Linking to root domain or specific sub-site
-
Hello,
When optimizing for multiple keywords, should I try to get links back to the root domain of the company I work with, or would it be better to link back to sub-sites specific to the keyword I am optimizing for? Does 'getting the root up' help all keywords I work with?
Cheers,
Mike
-
read up on "keyword cannibalization" - it will give you a better view of how you can compete with yourself on keywords.
best of luck!
dan -
Total of 10-20. That includes the pre- and suffices. I am using only about 4 base keywords (very competitive though). Thanks for your advice, will target some sub-directories to get those up individually. The root is quite solid already, just was wondering if boosting it up even more would help all other keywords.
-
So you are optimizing 10-20 keywords each with those expansions? if the base keyword is the same you would probably want to minimize this and sectionalize where-ever you can.
ex:
grapes section
free grapes subsection
how to order grapes online subsectiona warning, if you're building sections on those expansions individually you are going to have a tough time building content and earning relevance as you are kind of competing with your own keywords, against SERPS that are targeted with relevant content.
you may be better off just targeting "free grapes" in 1 section with some keyword mix in the content and having 1 good relevant page instead of 10 low quality pages.
hope that helps.
dan
-
It is a few base keywords with expansions. Basically it is:
keyword
free keyword
keyword online
free keyword online
In this pattern. Overall I am currently going after maybe 10-20 keywords total. It isn't that all links will be going in to root.
And yes, I do mean sub directories. Sorry for using improper lingo.
-
Mike,
How many keywords are you optimizing for? If we're talking 100's/1000's, I would personally tend to lean towards pointing towards the most relevant content on your site. This will up "time on site" and lower "bounce rate" because the content the user just clicked the anchor text of will be more relevant than pushing them to your home page and having to search allover again. How many times have you clicked a random link only to be pushed to a home page and thought, "Well hell, I'm not going to bother!"
You should have a base set of "core" keywords you can target for your root domain.
Hope that helps,
dan
-
Hi Mike, when you say sub-sites I guess you mean sub directories or pages like: domain.com/some-page/, so when building links, yes the links to your home page will help the entire domain link metrics, but won't necessary make you rank for other keywords targeted in the sub-pages, besides a site with links coming in only to the home page does not look very natural, you might raise a flag there.
I would advice to build links to your home page and to other important pages of your website that target other keywords.
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
-
Inbound link is follow link but we put no follow link back - is it beneficial for rankings?
Dear Moz Community, We are operating in a niche market, where there are not so many content marketing options. What we are left with are link exchanging with relevant sites that are on the same topic but to not directly compete with us. Now we know that if we link back to site A and site a links back to us - for google this is not a very good link. But, some of the sites we are exchanging links with, do not know the term follow vs no follow links. My question - if your link is to site A is a no follow link but they give us a follow link - does it mean thats a better option than a follow vs follow. Thanks for help!
Link Building | | advertisingcloud0 -
GWT Lists URLs with links to my site, but those URLs don't have links to my site
There are a number of URLs that show up for my website in Webmaster Tools as having links to my site when in fact they don't. I know this to be a fact because I actually wrote some of the sites that Google is saying are linking to my site and I know there isn't any links on the specific pages to that site. For example, the site in question is: https://www.liftproducts.com/ As an example, Google is saying that about 100 URLs from https://www.lift-tables.net/ are linking to it when, I'm fairly confident that there is only 1 link to it found here: https://www.lift-tables.net/info.php?countrytabs=3 Yet Google says links exist on this (and many more) page: https://www.lift-tables.net/liftproducts/max-lift/lpt4w-030-48.php I thought at first it might have been due to linking to a image file directly instead of locally hosting it, but after checking the source, that's not the case. I am also seeing this type of non-linking being reported on sites I have no clue what they are. For example, some Spanish site about tandem bicycles is being listed as linking to liftproducts.com: http://206-225-85-34.dedicated.abac.net/tandem/inc Yet I can find no evidence of an actual link existing. Am I missing something here? Any insight of why this is happening and how I can clean up my link signature would be appreciated.
Link Building | | Nivik231 -
Many of our best links are to our old domain. Problem?
Hi, around 7 years ago the organization I'm with switched their domain name. When doing link analysis some of our best links are to the old domain including a followed link from an article on the BBC news site. The old domain has been 301 redirecting to the new domain for years. Is it worth the time to contact the sites that are linking to the old domain? Or, will all or the majority of the link juice be given to the newer domain with the 301 redirect? Thanks!
Link Building | | limited70 -
Accidentally generated navigation links that point to American site from Australian site.
Somehow we ended up getting hundreds-of-thousands of links coming from our .au (Australia site) to our .com (America site). We believe that something happened during a change that turned a handful of our example.com.au navigational and footer links into back links pointing to example.com and sub-domains of the American version. We are currently fixing this, but we are wondering if this could potentially be problematic in terms of a penguin penalty due to an unnatural linking campaign or back link scheme. Could this error create major problems for us in the near future if we have corrected the issue? Your thoughts are welcome! Thanks!
Link Building | | tdawson090 -
Does the number of people who click on a link to your site from another domain influence your domain authority?
Say you have a link to your site on the BBC, is it the fact that you're being linked to from a domain of very high authority that boost your own domain authority or is it dependent on how many people actually click on your link from that site? Any insights much appreciated!
Link Building | | loco20 -
I am getting links on people's wordpress blogs but are not showing up on the just discovered tool. Is it true that wordpress links are no-follow links that do give off any link-juice?
A blogger told me that "wordpress.com does not allow blogs to show advertisements or use links to sites that sell merchandise of any kind" is this true? Am i wasting my outreach time trying to get links from wordpress operated blogs?
Link Building | | odegi0 -
Domain extensions and link building
Hi, If you were trying to rank your website for a search term in Google UK, would it be more beneficial to build links from .co.uk websites then any other? I have read on Hubspot if your targeting UK rankings then link building from .co.uk domains will have a good impact on UK rankings? Thanks
Link Building | | activitysuper0 -
Linking Root Domain does not show twitter
I wonder what it takes to capture twitter as a backlink. We have a twitter account @idyllicsoftware which never occurs in open site explorer. Also it never shows newer back links. Could you suggest how to use it better?
Link Building | | idyllicsoftware0