How to correctly move subdomain to subfolder (google webmaster)?
-
Hello,
This is my first post in here
I just wondered what is the correct way to move a subdomain to subfolder?
I've moved it, re-done sitemap, so that main website would include a subfolder, as they are part of one big website now (it was something like a blog on a subdomain).
Subdomain now does correct 301 redirects.
Submitted new sitemap to google, asked google to re-fetch the whole domain (thus subfolder should be re-fetched too, as it's part of main nav).
The areas i'm in doubt:
I can tell google that the domain got moved, however it is moved to the one that is already approved in the same account, but is in a subfolder, so should i do this? Or should i simply somehow erase it on webmaster?
The blog was launched about a month ago, and it isn't perfectly optimized yet, it wasn't on google SERPs pretty much at all, excluding googling it straightly, and there are pretty much 0 traffic from google, almost all of it is either direct either referral, mostly social,
Thanks,
Pavel
-
I'm just made a similar move, moving my blog from blog.domain.com to domain.com/my-blog.
I don't think I can use the Google change of address - it is throwing me an error when I get to that step in the change of address because I'm going to a sub directory, not to the root. "The old site redirects to www.domain.com/my-blog, which does not correspond to the new site you chose."
Should I care? I'm getting organic traffic already on the blog URLs, and Google has indexed about half of the URLs that I submitted via the sitemap.
-
Yep! Sounds like that'd be the right thing to do. : Given the situation you'd probably be fine just resubmitting your XML sitemap—your main domain isn't changing; it's just getting a new subfolder—but I can't imagine it'd hurt.
-
Thanks for such a quick response!
0 Traffic isn't an issue, as it's for blog only, and i'll solve it
The thing that concerns me is that on google change of address - it refers to subdomain movement to another domain, so i.e. in google webmasters i got:
Now blog was moved to mywebsite.com/blog
So i should submit new address to mywebsite.com, thus the one i already have in google webmaster console?
Thanks :S
-
Here are some best practices based on your situation:
- Make sure you've used the change of address tool for the subdomain - "Request an address change.
Use the **Change of address **tool when your site move entails a domain or subdomain change, such as changing from http://fish.example-petstore.com to http://example.com or http://example-petstore.com." See https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/83106?hl=en - Also - one thing to do with your XML sitemaps is to ensure that both your old and new XML sitemaps are still submitted to Search Console. This will allow Google to read the old and the new. When it reads the old XML sitemap it will follow those URLs and redirects to find and index the new URLs. You can remove the old sitemap only when all of your new URLs are indexing to your standards.
- If you're getting 0 traffic from Google, check your Search Analytics in Search Console to make sure you're actually ranking for at least long tail keywords. 0 traffic means there's a problem. Check your robots.txt and Meta Robots to ensure everything is properly set up. Do a "site:yoursitename.com/blog" search in Google to make sure your blog URLs are ranking. Also search for your website name to make sure the blog is ranking for the site name at least.
Good luck!
- Make sure you've used the change of address tool for the subdomain - "Request an address change.
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
-
How about a No-index backlink in the eye of Google
I have a doubt - when I create a backlink as a part of SEO in some website when I rechecked the same couple of days after. It hasn't indexed and I checked its robots file. It showing **User-agent: ****Mediapartners-Google ****Disallow: ****User-Agent: * ****Disallow:**However, is this create any backlink support or just this for the purpose of not indexing in google.I make it simple -"Is this kind of backlink creation support my SEO activity or Not?" In this No-index website.
Local Website Optimization | | LayaPaul0 -
What more can be done to get Google to change the landing pages it uses for certain search terms?
For one of my SEO campaigns, Google is using the website's home page as the landing page for the majority of search terms being tracked. The website splits its products by region and so we want specific region pages to rank for search terms related to that region, rather than the home page. We have optimised each regional page to a reasonably high standard and we have ensured that there is a good amount of internal linking and sign-posting to those region pages, however, Google is still using the home page. The only complication is that for the first few months there were canonical tags on these pages to the home page. These were removed around 3 months ago and we've checked that the region pages are indexed properly. Is there anything we are missing? Has anyone had any success in getting Google to change its landing pages?
Local Website Optimization | | ClickHub-Harry0 -
Moving from html to wordpress site - 301's
Hello, I recently took control of my website from a web designer. I have been reading as much as I can regards SEO etc to make long term improvements to my site. The site was a basic 4 page website for a local cleaning company. Consisting of a homepage, services page, testimonial and contact page. The site performed reasonably given it's lack of detail or SEO but probably only because the level of competition isn't great. I am in the process of rebuilding the site in wordpress and with SEO in mind I intend to have more than 1 page regards services. I have 301'd my services.html page to my number 1 keyword term to gain any little link juice that is available. Now to my questions... Should I be doing this with the other pages? Is it worth 301'ing my contact us page? Is there anything to be gained by doing so? Again should I 301 the index.html to the new homepage? Been reading about this and the issues relating to loops etc but cannot find a definite answer regards the need? Last scenario - lets say my testimonials.html page has some link juice would it be beneficial to 301 that to 1 of my new service pages to give that a kick start as opposed to making a less important page like another testimonials page more powerful? Hope this makes sense, I am a beginner just thinking out loud. Thanks
Local Website Optimization | | sfrediktru80 -
Collapsing Location-Specific Subdomains
My client has 24 separate subdomains for its nationwide business, one for each specific location. Much of the content is very similar, as the site serves as a lead-generator for rental reservations. After years of suggesting the approach of using one domain, we have finally gotten the client onboard to eliminating the subdomains and maintaining a subdirectory/page approach for location-specific content and allowing universal content to live at the root domain. I've been looking for any case studies that have any watch-outs or demonstrated benefits when collapsing domestic subdomains (phoenix.client.com; albuquerque.client.com, etc.) into the root, and have been fairly unsuccessful so far. We will be setting up a rigorous 301 redirect tree to ensure we retain as much link juice as possible from any existing subdomain-specific inbound links. Any advice/guidance to help set expectations of what will shake down from this change? It feels like we should see increased domain authority and less cannibalization, as the client ranks nationally for important broad-level keywords, with significantly higher DA at the root level than any tracked competitors, but I'm a little nervous about how localized search results will be affected. Thank you!
Local Website Optimization | | ClassicPartyRentals1 -
Subdomain versus Subfolder for Local SEO
Hello Moz World, I'm wanting to know the best practices for utilizing a subdomain versus a subfolder for multi location businesses, i.e. miami.example.com vs. example.com/miami; I would think that that utilizing the subdomain would make more sense for a national organization with many differing locations, while a subfolder would make more sense for a smaller more nearby locations. I wanted to know if anyone has any a/b examples or when it should go one way or another? Thank you, Kristin Miller
Local Website Optimization | | Red_Spot_Interactive0 -
Search Result Discrepancy: Keyword "Dresses" shows international sites in the search results of Google.co.in.
Hi All, What would be the reason that Google shows international websites in the first page results while there are huge local players available. Eg: Dresses - Keyword that shows results with almost all the results from International websites whereas the local big players in the same category are not shown. This is not the case for other keywords like Women dresses, Clothing, Shoes etc., Is it a bug or any particular reasons? Thanks,
Local Website Optimization | | Myntra0 -
Google Panda 4.0 update - Good for Small businesses?
Hi guys, We recently did a post on Google Panda 4.0 release. Check this here. Have you seen any notable changes in rankings for your website? Do you think that this update will benefit small businesses/websites? Looking forward to your comments.
Local Website Optimization | | FRL2