I have consolidated my subdomains into subfolders; should i remove the subdomains also?
-
Hi,
I have consolidated my website's many sub-domains into sub-folders. We had ~20 sub-domains. The sub-domains and the root domain shared the same code-base and sub-domain specific features were controlled using Apache's SetEnv directive in the httpd.conf includes.
Now they are consolidated. I have redirected all of the sub-domains to the relevant sub-folder; so http://sub1.mysite.com now 301 redirects to http://www.mysite.com/sub1.The redirects happen in the htaccess file and all sub-domains and the root are still pointing to the same code-base.
However, the Moz campaign tracker still occasionally tells me that i have optimisation opportunities at http://sub1.mysite.com and in both Bing and Google webmaster tools traffic to those sub-domains is mentioned.
Should i delete the subdomains?
Cheers
-
Robots.txt! That makes sense. I'll do that.
Thanks for your response.
-
If everything is redirecting properly, you shouldn't have an issue, and the subdomain still being present will actually be helpful to any folks with an outdated link or bookmark.
You may want to add noindex to the pages on those subdomains, or block them with robots.txt. Over time, that would get them out of the search results in favor of the new, up-to-date subfolders. Removing them, though, isn't necessary.
-
Hi Jimmy,
Thanks for responding and for the advice. When i hit the old sub-domain with Screaming Frog i get 301 moved permanently and nothing further is crawled. I Frog-crawled a number of the old URLs and they are all redirecting correctly with 301s. It looks like there is no duplicate content but i am still a bit uneasy that the old sub-domain shows up in Moz and the webmaster tools..
-
Hi,
To avoid any duplicate content, not having the subdomains is the safest way to do so.
Check the subdomains with something like the screaming frog, for what is returned, if there is content then you will need to redirect that content.
Kind Regards
Jimmy
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
-
Remove sitemap, effect ranking?
We are considering to remove our sitemap because it doesn't display the right structure. Will it affect current rankings if we remove the sitemap en continuing without a sitemap? Thanks
Technical SEO | | rijwielcashencarry0400 -
Removed Subdomain Sites Still in Google Index
Hey guys, I've got kind of a strange situation going on and I can't seem to find it addressed anywhere. I have a site that at one point had several development sites set up at subdomains. Those sites have since launched on their own domains, but the subdomain sites are still showing up in the Google index. However, if you look at the cached version of pages on these non-existent subdomains, it lists the NEW url, not the dev one in the little blurb that says "This is Google's cached version of www.correcturl.com." Clearly Google recognizes that the content resides at the new location, so how come the old pages are still in the index? Attempting to visit one of them gives a "Server Not Found" error, so they are definitely gone. This is happening to a couple of sites, one that was launched over a year ago so it doesn't appear to be a "wait and see" solution. Any suggestions would be a huge help. Thanks!!
Technical SEO | | SarahLK0 -
Content on subdomain...
We recently moved our Wordpress site to a new host (WPEngine). We had forums on the old web host, which we need to migrate to a new forum platform (Xenforo) and integrate into the WP site. Since WPEngine only allows Wordpress on their servers, we need to install the forums at another web host, on one of our other domains. We might point to the forums through a subdomain, like this: forums.our-primary-domain.com The main reason we're re-installing the forums is for SEO value. HOWEVER, since our forum content will be on another domain, will we have an issue? If so, is there a workaround that would give us 'credit' for that content? Thanks much.
Technical SEO | | jmueller08230 -
How to recover from duplicate subdomain penalty?
Two and half a weeks ago, my site was slapped with a penalty -- 60% of organic traffic disappeared over 2-3 days. After investigating we discovered that our site was serving the same content for all subdomains, and Google somehow had two additional subdomains it was crawling and indexing. We solved the issue with 301 redirects to our main site (www) a couple of days after the drop -- about two weeks ago. Our rankings have not recovered, and the subdomains are still indexed per Webmaster Tools. Yesterday we submitted a Reconsideration Request. Will that help? Is there any other way to speed up the process of lifting the penalty? This is the site: http://goo.gl/3DCbl Thank you!
Technical SEO | | tact0 -
Do knowledge base plugins on a subdomain have seo benefit?
Hi SEO Moz, We want to use a knowledge base plugin (cheaper & faster than building it ourselves) where we can have Q&As for our website. We want this to help with our SEO by adding in our keyterms that we want to rank for. We've looked into TenderApp & Get Satisfaction which look like good solutions - however, as they're both on a sub-domain do we get any seo benefit from this? When people link to our knowledge base, will this help our website at all - or is the benefit going to go to TenderApp/Get Satisfaction? For instance - Our website URL is http://widget.products.com The KB URL is http://widgetsupport.products.com If the above plugin is not a good solution, is there anything else that is better? Any help will be greatly appreciated!! Thanks.
Technical SEO | | qdigi0 -
Blogs are best when hosted on domain, subdomain, or...?
I’ve heard the it is a best practice to host your blog within your site. I’ve also heard it’s best to put it on a subdomain. What do you believe is the best home for your blog and why?
Technical SEO | | vernonmack0 -
How to remove crawl errors in google webmaster tools
In my webmaster tools account it says that I have almost 8000 crawl errors. Most of which are http 403 errors The urls are http://legendzelda.net/forums/index.php?app=members§ion=friends&module=profile&do=remove&member_id=224 http://legendzelda.net/forums/index.php?app=core&module=attach§ion=attach&attach_rel_module=post&attach_id=166 And similar urls. I recently blocked crawl access to my members folder to remove duplicate errors but not sure how i can block access to these kinds of urls since its not really a folder thing. Any idea on how to?
Technical SEO | | NoahGlaser780 -
Impact on domain when using a subdomain for majority opf site content
Hello, We're looking to use a subdomain for a bookings engine that will also host the majority of our site content as it wil house the details of the courses that we'll be selling online. All content is currently available on www.existingdomain.co.uk A few pages will remain here but the majority will ultimately be hosted on a different IP address under a subdomain: courses.existingdomain.co.uk I am a little concerened about search engine reaction to this content separation. Would this approach dilute the rankings of www.existingdomain.co.uk? Is there anything else we need to be mindful of? We have alternative options if this is a real SEO faux pas. Thanks
Technical SEO | | Urbanfox0