Migrating login page from website: SEO impact
-
Our current login page looks like www.website.com/log-in/. We are planning to migrate it to a sub directory login.website.com. For years, our login page is the top landing with highest visits after homepage. If we migrate this now, are we going to loose traffic and drop in rankings?
Thanks
-
To be honest, I'm not exactly sure what your question is. The subdomain will still be under your domain. It will be the same website but a part of it will be on a different server. The traffic will count for the domain. Even if Google would see this subdomain as a different site (which I don't will be) you still don't have what to worry about because you would have used 301 redirects and all the links will point to the new subdomain. So all you really have to do is change all the links that you can (which lead to the login page) and then do a 301 redirect from the old one to the new one. This is safe in terms of SEO and you don't have to worry about losing your position in the SERPs. Hope this helps!
-
Apologies, I'm not entirely sure of got your point. Do you mean you want the URL locked away so only a favoured few can access it? I.e. not a general website login.
If you use 301s highly likely Google will find the new login page, If that answers your query?
One point like to throw in here that a penetration tester will tell you that obscurity isn't security. Meaning that just puting the login form on another URL/Website/IP won't increase the security very much, if at all, especially if someone is determined.
-
We meant to move the login page to dedicated server away from website for security concerns. So login.website.com sub-domain will no more part of our website. I wonder the traffic to this separate page counts into website. Will 301 redirect will make sure the traffic to login page count as our website traffic?
-
We meant to move the login page to dedicated server away from website for security concerns. So login.website.com sub-domain will no more part of our website. Still 301 redirect makes the traffic to be counted as our website traffic?
-
If you 301 properly and phrase the page properly with text and tags it shouldn't be a problem, you may see an initial drop but should recover again.
With branded queries you are normally pretty safe, especially if you have a strong online presence.
Subdomains can cause a bit of a headache if they're not done right, there seems to be a bit of a trend to move away from subdomains of late in favour of putting everything on one domain. Google will sometimes see subdomains as a separate website.
-
Hi Alick,
We meant to move the login page to dedicated server away from website for security concerns. So login.website.com sub-domain will no more part of our website. I wonder the traffic to this separate page counts into website.
-
You might drop in rankings in process of site migration. It depends how well the migration is conducted. Make sure to change as many of those links leading to www.website.com/log-in/ as you can. Where you have a link to www.website.com/log-in/, change it to login.website.com to avoid too many 301's on your website. Also, you should have a good reason for migration to subdomains because you will loose domain authority. Subdomains are treated as a new different websites with zero DA and you need to build it again.
-
No If you use 301 redirection you are not going to loose traffic and drop ranking because it is your brand related query and you will always appears on top.
In your case users query might be like this yout brandname + login and other similar search queries.
Hope this helps.
Thanks
-
Hi! Don't worry. As long as you implement the redirects correctly, you will not have a problem. "A 301 redirect is a permanent redirect which passes between 90-99% of link juice (ranking power) to the redirected page. 301 refers to the HTTP status code for this type of redirect. In most instances, the 301 redirect is the best method for implementing redirects on a website." Read more here -> https://moz.com/learn/seo/redirection.
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
-
Any second opinions as to why our organic search website traffic hasn't recovered from website rebrand (domain change, website redesign)?
I am hoping to see if anyone in the Moz community would be able to help troubleshoot or lend any advice on a major organic search traffic issue we've been experiencing over the last 8 months. In a nutshell, we decided our ~4.5-year-old business needed to undergo a rebrand in October 2015. After changing domains & redesigning our website (more below), our search-driven sessions have dropped 20% in 2016 v.s. 2015. We made quite a few on-site modifications (with some success) post-redesign but are still deep in a rut and not sure what more we can do to recover. I've listed my theories below as to why we're still suffering this hit. If anyone could weigh in on these and/or share any other troubleshooting ideas, I would greatly, greatly appreciate it (and owe you a lunch/beverage of your choice the next time I'm in your city!). ****Backlinks - despite our efforts to 301 all links, I sense we have lost many backlinks. According to Open Site Explorer, our old domain has 1,172 backlinks (some from some very authoritative pages domains), 1,068 of which are passing link equity. In contrast, our new domain has 367 backlinks, 321 are passing link equity, and very few overlap with our old domain. Domain Age - we may have lost much of our reputation with Google as our new domain is much younger than our old domain (1-year-old v.s. 5.5 years old). Domain Name - although I thought to have common keywords in one's domain was a myth, I am now questioning that belief. Our old domain contained a popular, topical keyword and our new domain is derived from a term that is topical, but very uncommon. New URLs - our developer has insisted all links were moved to the new domain, but I have a hunch they were not. When conducting a "site search" (i.e. "site:websitename.com"), the new domain returns 7,740 results. Prior to our switch, a site search with the old domain yielded 30,000+ results. 404s - we found and fixed 100-200 404'd links after the domain switch. We still see a few pop-up today and I'm wondering if this is a red flag in Google's eyes. For a little more background too, here are the nitty gritty details with a rough timeline: Pre-October 12, 2015 - registered new domain and designed the new website on Wordpress, while researching a range of articles and resources for a successful site migration (e.g. this and this Moz guide). October 12, 2015 - flipped the switch on the website design, domain, minor content reorganization, and social handles. We announced the change to our audience via an article, newsletter, and social; informed Google Webmaster Tools (GWT) of the new address, 301'd all links from the old to the new domain, and submitted new sitemap in GWT. October 12 - 16, 2015 - traffic is normal, everything seems to be okay. October 17, 2015 - search traffic drops by 54% v.s. the same day of week pre-rebrand. October 26, 2015 - search traffic rises, so now only down by 30% v.s. the same day of week pre-rebrand. November/December 2015 - re-added numerous elements from the old website such as category, tag, and page pagination and a few sidebar modules that linked to other important pages and tags. Search traffic rises slightly in November (down 27% year-on-year), dips again in December (down 31% year-on-year). January 2016 - today (June 17, 2016) - we published more content on a daily basis and search traffic fluctuates around the 20% versus the same period in 2015. January 2016 - down 23% year-on-year February 2016 - down 17% year-on-year March 2016 - down 20% year-on-year April 2016 - down 21% year-on-year May 2016 - down 21% year-on-year June 2016 (until the 17th) - down 23% year-on-year Thank you all in advance for your time and help, please let me know if you have any questions!
