best Way to Consolidate Domains?
Hello, My company has four websites in the same vertical and we're planning to integrate them all on our main company site. So instead of www.siteone.com, www.sitetwo.com, www.sitethree.com, etc. It would be www.branddomain.com/site-one, www.branddomain.com/site-two, etc. I have a few questions... Should we redirect the old domains to the new directories or leave the old domains and stop updating them with new content... Then have the old content, links, etc. 301 to the same content on the new site? Should we literally move all of the content to the new directories? Any tips are appreciated. It's probably pretty obvious that I don't have a ton of technical skills... my development team will be doing the heavy lifting. I just want to be sure we do this correctly from an SEO perspective! Thanks for the help, please let me know if I can clarify anything. E
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | essdee0 -
Does a dash in your domain name effect your ranking?
Does a dash in your domain name effect your ranking? or it dosen't really matter?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Radomski0 -
Removed Duplicate Domains, What Should I Expect?
Hi All, So I have been at my current company for 5 months now. I quickly realized that they previously bought multiple domains. The domains do make sense (they are mostly our products, etc). However they did not just redirect to our main website, instead, they were a direct copy of our main website. They had it setup so that when we made changes to our main website, www.mainwebsite.com, that the same exact change went to www.productwebsite.com. Basically we had about 7 of the SAME EXACT websites with a different root domain. So I explained to them the problem with having duplicate content on the web and how we are basically just self cannibalizing our online efforts. This problem is fixed now and I am just wondering if anybody has seen the results before? To tell you the truth we already do pretty well SEO-wise. Just wondering if this will make it even better? I am assuming that this will also take a little while to take effect? Thanks! Pat
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | PatBausemer0