Should I use a subdomain our primary domain for this content?
-
Hi,
We have an eCommerce site www.refreshcartridges.co.uk and currently publish videos, unique articles, troubleshooting advice etc. on a subdomain igloo.refreshcartridges.co.uk. The hope is that the content on igloo will prove sufficiently useful for someone to either link to or bookmark for future reference. Eventually this will hopefully result in sales through the main site.
We were assured several years ago that we should host this content on a subdomain but the more I think about it, the more I think that this content should be hosted as part of the main site (for example www.refreshcartridges.co.uk/igloo/).
My logic is that this would extend a couple of advantages, not least that any links built to this unique content would be attributed to the primary domain rather than the subdomain. Although I appreciate the subdomain does link back to the primary domain I can't help but feel this dilutes the potential strength of any link. Post Penguin I think it would be nice to get genuine, natural links appreciating content on our primary domain rather than a separate subdomain.
It should probably be pointed out that we only publish articles related to our key business activity (printing, cartridges, technology) on igloo. There is no unrelated content designed simply as link bait.
If we were to make the move we would of course 301 all the old pages..
I would really appreciate your opinion on whether you agree or whether you would be tempted to keep the content on a subdomain.
Thanks for your help!
Chris
-
NP! Best of luck to you
-
Hi Rebekah,
Many thanks for your response - It's always nice to get a second opinion before spending your day doing something that could potentially be detrimental!
We're about to write a few dozen 'how to' guides and suddenly it struck me that the primary domain would be getting very little benefit from any people that potentially link in to the content.
Thanks again for your help. I’ll get cracking on the move now.
Chris
-
Tricky situation, and individual opinions may differ...but here is mine.
Ultimately, yes it would be more beneficial to have the subdomain part of the main domain. Right now your subdomain is generating a good amount of links, and the authority from those links aren't transferred to the main domain at all because a subdomain is considered a completely separate website.
I am also assuming that the subdomain and the main domain are on the same C-Class, and in that case any links you have coming from the subdomain to your main domain are probably not getting all the authority it can from those links.
301 redirecting the pages on the subdomain to their respective pages on the main domain would be the best option, but remember that there is some degradation of page rank so this won't be as strong of a signal as it was previously. After transferring content and adding in 301s, I would continue concentrating on providing valuable content that would earn links to make up for the loss of PR when transferring it over.
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
-
Should I use FB Share or FB like option?
I am confused between choosing Facebook share and Facebook like options on my website. Like is a one step process but it won't be visible in friend's feed whereas share is 2 step process but is visible in your friend's feed and it reaches more people. Did anyone experiment with these two options and found which works better?
Social Media | | Avinash_12341 -
Social Media Causing Duplicate Content
Recently, I spent some time in the SEO MOZ Crawl Diagnostics, and found that I have 40 pages that are being listed as “duplicate content.” These are original blog posts, but I made the mistake of sharing on social media immediately after publishing each post. I recently found out that if you post on a blog and on social on the same day, Google indexes the social first, and then up to 2 weeks later indexes the actual blog post. When it does, it stamps the blog post as duplicate and the social media posting as the original. Any ideas on how I can rectify this? Any code I can put in each blog post to let Google know they’re the original? I’ve begun publicizing my blogs on social 14 days after I actually publish them to alleviate the issue going forward, but I’d like my 40 other blog posts to get the authority they deserve.
Social Media | | Jake20150 -
Benefits of getting inbound links to your Facebook account to go through your domain?
Hi, I was browsing a magazine recently and came across an advert that had a text of: domain.com.au/facebook When you visit this address you are automatically redirected to their Facebook account. It got me thinking, is there any benefit to this? It's the first time I've seen it and I presume they get links from outside sources to their FB account to go to domain.com.au/facebook rather than facebook.com/sitename Thanks
Social Media | | bradkrussell1 -
Using ReTweets for Outreach
Does anyone know of a tool that export a list of people that Retweeted a piece of content with the url they list on their profile? I'm trying to mine the individuals that RT'd an outreach piece we did to try to gain more opportunities but can't find a tool that will mine the data from peoples twitter profiles. I know of Retweet follow (their export is no where to be found) and Topsy but wanted to avoid doing a bunch of manual thanks tweet@'s. I also have a list of all the twitter handles/urls that I'm looking to find what their site is to do more personalized outreach for.
Social Media | | Peter_Dean0 -
Just trying to find out everyones opinion on twitter and the best way to use it?
Just trying to find out everyones opinion on twitter and the best way to use it? What is your opinion on Twitter, should i include customers past work, to develop a portfolio? Keep it relevant, or just use hundreds of ###!! Will this not just become spammy?
Social Media | | samr2170 -
Can you set up a Google 'author' for rich snippets using a G+ business page or does it have to be a personal profile?
I've set up an author profile for myself, but if I'm writing articles for clients, I don't necessarily want to do it in my own name. Is it possible to set up a Google author profile using a G+ business page? Obviously the idea is to try and gain the rich snippets that only recognised authors receive, but to do so in the name of my client.
Social Media | | Piranha_Solutions1 -
Do facebook shares of deep links help the whole domain rank better?
What i mean by this is if we were to obtain 10-20 facebook shares for 10 different deep links like these: http://domain.com/deep-page/page-one
Social Media | | adriandg
http://domain.com/deep-page/page-two
http://domain.com/deep-page/page-three
http://domain.com/deep-page/page-four
... Would that help any of these rank better:
http://domain.com
http://domain.com/product1
http://domain.com/product2
etc... Extrapolating, does the same count for Twitter, Google+, etc?0 -
Does the value of Twitter/FB shares change depending on the url used?
I have a really hard time wrapping my head around the use rel canonical. I just watched WBF and it brought up a question that I had. I had a situation where some of my pages could be accessed a couple of ways: www.mydomain/question1.php?id=24-keyword-rich-url, or www.mydomain/question1.php?id=24 I used rel canonical to tell the search engines that the keyword rich url was the one to index. Now, we all know that shares on Twitter, FB, etc. can add value to my site's SEO. So, if someone happens to be on the non-keyword-rich url and they click a button to share, do I still get the same seo benefit? Which brings me to a related question...if someone shares your content via a bitly or other shortened domain, is there any difference to the benefit you would get as compared to them sharing the full domain name?
Social Media | | MarieHaynes1