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.
Root-Domain vs Subdomain Linkbuilding
-
Hello Mozzers!
Couple of days ago I received a request to start optimizing a wordpress website, the domain itself has been around for around 10-12 years so it's it can be considered as one that has real history behind it. The page has been moved from HTML/FLASH to wordpress about 3 - 4 years ago and hasn't been any SEO maintenance on it. The site used to rank for first position with several keywords, but now understandably, it has greatly decreased.
My main question would be, that when I've checked the root domain's and the subdomain's metrics with MOZ Open Site Explorer, the sub domain (with "www.") showed a PA 40 and 90 external links while the root domain (without "www.") only has 27 PA and 6 External links.
I know that the 301 or server redirects only transfers about 90% of the link juice to the targeted URL but the difference between the 2 results seem way too big for me.
What do you think? Is this normal?
During future link building is it more beneficial to target the root domain so the page won't lose that "10%" by redirecting the new link from sub-domain to root domain?
Is it possible to get more juice transferred?Thank you very much,
Adam -
Hey
I'm a bit confused - not the first time! Would very much appreciate if you good folks could shed some light on a couple of questions.
Our site in the search console is inputed as www.domain.co.uk
Is this our subdomain?
When I'm using Open Site Explorer and filter by Target, say "this root domain" is it now showing me inbound links to domain.co.uk instead?
Lastly how does this affect rankings i.e getting links to www.domain.co.uk or domain.co.uk as whoever types in either domain gets to the correct site.
-
Thank you CKG for your answer, it's much appreciated.
I have already started to move to www. , I changed in WordPress settings, from non-www to www version, also selected the preferred version www. in webmaster tools and contacted the server administrators about the change. My only last problem is the battle with the htaccess to redirect the rootdomain to the www. subdomain but I should get it sorted out pretty soon
Cheers,
Adam -
Hey
I think you should go through both for analysis purposes however in order to moving forward you should be focusing on one URL which contains www.
here are the link for you to help yourself to understand the difference between these.
http://moz.com/community/q/root-domain-and-subdomain-links-opensite-explorer
-
I have just come across the same issue for a site I am optimising. For me, when www is used the page authority in OSE is 42 compared to 33 when there is no www.
It would be really good to hear what people's views are on this.
Billy
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
-
Why did my Domain Authority drop?
I had an ok domain authority. We focused on building backlinks for our website and it shows that we received a significant number of backlinks. However, today, our DA fell significantly. I don't understand why that happened. Can someone please help me with this situation? Thank you.
Link Building | | MizbaCMU1 -
slug Link redirect to subdomain?
Hi !
Link Building | | Leviiii
Im Levi new here and new in the world of SEO, please dont judge if my questions are silly. Back on the days when the site was built we thought it is a good ideea to have subdomains that together with the domain name represent our main keywords.
ex. https://stansted.tonorwich.uk, https://heathrow.tonorwich.uk, https://luton.tonorwich.uk, https://gatwick.tonorwich.uk. There is content on this subdomains, would it make any difference from SEO perspective if we create slugs that redirect to these subdomains? for example creating https://tonorwich.uk/taxi-minibus-vip-tesla-norwich-to-stansted that redirects to https://stansted.tonorwich.uk ? Or better create these slugs with slightly different content?
Any ideeas would be appreciated.
Thanks in advance!0 -
I just uncovered a massive 500+ domain PBN linking to competitors
As the title, some competitors I've been watching are using a PBN they (or their agency) have built. I'm looking to get some discussion on how you approach situations like this - do you just report all of the domains to Google and pray they do something? There are 4 sites I'm looking at, all competing in the same niche with very similar websites (different branding and content, but essentially the same pages). I thought all were related, but after Excel-ing all the domains to see which overlap I've found that there's several sets; PBN 1 covers 117 domains that link to competitors A, B & C. Signaling to me that these are owned by the same person. PBN 2 links together B & C with 30 domains, PBN 3 is just C with 40 domains. PBN 4 is just B with 105 domains. PBN 5 is just A with 10 domains. PBN 6 is D by itself with more than 340 domains. Signaling to me that this one probably isn't owned by the same person. It looks like new domains are added to these PBNs every week and this has been going on for quite some time. Now, I'm fully against use of PBNs that don't use authentic websites that provide value, and I can't find any of these sites that aren't just a basic WP template with a single-word text logo followed by spun content. This is a goldmine, because according to Ahrefs these sites are pulling in well over 500,000 monthly visitors between them, and these links make up the majority of each site's link profile. If these networks were to crumble, that would open up a big opportunity for more authentic sites to rank well. How would you recommend to tackle this? Do I find example URLs and write reports for each of the 500+ domains or are there better ways of working through this?
Link Building | | Leads.Bz0 -
Backlinks from subdomain, can it hurt ranking?
I just started doing an SEO audit and noticed I have 40,000 some odd back links from an OLD version of our site that has been moved to a subdomain. The back links are for articles that already exist on our main site. I don't think Google is picking it up as duplicate content because that site isn't being crawled anymore. Could this hurt us SEO wise? I plan on removing the site, but how long after it's been removed should those back links disappear?
Link Building | | MMAffiliate0 -
What tools/techniques you use to check if a domain has been penalized?
If we think to buy expired or otherwise dropped domains, what tools or techniques you would recommend to check if there has bad SEO history? We could of course, check with Google itself if the site is indexed and ranks, but I am asking if there is a particular tool out there that would provide more information if a website had been shady. Thanks so much, guys! Lily
Link Building | | wspwsp0 -
Does blocking domains help remove bad links?
I have affiliate websites that are harming for one of 2 reasons: 1. They are on adult websites (and I don't want to be in a bad neighborhood) or 2. They are using a Frameset (so their content appears identical to mine and I am getting "credit" for all their junk links) I cannot get these websites to remove our links so I have blocked their IPs on our production firewall. Is this an effective method or should I do something else with these links?
Link Building | | theLotter0 -
Linkbuilding for Clients? Do I create new email account for outreach?
Hey Guys, So in the past when I would build links for a client I would create a new email account or have them create a new email account for their website which I can use for email outreach for building links. Also I would try to use their twitter user accounts to get in contact with other niche bloggers for a potential link back or a social mention. Is this how you guys suggest I should continue going about building links for a client? Or do you suggest using my email (agency email) or a random gmail account for email outreach? Thanks
Link Building | | asimahme0 -
Iframes vs links
Obviously, websites can link to another web site using iframes, and Google and other search engines do seem to have some capability to index the content. What I want to know is what is the difference in value passed between a regular link and an iframe link. <iframe src="http://www.targetwebsite.com/targetlink"><br /><br />will have the same page ranking effect on the target web site as this link: <br /><br /><a href="http://www.targetwebsite.com/targetlink">link</a><br /><br />Alternative, would it work to include an invisible actual link right before the iframe, like this: <br /><br /><a style="display: none;" href="http://www.targetwebsite.com/targetlink">link</a><br /><iframe src="http://www.targetwebsite.com/targetlink"/></p> <p><span style="color: #5e5e5e;">The reason is that we are building a product recommendation engine, for a branded cosmetology school in order to get our concept salons to link back to use and I was curious if creating a version they can use as an iframe will give us link benefit.</span></p></iframe>
Link Building | | incept0