Redirecting root domains to sub domains

[Yozzer]

Mozzers:

We have a instance where a client is looking to 301 a www.example.com to                                                                                                                           www.example.com/shop

I know of several issues with this but wondered if anyone could chip in with any previous experiences of doing so, and what outcomes positive and negative came out of this.

Issues I'm aware of:

• The root domain URL is the most linked page, a HTTP 301 redirect only passes about 90% of the value. you'll loose 10-15% of your link value of these links.
• navigational queries (i.e.: the "domain part" of "domain.tld") are less likely to produce google site-links
• less deep-crawling: google crawls top down - starts with the most linked page, which will most likely be your domain url. as this does not exist you waste this zero level of crawling depth.
• robots.txt is only allowed on the root of the domain.

Your help as always is greatly appreciated.

Sean

[Yozzer]

Thank you Daniel & Steve for your comments. This is pretty much the line we have taken on this, always nice to get back up on something that is new to us. Great answers and greatly appreciated Best Regards Sean

[SteveOllington]

I totally agree with Daniel, it would be a huge mistake!

Don;t forget that all of those links that are coming in currently, whether natural or built will have some relevance from sites/pages with anchor text relevant to that homepage. You won't just be losing a bit of link juice, you'll be losing what the search engines currently see as recommendations of trust and relevance from one page to another with that other being altered to a different page with whole different content (in the fact that it's a shop)... so the keywords and relevancy "bonuses" you did have on the homepage from all those links will no longer match up.... if that makes sense.

i.e. link from page about bananas, to page about bananas, with anchor text of bananas.

If you change the homepage it will become:

link from page about bananas, to page about apples, with anchor text of bananas.

That's an extreme and simplified example but you get what I'm saying

[DanDeceuster]

Never, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever redirect your home page. You've listed enough reasons already without even needing to add anymore. This is just a bad idea. It's one thing if your specific platform makes your homepage something other than the root domain and that's how it has always been. If you have had a home page at your root domain and now want to redirect it, bad idea. Just put the content of example.com/shop at example.com. Pretty easy fix.