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.
Confused About Addon Domains and SEO
-
I find addon domains really confusing. Everyone I've asked so far says that they don't affect SEO but I find that really hard to believe considering the same content is on both a subdomain and a subfolder and also has it's own unique domain. PLUS (in my case) completely different niche sites are sharing the same hosting.
I really don't want to pay for hosting for all of my different sites but at the same time, if it's better/safer to do so for Panda/Penguin reasons I'm happy to do that.
Thank you for your time. I look forward to your opinions/suggestions!
-
Thanks again Zach!
Are you saying that in my htaccess I should be forwarding addon.maindomain.com and maindomain.com/addon to addon.com?
OR is it more complicated/involved than that.
I'll def get a developer to do this for me, but I just want to make sure I know what I'm telling them to do and why.
-
The virtual host is what tells your web server (Apache) basic details about your website. Where to find it (path), where to store error logs, the domain name, and so forth.
Unfortunately you will need a developer to do something for you if you aren't too sure about how to go about the process, and especially if you aren't familiar with Linux platforms.
I'm not suggesting to get a hosting account for every domain -- addon domains are perfectly fine. Just make sure you are redirecting correctly (whether through .htaccess or through cPanel config). I had well over 100 addon domains many years ago when I still used cPanel
-
Thank you Zachary. I really appreciate you taking the time to answer this question for me.
Can you (or anyone) please clarify what it means to "edit the virtual hosts on the server directly". I'm not really sure what it means and I don't know how to do it either.
Also, are you suggesting that it's just easier/better to get a complete hosting account for every single domain name?
-
I'm assuming you are using cPanel? You are able to enable redirection within your panel. (I haven't seen this issue outside of cPanel)
Ideally, you are right, you shouldn't have mirror content up. If you can edit the virtual hosts on the server directly that would be another option.
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
-
On page vs Off page vs Technical SEO: Priority, easy to handle, easy to measure.
Hi community, I am just trying to figure out which can be priority in on page, off page and technical SEO. Which one you prefer to go first? Which one is easy to handle? Which one is easy to measure? Your opinions and suggestions please. Expecting more realistic answers rather than usual check list. Thanks
Algorithm Updates | | vtmoz0 -
Why my Domain Authority (DA) is Decreased
Hello, I would like to know how the changes in domain authority is considered by MOZ? Domain Authority for my this domain https://factohr.com was 14 and it is decreased to 13 in this week. Though i have a very decent and good links going over to all my pages howcome my DA is affected and decreased. As its regularly being updated and has a high quality traffic! i would like to know the reason behind decrement in DA and is there any connection with redirection of .com domain? How can i increase DA for my website?
Algorithm Updates | | MyMoz710 -
Domain Authority Distribution Across the Web
**Does anyone have stats for domain authority distribution across the entire web? E.G., what percentage of websites fall in the DA range of 0-25, 26-50, 51-75, 76-100. **
Algorithm Updates | | Investis_Digital2 -
Having 2 domains with same name - Impact on SEO
Hi AllAs we still dwindle with the rankings not coming in line with the efforts.I have a question: We have 2 websites 1. http://www.example.com/ (which lost traffic and rank in Jan 2013). So we assumed that it was due to some penguin penalty. So we worked on disavow extra but nothing actually helped.Though there was no manual penalty mentioned in the GWT. Frustrated with this we thought of having another website 6 months back: 2. https://example.org/ - we did all the right things and by the book. But we are not seeing ranking here too. We did backlink analysis on all competitors and worked on only quality links they had. So all our links are highly highly relevant. But still the ranks are not moving beyond third page...in fact they moved to 6-7 page in last 2-3 days. Please suggest .. 1. is it due to same name of domain (our brand name) causing the issue. If yes should we go for 302 or 301 redirect to save ourselves from any penalty that our last website may have got. We can not leave that name unattended as our cataloges etc have that website mentioned. i will expect a scientific reply here not gut feeling please. 2. Is it to do with .org domain extension that it should not be with commercial organizations like us Kindly reply at the earliest Regards Aman
Algorithm Updates | | Aman_1230 -
How Additional Characters and Numbers in URL affect SEO
Hi fellow SEOmozers, I noticed that a lot of websites have additional characters and words at the end of the URL in addition keyword optimized URL. Mostly for E-Commerce sites For example: www.yoursite.com/category/keyword?id=12345&Keyword--Category--cm_jdkfls_dklj or wwww.yoursite.com/category/keyword#83939=-37292 My question is how does the additional characters or parameters(not necessarily tracking parameters) affect SEO? Does it matter if i have additional keywords in the additional stuff in the URL (1st url example)? If you can provide more information, that would be helpful. Thank you!
Algorithm Updates | | TommyTan0 -
Sub-domain or sub-directory for mobile version
sub-domain or sub-directory for mobile version advantages or dis-advangages?
Algorithm Updates | | Superflys0 -
Why google index ip address instead of the domain name？
I have a website ,now google index ip address of it instead of the domain name,I have used 301 redirected to the domain name,but how to change the index IP to its domain name? And why google index the IP address?
Algorithm Updates | | frankfans1170 -
What are the good strategies using satellite sites in SEO??
Hello to everybody, We'are thinking about launching a massive amount of satellite websites in order to promote our website. Is it really efficient in terms of link building? Or is the ROI really small due to the amount of time and money needed to create and manage these websites? Thanks a lot!!! Update: Thanks to all of you for all these interesting answers!
Algorithm Updates | | sarenausa1