Skip to content
    Moz logo Menu open Menu close
    • Products
      • Moz Pro
      • Moz Pro Home
      • Moz Local
      • Moz Local Home
      • STAT
      • Moz API
      • Moz API Home
      • Compare SEO Products
      • Moz Data
    • Free SEO Tools
      • Domain Analysis
      • Keyword Explorer
      • Link Explorer
      • Competitive Research
      • MozBar
      • More Free SEO Tools
    • Learn SEO
      • Beginner's Guide to SEO
      • SEO Learning Center
      • Moz Academy
      • MozCon
      • Webinars, Whitepapers, & Guides
    • Blog
    • Why Moz
      • Digital Marketers
      • Agency Solutions
      • Enterprise Solutions
      • Small Business Solutions
      • The Moz Story
      • New Releases
    • Log in
    • Log out
    • Products
      • Moz Pro

        Your all-in-one suite of SEO essentials.

      • Moz Local

        Raise your local SEO visibility with complete local SEO management.

      • STAT

        SERP tracking and analytics for enterprise SEO experts.

      • Moz API

        Power your SEO with our index of over 44 trillion links.

      • Compare SEO Products

        See which Moz SEO solution best meets your business needs.

      • Moz Data

        Power your SEO strategy & AI models with custom data solutions.

      Track AI Overviews in Keyword Research
      Moz Pro

      Track AI Overviews in Keyword Research

      Try it free!
    • Free SEO Tools
      • Domain Analysis

        Get top competitive SEO metrics like DA, top pages and more.

      • Keyword Explorer

        Find traffic-driving keywords with our 1.25 billion+ keyword index.

      • Link Explorer

        Explore over 40 trillion links for powerful backlink data.

      • Competitive Research

        Uncover valuable insights on your organic search competitors.

      • MozBar

        See top SEO metrics for free as you browse the web.

      • More Free SEO Tools

        Explore all the free SEO tools Moz has to offer.

      NEW Keyword Suggestions by Topic
      Moz Pro

      NEW Keyword Suggestions by Topic

      Learn more
    • Learn SEO
      • Beginner's Guide to SEO

        The #1 most popular introduction to SEO, trusted by millions.

      • SEO Learning Center

        Broaden your knowledge with SEO resources for all skill levels.

      • On-Demand Webinars

        Learn modern SEO best practices from industry experts.

      • How-To Guides

        Step-by-step guides to search success from the authority on SEO.

      • Moz Academy

        Upskill and get certified with on-demand courses & certifications.

      • MozCon

        Save on Early Bird tickets and join us in London or New York City

      Unlock flexible pricing & new endpoints
      Moz API

      Unlock flexible pricing & new endpoints

      Find your plan
    • Blog
    • Why Moz
      • Digital Marketers

        Simplify SEO tasks to save time and grow your traffic.

      • Small Business Solutions

        Uncover insights to make smarter marketing decisions in less time.

      • Agency Solutions

        Earn & keep valuable clients with unparalleled data & insights.

      • Enterprise Solutions

        Gain a competitive edge in the ever-changing world of search.

      • The Moz Story

        Moz was the first & remains the most trusted SEO company.

      • New Releases

        Get the scoop on the latest and greatest from Moz.

      Surface actionable competitive intel
      New Feature

      Surface actionable competitive intel

      Learn More
    • Log in
      • Moz Pro
      • Moz Local
      • Moz Local Dashboard
      • Moz API
      • Moz API Dashboard
      • Moz Academy
    • Avatar
      • Moz Home
      • Notifications
      • Account & Billing
      • Manage Users
      • Community Profile
      • My Q&A
      • My Videos
      • Log Out

    The Moz Q&A Forum

    • Forum
    • Questions
    • Users
    • Ask the Community

    Welcome to the Q&A Forum

    Browse the forum for helpful insights and fresh discussions about all things SEO.

    1. Home
    2. SEO Tactics
    3. Intermediate & Advanced SEO
    4. Canonical Question: Root Domain Geo Redirects to SubFolder.

    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.

    Canonical Question: Root Domain Geo Redirects to SubFolder.

    Intermediate & Advanced SEO
    3
    9
    2030
    Loading More Posts
    • Oldest to Newest
    • Newest to Oldest
    • Most Votes
    Reply
    • Reply as question
    Log in to reply
    This topic has been deleted. Only users with question management privileges can see it.
    • blake.runyon
      blake.runyon last edited by

      Howdy,

      Working on a larger eComm site that 302s you based on your location. With that in mind should I canonicalize the final page.

      domain.com => 302 => domain.com/us/, domain.com/fr/, etc... (Should these all have a canonical pointing to the root domain.com?

      1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
      • blake.runyon
        blake.runyon @DirkC last edited by

        Thanks for the tips man!

