Microsite Subfolder URL vs Redirected TLD for best SEO
-
We have a healthcare microsite that is in a subfolder off a hospital site.They wanted to keep their TLD and redirect from the subfolder URL. Even with good on-page SEO, link building, etc., they're not organically ranking as well as we think they should be.
ie. They have http://our-business-name.com vs. http://hospital.org/our-business-name/
For best SEO value, are they better off having only their homepage as TLD and not redirect any interior pages but display as subfolder URL?
ie. Keep homepage as http://our-business-name.com but use hospital urls for interior pages http://hospital.org/our-business-name/about/
Or is there some better way to handle this?
-
Thanks so much for taking the time to help! I really appreciate it!
-
In that case, I would ask the hospital.org to canonical to the new site, not redirect.
Recently had a similar case but in reverse... microsite was ranking really well for a term that they wanted ranking for their main website. We set up canonicals from microsite to main site and the main site started ranking for the term within a week.
-
The goal with adding as a subdirectory off the hospital site rather than as a stand-alone site was to gain the benefit of the weight of the hospital seo which ranks on the 1st page of search for more than 1,500 keywords.
The healthcare site has stiff competition with a similarly named local business that one of the drs previously worked for. He has now created this new business, which is affiliated with the local hospital. When his name is typed in search, the hospital site which has a bio page on him comes up first, then his previous business which, at least by site search, no longer has his name on their site (rather than his business), and his site doesn't even show on the 1st page.
The content is one and the same. The hospital.com/businessname/ redirects to the businessname.com
If you mean how are the URLs structured, they are friendly.
-
What is your goal here? What is on the businessname.com? What is in hospital.com/businessname/?
Off the bat, I think canonicals will be involved.
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
-
What's the best way to A/B test new version of your website having different URL structure?
Hi Mozzers, Hope you're doing good. Well, we have a website, up and running for a decent tenure with millions of pages indexed in search engines. We're planning to go live with a new version of it i.e a new experience for our users, some changes in site architecture which includes change in URL structure for existing URLs and introduction of some new URLs as well. Now, my question is, what's the best way to do a A/B test with the new version? We can't launch it for a part of users (say, we'll make it live for 50% of the users, an remaining 50% of the users will see old/existing site only) because the URL structure is changed now and bots will get confused if they start landing on different versions. Will this work if I reduce crawl rate to ZERO during this A/B tenure? How will this impact us from SEO perspective? How will those old to new 301 URL redirects will affect our users? Have you ever faced/handled this kind of scenario? If yes, please share how you handled this along with the impact. If this is something new to you, would love to know your recommendations before taking the final call on this. Note: We're taking care of all existing URLs, properly 301 redirecting them to their newer versions but there are some new URLs which are supported only on newer version (architectural changes I mentioned above), and these URLs aren't backward compatible, can't redirect them to a valid URL on old version.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | _nitman0 -
Hosting and SEO
Hi all, Does the hosting of an website affect your SEO? We have a dynamic hosting currently, taking in account your knowledge and expertise, do you believe that this can affect SEO in any way? Thank you for your time. Good day. Monica
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | monicapopa2 -
Which URL is better for SEO?
We have a URL structure question: Because we have websites in multiple countries and in multiple languages, we need to add additional elements to our URL structure. Of the two following options, what would be better for SEO? Option 1: www.abccompany.com/abc-ca-en/home.htm Option 2: www.abccompany.com/home.abc.ca.en.htm
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | northwoods-2603420 -
Does Google Read URL's if they include a # tag? Re: SEO Value of Clean Url's
An ECWID rep stated in regards to an inquiry about how the ECWID url's are not customizable, that "an important thing is that it doesn't matter what these URLs look like, because search engines don't read anything after that # in URLs. " Example http://www.runningboards4less.com/general-motors#!/Classic-Pro-Series-Extruded-2/p/28043025/category=6593891 Basically all of this: #!/Classic-Pro-Series-Extruded-2/p/28043025/category=6593891 That is a snippet out of a conversation where ECWID said that dirty urls don't matter beyond a hashtag... Is that true? I haven't found any rule that Google or other search engines (Google is really the most important) don't index, read, or place value on the part of the url after a # tag.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Atlanta-SMO0 -
Website Re-Launch - New URLS / Old URL WMT
Hello... We recently re-launched website with a new CMS (Magento). We kept the same domain name, however most of the structure changed. We were diligent about inputting the 301 redirects. The domain is over 15 years old and has tons of link equity and history. Today marks 27 days since launch...And Google Webmaster Tools showed me a recently detected (dated two days ago) URL from the old structure. Our natural search traffic has take a slow dive since launch...Any thoughts? Some background info: The old site did not have a sitemap.xml. The relaunched site does. Thanks!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | 19prince0 -
Wordpress Config Thoughts: Multisite vs. Parent/Child Themes vs. Infinite WP?
We publish four local food and drink magazines, each with its own website and related web content. Even though the content across all four titles shares a common mission, there is little overlap in actual stories. That is, each site has its own story content, events calendar and business listing guide. Still, since we share an editorial staff and a common look among all four, we are debating the pros and cons of a few different wordpress and SEO configurations, and would welcome the community's input on the pros and cons. Here is what we are considering for the Wordpress configuration: Wordpress Multisite - concerns about 10-15% performance hit, incompatibility with certain plug ins, need to more ‘expert’ development InfiniteWP - concerns that adding a 3rd party plugin to the mix might complicate things Parent / child themes A single wordpress site with different content subfolders for each locale - simplifies events / guide listings / seo, but too much in one place? Problems with current config (four different wordpress installs across four different base domains - ediblemanhattan.com, ediblebrooklyn.com, ediblelongisland.com, etc) SEO value is currently spread across four base domains Four different wordpress installs / upgrades / templates / plugins must be managed separately Four different namespaces for registered users make cross-domain registration more difficult, less usable The independent site approach is potentially problematic if we were to decide to combine certain site features - for example guide and event listings - into a single site experience filterable by zip / location Our questions: WP config: independent sites vs. multisite vs. parent/child themes vs. other? SEO config: should we move to shared parent domain? If we do, should we use locale-based subfolders or second level domains (brooklyn.ediblemag.com vs. ediblemag.com/brooklyn)? Operations: We think there are SEO advantages to move all four sites share the same base domain - ex, ediblemagazine.com, but are there operational disadvantages we are not considering? Ability for local site editors to work within their locale section only Ability for ad sales to target a single locale, example, run of site display ads on specific locales Ability to segment users by their locale - ex. enroll users in email lists for edible brooklyn only
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | brianhalweil0 -
International Image SEO - one host vs multiple hosts
I've got 3 sites (same name) located in Australia, US and UK. Currently these sites are all pulling images (I own) from 1 location. I'd like to create image XML sitemaps for each of these sites. As I see it, my options are: 1. Keeping the images hosted in the 1 place and creating image XML sitemaps for each of the 3 sites (which seems to be technically ok because https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/178636?hl=en&ref_topic=20986 states that if the image URL isn't on the same domain, both domains need to be verified in Webmaster Tools). However, is there a risk here that the sitemaps will conflict because they are pulling from images on the same host? 2. Hosting the images locally (ie. the same images will be hosted in 3 locations) and applying hreflang in the sitemap. Does anyone know which of these options are best (obviously #1 would be more convenient), or whether there are any other options for attacking this issue? Thanks!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | oline1230 -
Sudden increase in number of indexed URLs. How ca I know what URLs these are?
We saw a spike in the total number of indexed URLs (17,000 to 165,000)--what would be the most efficient way to find out what the newly indexed URLs are?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | nicole.healthline0