Are sub domains considered completely different than the root domain?
-
We have a project that is going to generate duplicate content. If we move the new content to a sub-domain (E.g. product.domain.com) will it still be considered duplicate content to the root domain? Or is it like having two completely different domains?
Thanks!
-
Cyrus is right!
-
Unfortunately, it doesn't work this way. See my comment above.
-
In the case of duplicate content, you always have to tell the search engines which is the canonical (the authoritative version). It doesn't matter if they are on the same website, different sub-domains, or completely different websites.
If you leave it up to Google to choose, often the ranking power of both pages is diminished, and if you have too much duplicate content, your entire site can suffer.
Either choose the page you want to rank, and send the appropriate signals to search engines, or create different content for different pages.
-
Yes they do
Just so you know , when you add a rel canonical the duplicate pages will drop from the SERPs eventually ( assuming google accepts the rel canonical , they don't always do it )
http://support.google.com/webmasters/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=139394
-
Thanks Saijo,
That is exactly what we are going to do. We are going to use the canonical tag on the new duplicate pages referencing the existing pages that have achieved rank. Quick question on that, do you know if "juice" is transferred through a canonical tag? The new pages will be getting some pretty great links but not enough to rank highly. Will this juice be passed to the existing pages through the canonical tag?
-
There is not enough information here to give you the right answer, but here is my 2 cents on the topic
Say you need these duplicate pages to exist for some reason and do NOT want them to be indexed . You can noindex them and have them in the subdomain. So they do not appear in the SERPs and are not duplicate content because Google ignores them. ( Think of it this way : you are telling google , these are duplicate pages and its not meant for the search results )
Say you need these duplicate pages to be indexed , then you use rel canonical on the duplicate pages all tell Google the main page you want to be indexed. ( Think of it this way : you are telling google , these are duplicate pages and you want importance to go to the main one ) FYI : over time this means the other pages will fade away in SERPs
What you don't want to do : put duplicate pages up on sub domain and making no effort to advise the bots they are duplicate .. They will figure it out and that is when they dont like it .
Hope that clears up your doubts , if you need a more specific answer . We will need more info on what exactly you are trying to achieve .
-
Thats perfect. Thank you.
The only issue I have is that in this scenario I am going to have to use close to duplicate title tags, h1's and URL's. Since each page is going after the exact same keyword. But if you are saying that Google has no problem with ranking these 2 pages because one of them is on a sub-domain than that solves at least one problem.
-
Google treats sub domains as a different site in a sense.. and hardly ever passes any benefit of the root domain to the sub domain. Usually, your root domain would rank higher than the sub domain.. naturally.. unless your sub domain has better seo on/off site.
If both pages were equal it would show both. but would have to choose which one would receive the better ranking.
-
Do not create exact copies of the site.
Google will not choose they will just "punish" your site and have it dropped.
If you must create a copy of the site, make it unique.
It is very important
-
I guess I should explain a little more. I realize that it is going to be duplicate content but would Google have to choose between the two pages as which one to show or would the sub-domain page be allowed to rank as well as the root domain page? All thing being equal of course.
E.g. A tractor re-seller sells John Deere Tractors. They have since signed a white label deal to be the official reseller of John Deere Tractors. They have a page for the riding model x at www.example.com/riding-mower-x that ranks very well. But they also have a new white label page now for the exact same mower. They want both pages to rank and not force google to choose which page to show. Would Google look at the sub-domain page of ridingmowerx.example.com as a completely different site so that it would not have to choose and could rank both pages?
-
short answer is yes as long as the content is available for crawl that will be duplicaed content.
please elaborate of he goal of this duplication so I can try to tackle this problem
-
It is duplicate content either way across the world wide web. For example.. a blog posts an article, I take that article and post it to my blog.. that is considered duplicate content. Use this post by rand to help determine when to use sub domains!
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
-
Domain migration nightmare - what is wrong?
Domain migration nightmare - what is wrong? Domain migration nightmare - what is wrong?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | PSOM1010 -
Why is wrong domain being indexed?
We have 2 domains: revolve.com and fwrd.com (unrelated to each other, but hosted on the same server). If you do a site search for revolve.com but enter a designer brand that is only carried on FWRD (not on Revolve), the domain "revolve.com" pops up in the SERP, which is redirected to FWRD.com. Ex. https://www.google.com/webhp?sourceid=chrome-instant&ion=1&espv=2&ie=UTF-8#q=site%3Awww.revolve.com isabel marant Why is Google indexing the revolve.com pages, which don't actually exist? Thanks.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | ggpaul5620 -
Sub-domain or not???
Hi, We're setting up a forum for our users (our target audience responds extremely well to forums). I was wondering if it should be set up on a sub-domain or not. I'm leaning towards sub-domain, but our devs say this will impact how they approach it so I'd like to give them an answer asap so we can proceed with planning it! Thanks, Amelia
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | CommT0 -
Moving to subdirectory from subdomain, where subdomain PR is equal to root domain PR
Hi all, I'm currently in the process of revitalizing my company's blog. Currently, the blog sits on a subdomain (blog.rootdomain.com). SEO best practice dictates that I should move this (and 301 redirect the old URLs) to rootdomain.com/blog to concentrate link equity and avoid the risk of having search engines treat the subdomain as separate from the root domain. However, the PageRank Status extension for Chrome is reporting that the PR for the blog on the subdomain and the root domain are the same. Is there any benefit to migrating the subdomain to a subdirectory? Is that data accurate enough to base decisions off of?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | brad-causes0 -
Why do some domains out rank stronger authority domains
Hi, If we take the Moz stats into account here, how comes sometimes weak Moz stat domains out ranking strong Moz stat domains? For example: A inner page with DA56 / PA40 is outranking a Wikipedia inner page with DA100 / PA82. That's a massive difference basically twice as strong on the Wikipedia page but being out ranking. In this case I assume the onpage SEO is playing a big part, but can onpage optimisation be that powerful? And I see this all the time, what SEO factors cause this? Thanks.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Bondara0 -
Should we move a strong category page, or the whole domain to new domain?
We are debating moving a strong category page (and subcategory, product pages) from our current older domain to a new domain vs just moving the whole domain. The older domain has DA 40+, and the category page has PA 40+. Anyone with experience on how much PR etc will get passed to a virgin domain if we just redirect olddomain/strongcategorypage/ to newdomain.com? If the answer is little to none, we might consider just moving the whole site since the other categories are not that strong anyway. We will use 301 approach either way. Thanks!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Durand0 -
Why does a site have no domain authority?
A website was built and launched eight months ago, and their domain authority is 1. When a site has been live for a while and has such a low DA, what's causing it?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | optimalwebinc0 -
301 from penalized domain to new domain
I have a client whose site isn't necessarily penalized since they still show for many terms in the SERPS, however at one point they did an xrummer blast of 13,000 links for two anchor texts they were trying to rank for. They have purchased a new domain and have gone white hat and want to 301 some of the old site to the new purely for the users sake so past visitors still find them at t the new location. Will creating 301 redirects pass on to the new domain any bad Karma from the old one in Google's eyes? Thanks for the help.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | JoshGill270