        1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
        • DirkC
          DirkC @blake.runyon last edited by

          To be very honest I don't think it will make a difference if it's going to the /us/ version rather than the root.

          If you prefer - you could keep the us version on the root & only redirect the non-us visitors to a country version.

          Dirk

          blake.runyon 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
          • blake.runyon
            blake.runyon @DirkC last edited by

            My only concern is domain.com/us/ showing up on google instead of domain.com

            Is there anything I can do too keep it the SERP juice going to domain.com instead of the subfolder?

            DirkC 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
            • DirkC
              DirkC @blake.runyon last edited by

              As far as I understand there is no content on domain.com so your last line makes no sense.

              If you want the default version to be the us version you should put

              Don't forget that hreflang needs to be placed on every page of your site - you can check if the implementation is correct here: http://flang.dejanseo.com.au/

              Dirk

              blake.runyon 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
              • blake.runyon
                blake.runyon @DirkC last edited by

                Dirk,

                Great thoughts! We're currently talk through out long term international strategy right now. We're running about 20 local sites times 3 brands. Some are on subfolders, some on subdomains, and some on ccTLDs... so this is pretty tough right now.

                We luckily caught an issue with Googlebot not being able to access internationally and corrected it. So I think we're safe on that front.

                Most of the regions are cross accessible (Europe/APAC/North America) but you can't get from Asia to Europe if you need to from the site. So that's on our radar!

                1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                • blake.runyon
                  blake.runyon @anthonydnelson last edited by

                  So in this case we don't need point a canonical from the subfolder to the root. But I need something like...

                  So then... will domain.com/us/ start ranking for google.com or will domain.com rank for google.com?

                  DirkC 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                  • DirkC
                    DirkC last edited by

                    Be careful when redirecting based on ip - you have to make sure that Googlebot (accessing your site with a Californian ip) can access the non-US versions. If you have a link on each page to change the version to another country (and these pages are accessible without being redirected) you should be ok.

                    An alternative to ip based redirection is to use your main domain for a country select page and to store the selection in a cookie - so you can redirect to the chosen version on subsequent visits. Check volvocars.com as an example. The advantage is of this method is that you give control to the user (I personally find it quite annoying when I'm being redirected to the local version when I'm abroad and want to visit my "home" version).

                    rgds,

                    Dirk

                    blake.runyon 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                    • anthonydnelson
                      anthonydnelson last edited by

                      If you are just changing the content a bit based on location, I think canonicalizing them all back to the root page is OK.

                      If this is redirecting based on translations, you should look into using the hreflang tag. It tells the search engines that there are alternate versions of the page in different languages.

                      Here are some resources for you.

                      • https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/189077?hl=en
                      • https://moz.com/blog/hreflang-behaviour-insights

                      Once that is in place, each page can canonicalize to itself.

                      • domain.com/us/
                      • domain.com/fr/
                      blake.runyon 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
                      • 1 / 1
                      • First post
                        Last post

                      Got a burning SEO question?

                      Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.


                      Start my free trial


                      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.

                      • See all categories

                      Related Questions

                      • Saba.Elahi.M.

                        When creating a sub-domain, does that sub-domain automatically start with the DA of the main domain?

                        We have a website with a high DA and we are considering sub-folder or sub-domain. One of the great benefits of a sub-folder is that we know we get to keep the high DA, is this also the case for sub-domains? Also if you could provide any sources of information that specify this, I can't see to find anything!

                        Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Saba.Elahi.M.
                        0
                      • Daaveey

                        Should I redirect a domain we control but which has been labeled 'toxic' or just shut it down?

                        Hi Mozzers: We recently launched a site for a client which involved bringing in and redirecting content which formerly had been hosted on different domains. One of these domains still existed and we have yet to bring over the content from it. It has also been flagged as a suspicious/toxic backlink source to our new domain. Would I be wise to redirect this old domain or should I just shut it down? None of the pages seem to have particular equity as link sources. Part of me is asking myself 'Why would we redirect a domain deemed toxic, why not just shut it down.' Thanks in advance, dave

                        Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Daaveey
                        0
                      • Fulanito

                        Move domain to new domain, for how much time should I keep forwarding?

                        I'm not sure but my website looks like is not getting it's juice as supposed to be. As we already know, google preferred https sites and this is what happened to mine, it was been crawling as https but when the time came to move my domain to new domain, I used 301 or domain forwarding service, unfortunately they didn't have a way to forward from https to new https, they only had regular http to https, when users clicked to my old domain from google search my site was returned to "site does not exist", I used hreflang at least that google would detect my new domain been forwarding and yes it worked but now I'm wondering, for how much time should I keep the forwarding the old domain to the new one, my site looks like is not going up, I have changed all the external links, any help would be appreciated. Thanks!

