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.
What are the pros and cons of moving one site onto a subdomain of another site?
-
Two sites. One has weaker sales. What would the benefits and problems for SEO of moving the weak site from its own domain to a subdomain of the stronger site?
-
Cons:
May lose some of the link juice from the 301 redirect from the old URL's (between 1 and 10% is the usual quoted figure)
Initial (usually short term) drop in rankings and potentially traffic of weaker site pages
www.weakersite.com is a "nicer" looking URL for offline marketing than www.strongersite.com/weakersite
Pro's:-
If on Subfolder rather than sub directory pages will benefit from domain authority and links to domain of stronger site.
Can focus future link building and on-page SEO efforts on one site rather than 2, potentially doubling the amount you can get done

If building from scratch and choice of 2 sites or 1 I would say go for one. As two already exist there is more of a call to be made.
-
Hey! That sure was a great seminar.
That advice makes sense. Thanks.
-
Aye.

Oh, and hey! I just noticed I know you from NOLA.

-
So it could get the full benefit of the stronger site's domain authority?
-
I would be more inclined to move it to a subdirectory on the stronger site.
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
-
Move a Wordpress Site to HTTPS with Bluehost
HI Guys, do you think that the following guide is enoght to move a bluehost wordpress site to https in a seo best practive way? https://www.shoutmeloud.com/free-ssl-certificate-bluehost-hosting.html Basically their steps are: Install SSL on Bluehost panel Install Really Simple SSL Wp Plugin Edit Your .htacess File & Add The Code For HTTP To HTTPS Redirection Update All HTTP URLs In Database To HTTPS Using Search and Replace Plugin Use Broken Link Checker plugin & use its redirection module to find links to 3rd party sites with HTTP that should now be HTTPS. Last thing to do Submit your new HTTPS site to Google Search Console & submit your sitemap. Update your profile link on Google Analytics. Update your website links on social media profiles & anywhere else they exist. This step you can do in pieces in the coming days. Read this guide to learn more about HTTP to HTTPS migration & fixing mixed content. If you disabled Who.Is guard for your domain name, you can enable it now. Do you know a better practical guide for wordrpess? in term of usefull plugins to handle the migration? Tx to everyone!
Technical SEO | | Dreamrealemedia0 -
One robots.txt file for multiple sites?
I have 2 sites hosted with Blue Host and was told to put the robots.txt in the root folder and just use the one robots.txt for both sites. Is this right? It seems wrong. I want to block certain things on one site. Thanks for the help, Rena
Technical SEO | | renalynd270 -
Seo For Forum Sites
I have forum site.I've opened it 2 months ago.But there is a problem.Therefore my content is unique , my site's keyword ranking constantly changing..Sometimes my site's ranking drops from first 500.After came to 70s. I didn't make any off page seo to my site.What is the problem ?
Technical SEO | | tutarmi0 -
What is the best way to find missing alt tags on my site (site wide - not page by page)?
I am looking to find all the missing alt tags on my site at once. I have a FF extension that use to do it page by page, but my site is huge and that will take forever. Thanks!!
Technical SEO | | franchisesolutions1 -
Merging several sites into one - best practice
I had 2 sites on the web (www.physicseditor.de, www.texutrepacker.com) and decided to move them all under one single domain (www.codeandweb.com) Both sites were ranking very good for several keywords. I not redirected the most important pages from the old domains with a 301 redirect to the new subpages (www.texturepacker.com => www.codeandweb.com/texturepacker) Google still delivers the old domains but the redirect take people directly to the new content. I've already submitted the new site map to google webmaster tools. Pages are already in the index but do not really show up in the search results. How long does it take until google accepts the new domain and delivers the new content in the search results? Was it ok what I did? Or is there some room for improvement? SeoMoz will of course not find any information about the new page since it is not yet directly linked in google. But I can't get ranking information for the "old" pages since SeoMoz tells me that it can't crawl the old domains....
Technical SEO | | gossi740 -
Subdomain and Domain Rankings
I have read here that domain names with keywords might add a boost to your search rank For instance using a completely inane example monkey-fights.com might get a boost compared to mfl.com (monkey fighting league) Â when searching for "monkey fights" There seems to be a hot debate as to how much bonus the first domain might get over the second, but leaving that aside for the moment. Question 1. Would monkey-fights.mfl.com get the same kind of bonus as a root domain bonus? Question 2. If the answer to 1 above was yes would a 301 redirect from the suddomain URL to root domain URL retain that bonus I was just thinking on how hard it is to get root domains these days that are not either being squatted on etc. and if this might be a way to get the same bonus, or maybe subdomains are less bonus prone and so it would be a waste of time Thanks
Technical SEO | | bThere0 -
Delete old site but redirect domain to a new domain and site
I just have a quick query and I have a feeling about what the answer is so just wanted to see what you guys thought... Basically I am working on a client site. This client has a few other websites that are divisions of their company. However these divisions/websites are no longer used. They are wanting to delete the websites but redirect the domains to their name main website. They believe this will pass on SEO benefits as these old division sites are old and have a good PR and history. I'm unsure for DEFINITE, which way is correct?
Technical SEO | | Weerdboil0 -
Google.ca is showing our US site instead of our Canada Site
When our Canadian users who search on google.ca for our brand (e.g. Travelocity, Travelocity hotels, etc.), the first few results our from our US site (travelocity.com) rather than our Canadian site (travelocity.ca). In Google Webmaster Tools, we've adjusted the geotargeting settings to focus on the appropriate locale, but the wrong country TLD is still coming up at the top via google.ca. What's the best way to ensure our Canadian site comes up instead of the US site on google.ca? Thanks, Tory Smith
Technical SEO | | travelocitysearch
Travelocity0