Web Design | | nick490 -
Website Redesign and Migration to Squarespace killed my Ranking
My old website was dated, ugly, impossible to update and a mess between hard-coded pages and WP, but we were ranking #1 in the organic searches for our key words. I just redesigned my website using Squarespace. I kept most of the same text on the pages (for key words) and kept the same Meta-Tags and Title Tags for each page as much as possible. Once I was satisfied that I had done as much on-page optimization as I could, I changed the IP in our Domain Name Registry so that it would point to our new website on the Squarespace host. And our new website was live! ...Then I watched in dismay as our ranking fell into oblivion. I think this might have something to do with not doing any 301 redirects from the old website and losing all of my link juice. Is this the case? And, if so, how do I fix it? Our website url is www.kanataskinclinic.ca Thanks
Web Design | | StillLearning1 -
How Progressive Enhancement Will be Helpful for SEO?
We have bundle of webpages where we load the content dynamically with the help of Ajax. Since we, need to implement Ajax crawl scheme for making Google to read those Ajax dynamic content we planned to go with hashbang URL's (!#) by creating HTMl snapshots. But last week Google withdrawn their support on crawling the Ajax crawling scheme we are planning to go with progressive enhancement approach as stated by Google in a press release. So, I just want to know what is meant by progressive enhancement and how we can implement in the case of webpages where we load the content dynamically with the help of Ajax? Please advice me on this.
Web Design | | Prabhu.Sundar1 -
New Website launch, asking for feedback
Hey Guys, I just launched my new website. I just asking around for feedback. Please check it out if you have time and let me know www.benjaminmarc.com
Web Design | | benjaminmarcinc1 -
Wordpress: Pages vs Posts vs Portfolio
Hi All, I'm looking to put pen to paper and design my main structual template for my website. I will be creating the new site in Wordpress. My understanding of Wordpress is broken into the Static Pages, Posts and Portfolio. Static PAGE
Web Design | | Mark_Ch
Static one off content.
No tags, categories or archived Posts
content entries, which is listed in reverse chronological order.
Update post entry to maintain overall freshness of your website.
tags, categories & archived Portfolio
????? Question What are the benefits of a portfolio page over Static Pages & Posts When creating feature rich articles should i use static pages, posts or portfolio. Thanks Mark0 -
Is there any negative SEO effect when using Wordpress for your Blog?
I have a site entirely done in html, no CMS used. The blog page however, is wordpress. Wondering if this will effect us negatively in terms of SEO, having the blog that is linked to our site, a wordpress site. My gut is absolutely not, but the questions was asked....what do you think?
Web Design | | cschwartzel0 -
What would be the best way to translate my website for international seo?
I am planning on creating a multi language website that targets different countries and would like to know what would be the best way to translate my content from English to multiple different languages (French, Spanish, Swedish, Chinese, etc.). I would hire a translator but doing so for all these different languages would be too costly. Using Google translate will leave me with at best a rough translation. What are my other options? Is there a website that can provide me a better translation? Would Fiver be a better/cheaper alternative? Thoughts?
Web Design | | Shawn1240 -
Subdomains For Real Estate Website
I am currently working on a proposal for a clients Wordpress website development which includes ongoing SEO after the website is developed. I have looked into a number of options and the one that seems the most cost effective involves using subdomains for the individual listings pages. What I want: clientsdomain.com/listings/idxnumber/ What I can get for a decent price: listings.clientsdomain.com/idxnumber/ So the majority of the website will actually exist on a subdomain because the IDX API will automatically populate pages for all of the MLS listings in the area (hundreds or thousands). Meanwhile the domain itself will have all the neighborhood pages and other optimized content, blogs and whatnot. My concern is that dividing the website like this will have negative effects on SEO. There wont be duplicate content across subdomain and main domain, but they will share a lot of links back and forth. I haven't found any recent sources on the topic. Almost everything I have found says that dividing a website in this manor is bad for SEO, but these articles are often many years old. Does anyone know of a Wordpress plugin/IDX company that can provide a solution that doesn't use a subdomain and actually just lists each MLS page within a directory? I am open to using another platform, I am just most familiar with Wordpress. Will using a subdomain in the ways mentioned above have a profound negative effect on SEO? Thank you for your time in responding, I greatly appreciate it.
Web Design | | TotalMarketExposure0