                        Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Fulanito
                        1
                      • IsaCleanse

                        Redirect domain or keep separate domains in each country?

                        Hi all Hoping this might be something that can be answered given the number of variables 🙂 
                        My main site is www.isacleanse.com.au (Obviously targeted to Australian Market) and also www.isacleanse.co.nz targeted to NZ. The main Keywords im targeting are 'Isagenix' for both and also Isagenix Australia, Isagenix Perth, Sydney (Australian cities) and Isagenix NZ, Isagenix New Zealand, Isagenix Auckland etc.. for NZ The Australian site gets a lot more traffic and Australian market gets a lot more searches - I also have a section www.isacleanse.com.au/isagenix-new-zealand/ on the Australian site. The question is am I best off redirrecting the .co.nz domain completley to the Australian Domain to give it extra SEO Juice?

                        Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | IsaCleanse
                        0
                      • Chris_Bishop

                        301 redirect subdirectory to new domain

                        I'm planning on using 301 redirects to spin out a subdirectory of my current website to be its own separate domain. For instance, I currently have a website www.website.com and my writers write tech news at www.website.com/news. Now I want to 301 redirect www.website.com/news to www.technews.com. Will this have any negative impact on SEO? What are some steps that I can take to minimize these impacts?

                        Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Chris_Bishop
                        1
                      • imran2078

                        Should I redirect my Google Update Effected Domain to brand new Domain?

                        Hey Moz experts, I had a domain which was really doing better but after the Humming Bird update my traffic was decreased up to 90%. There are plenty of posts on my existing blog, Now what should I do? I mean should I redirect it to a brand new domain or Copy all the posts to a brand new domain and delete my existing domain? Note that the Old domain has PR1, DA 19 and PA 30.

                        Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | imran2078
                        0
                      • rahul11

                        How to do geo targeting for domain and sub directories in Webmaster tool?

                        Hello All, How can i do geo targeting in multiple countries on my ** root domain and sub **directories in Webmaster tool. My domain is "abc.com" and i want to target three countries UAE , Kuwait, Saudi arabia. So, Can i assign geo targeting in Webmaster tool ,  Root domain for UAE country and make other two sub directories for Kuwait and saudi ? abc.com - UAE (geo targeting) abc.com/kw - Kuwait (geo targeting) abc.com/sa - Saudi  (geo targeting) Or Root doamain should be not assign for any country and Make three sub directories for UAE, Kuwait , and saudi and targeting them there geo locations. abc.com - Unlisted (geo targeting) abc.com/uae/ - UAE (geo targeting) abc.com/kw/ - Kuwait (geo targeting) abc.com/sa/ - Saudi  (geo targeting)

                        Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | rahul11
                        0
                      • ContentWriterMicky

                        How to resolve Duplicate Page Content issue for root domain & index.html?

                        SEOMoz returns a Duplicate Page Content error for a website's index page, with both domain.com and domain.com/index.html isted seperately. We had a rewrite in the htacess file, but for some reason this has not had an impact and we have since removed it. What's the best way (in an HTML website) to ensure all index.html links are automatically redirected to the root domain and these aren't seen as two separate pages?

                        Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | ContentWriterMicky
                        0

                      Get started with Moz Pro!

                      Unlock the power of advanced SEO tools and data-driven insights.

                      Start my free trial
                      Products
                      • Moz Pro
                      • Moz Local
                      • Moz API
                      • Moz Data
                      • STAT
                      • Product Updates
                      Moz Solutions
                      • SMB Solutions
                      • Agency Solutions
                      • Enterprise Solutions
                      • Digital Marketers
                      Free SEO Tools
                      • Domain Authority Checker
                      • Link Explorer
                      • Keyword Explorer
                      • Competitive Research
                      • Brand Authority Checker
                      • Local Citation Checker
                      • MozBar Extension
                      • MozCast
                      Resources
                      • Blog
                      • SEO Learning Center
                      • Help Hub
                      • Beginner's Guide to SEO
                      • How-to Guides
                      • Moz Academy
                      • API Docs
                      About Moz
                      • About
                      • Team
                      • Careers
                      • Contact
                      Why Moz
                      • Case Studies
                      • Testimonials
                      Get Involved
                      • Become an Affiliate
                      • MozCon
                      • Webinars
                      • Practical Marketer Series
                      • MozPod
                      Connect with us

                      Contact the Help team

                      Join our newsletter

                      Access all your tools in one place. Whether you're tracking progress or analyzing data, everything you need is at your fingertips.

                      Moz logo
                      © 2021 - 2025 SEOMoz, Inc., a Ziff Davis company. All rights reserved. Moz is a registered trademark of SEOMoz, Inc.
                      • Accessibility
                      • Terms of Use
                      • Privacy

                      Looks like your connection to Moz was lost, please wait while we try to reconnect.