Domain and subdomain comparison - a deeper look into the subdomain metrics
-
Hi all,
As I'm doing an analysis on our site and our main competitor (both sites are quite big, with active forums), who is much larger than we are, I have found out that :
-
Our site has the strongest domain authority: 34, competitor: 33.
-
Competitor beats us on 6 out of 8 areas in the sub categories for the "domain authority" category
-
We beat our competitor in 8 out of 8 sub categories for the category "sub domain metrics"
Now, as the title for this question suggests, I would like to hear what your thoughts is on this. Remember that our competitor is way bigger than us - how can they do so bad on the sub domain metrics, compared to us (and everybody else, I guess)?
What are your thoughts on this?
Please be aware that the domain shown to the left in the screen shot is our competitor.
Thanks a lot - all comments are very much appreciated!
-
-
Hi MPO,
The competitor has a lot of points pointing to his root domain, but for whatever reason they do not point to the subdomain that you are comparing.
For example, if I point a link to example.com (no www), then the root domain metrics for the url www.example.com would be strong, but for the specific subdomain www.example.com they would be weaker.
(boy, this is so confusing when you try to explain it on paper. Here's a post from Rand on subdomains - http://www.seomoz.org/blog/understanding-root-domains-subdomains-vs-subfolders-microsites
Does it matter? Probably not much. It depends where exactly those links are pointing, and what's ranking in the search results. Keep doing what you're doing - getting good links from good sources, and you'll come out on top either way.
-
I wouldn't worry about it to much to be honest, your better off spending your time building great content and getting people to link to it rather than watching what your competitions stats say. Focus on getting your own stuff right, and you'll soon be leaving the competition wondering what happened.
-
From what I have read, I don't disagree. We have always (until very recently) been focusing solely on "honest" links (links that real people actually make on their site or in a forum), in comparison to "links that you build" / pay for / do something to get - that philosophy (or lack of philosophy, one might say) has changed, and slowly we are starting to get (build) better and more links.
To be honest, I'm not sure if your reply answered my question: Why has our competitor such a weak score on the "sub domain metric" and does this matter (at all)?
Or put in another way, the question simply is: does it make any sense to spend time on wondering about this?
-
To be honest a DA in the 30's is pretty low. If you concentrate on getting a 30-50 good quality links you should easily get into the 40's.
-
Hi, and thanks for your answer - you are right about that, yes. When you look at the example shown in my initial post, what do you think about those two site-profiles. Does it tell whether one of the sites is in "good" or "bad" shape, does it really not say anything, etc.? Also: Is it important to beat your competitor on the "sub domain metrics", or does this question really not make much sense to ask?
Any one who has an opinion about this?
-
It all depends on where links are pointing to - remember a www. is also subdomain.
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
-
Unsolved I have lost SEO Ranking while removing www from domain
I have lost search SEO ranking for 4-6 core keywords while removing www from domain switch.
On-Page Optimization | | velomate
Referring domain: https://cashforscrapcarsydney.com.au/ Earlier the domain was in the format: https://www.cashforscrapcarsydney.com.au/ But when I checked the search result, search engines had not yet crawled to the new format. Let me know if the server change or any algorithm hit might cause it. Also please share the feedback on - does removing www from the domain losses keyword ranking. Helpful replies are needed.0 -
Why am not ranking on google with 30 of domain authority
Hello my name is Alexander muller and around 2 years ago i have build this website https://muller-designs.com/ i love to use MOZ to analyze other sites, so i know that my page is better than some others but they still aut rank my website can someone give me an explanation for this ? and i also have a couple of other questions it would be great if someone can help me Is on-site optimisation really that important??? How often should I update my blog???
On-Page Optimization | | alexmuller871 -
Does Google's algo look at all traffic mediums with regs to onpage metrics or only organic traffic metrics?
Hi folks, This is something I've pondered for a while. I've ask a couple of Googlers but no reponse yet and I don't I'll get one! In your opinion, do you think Google looks at on page metrics like bounce rate for example from all traffic mediums (organic, paid, email, social referral etc etc) or they only look at on page metrics from organic traffic? I'm not talking about direct correlations from other mediums. I'm only talking about when a user lands on a website, do the actions they take matter with regards to Google's search algo no matter of the referring medium, or do Google only look at onpage metrics on visits which came to the site via organic search as a medium. Option 1 As a very simplified example: Google gives extra weight in the SERPs to website A which has an average bounce rate of 30% from all mediums compared to website B which has a bounce rate of 50% from all mediums. Option 2 Google gives extra weight in the SERPs to website A which has an average bounce rate of 30% from organic traffic only compared to website B which has a bounce rate of 50% from organic traffic only. I'm not sure if anyone outside Google has the answer/proof of this but was keen to get other people's thoughts. If you think the also uses one or the other, can you give an insights/proof of one or the other? For me it would make sense for them only to use onpage metrics from sessions which came from organic seach traffic, but who knows! Merci buckets, Gill.
On-Page Optimization | | Cannetastic0 -
SEO for multilingual and multiregional site seperated with subdirectories on same domain
Hi all, I am working on a website that is multilingual and multiregional.
On-Page Optimization | | helgeolaussen
The site is on a single TDL where the countries are seperated with subdirectories.
I am only working with SEO for one country, so just one of the subdirectories.
Do you guys have any tips on important stuff to remember when doing SEO for this site?
Any pros or cons for this? Ty0 -
Duplicate content on domains we own
Hello! We are new to SEO and have a problem we have caused ourselves. We own two domains GoCentrix.com (old domain) and CallRingTalk.com (new domain that we want to SEO). The content was updated on both domains at about the same time. Both are identical with a few exceptions. Now that we are getting into SEO we now understand this to be a big issue. Is this a resolvable matter? At this point what is the best approach to handle this? So far we have considered a couple of options. 1. Change the copy, but on which site? Is one flagged as the original and the other duplicate? 2. Robots.txt noindex, nofollow on the old one. Any help is appreciated, thanks in advance!
On-Page Optimization | | CallRingTalk0 -
How can I make google display rich snippets when searching for my domain?
My domain is www.phraseexpander.com If I search for phraseexpander in google, I'm in the first position (as it should be) but google is not giving extra space to my result as it happens, for example, if you search for "fogbugz". Is there any way I can hep google index my contents (I currently have a site index that is created by Yoast SEO). Thanks a lot. Andrea
On-Page Optimization | | nagar0 -
Linking back to my domain but they dont show up
My back links are not working. I am linking them all back to my domain but they are not appearing? any help? Is it because of my anchor text ?
On-Page Optimization | | BlueCreations1120 -
Does Google still see masked domains as duplicate content?
Older reads state the domain forwarding or masking will create duplicate content but Google has evolved quite a bit and I'm wondering if that is still the case? Not suggesting that a 301 is not the proper way to redirect something but my question is: Does Google still see masked domains as duplicate content? Is there any viable use for domain masking other than for affiliates?
On-Page Optimization | | TracyWeb0