Using a subdomain to improve rankings
-
I have a pretty simple landing page that at present targets several keywords. Is a good strategy to add a blog to the site on a subdomain with pages targeting individual keywords? Will this help the main domain rank?
Also is the best strategy to focus on building links to the home page or individual pages on the subdomain? As long as each page on the subdomain links back to the home page it should pass link juice back to the home page shouldn't it?
Thanks in advance!
-
Try to stick with a /blog/ subfolder instead. Subdomains are treated separately from the rest of the domain in most instances, as mentioned in Mike's answer below.
-
Thanks Chris,
The reason I want to use a subdomain is that I want to install wordpress on the subdomain. Is that a good way to go?
-
This is old school SEO that does not work anymore. Sorry!
Cutts said webmasters frequently abused this feature by creating a number of subdomains for the same types of content aimed solely at generating more links to their sites (and dominating SERPs). Adjusting algorithms to treat subdomains and subdirectories prevented webmasters from abusing the practice. As such, Cutts advises webmasters and marketers concerned with URL structure for both SEO and optimum user experience to structure links in whichever format is most convenient for them.
from: <a>http://www.brafton.com/news/subdomains-vs-subdirectories-for-seo-no-serp-benefits-for-subdomains-anymore</a>
Here is Matt's Q/A tackling subdomains : <a>http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_MswMYk05tk</a>
-
If you're starting out from scratch, put your blog on your main domain. Build brand-type links to your home page and make sure your blog posts are of high enough quality to warrant inbound links from relevant sources. Don't put too much emphasis on keywords.
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
-
My DA keeps going up, by my rankings keep falling.
Hi, I manage a few clients, but the one that is in reference to this question is a local law firm. They blog on a regular basis and we continue to monitor for and delete any negative backlinks. Their domain authority keeps rising, but they continue to lose rankings for tracked keywords. Has anyone else faced a similar situation? Does anyone one know what is causing this or what I can do to combat it? Thanks,
On-Page Optimization | | GavinAdv0 -
Is a particular page not ranking for any reason?
I posted about the Google WEbmaster tools Structured Data set up in this thread here: http://moz.com/community/q/using-google-structured-data-for-seo-benefit Just a follow up question (or separate)... would having a lot of products with marked up data (via webmaster tools and not on page) hurt SEO rankings? I have not got any warning/notice etc in Google Webmaster tools about it. Search term 'buy isagenix' on Google Australia Product listing page not in top 50
On-Page Optimization | | IsaCleanse
http://www.isacleanse.com.au/buy-isagenix 15th Result on Google Australia for 'buy isagenix' is a different page on my website:
http://www.isacleanse.com.au/isagenix-perth/ Any suggestions welcome0 -
WP tag ranking higher than desired page
I have a WordPress site and my question is regarding one of the KW I am targeting. I have tagged some of my blog posts with this KW which has successfully placed me on page 1 of Google for the KW. However the page displays all of the blog posts in the summarised format. The page appears as mysite.com/tag/KW This isn’t too bad as it brings the customer to my site however I have a much preferred page on my site that is optimized for this kw and I would rather them land on this. This is a page as opposed to a post therefore there are no tags attached to it (i guess you knew that). It isn’t a very difficult keyword to rank for as it’s a service in a local area. If I remove the blog tags is there a chance that Google will place my preferred optimised page higher? Is Google saying that the tag page is a better match for the browser therefore will not rank the preferred page? Hope I’m making sense. Thanks
On-Page Optimization | | cjkimber0 -
Organic key word ranking
I just noticed we are ranking above our leading competitor for the key words “Joint Care”. Comparing the stats I see the PA for our page is 14, whereas their’s is 18 . (also their DA is 42 whereas ours is 35). So I’m not 100% sure as to why we are ahead of them, is this due to us having 10 links whereas they only have 4 links to the respective pages? jointcarerating.jpg.html
On-Page Optimization | | Hardley1110 -
Home Page Keywords not Ranking and Assigned to Inside Pages
Hi, thank you for taking the time to read this. We have a few websites with the same problem. I will use http://www.prepared-meals.com as an example: The home page was ranking on page one for keyword "Prepared Meals". The site is about 6 months old. We use the Moz page optimizer on all pages of our websites to score an A rating. Recently we found the home page is no longer showing up in search results and the keyword "prepared meals" now points to an inside page that is not relevant: http://www.prepared-meals.com/Senior-Meals/Moms-Meals-Reviews.html this page shows up for Prepared Meals around page 15 in Google results. We have read keywords in the URL might be the issue, even though the page optimizer in MOZ says to do that. We are wondering if this is the issue or there is some other problem we are not aware of. Again, thank you for you for your time. -Craig
On-Page Optimization | | CraigSWD0 -
Factors that Affect Alexa Ranking?
Hi All,
On-Page Optimization | | PrasanthMohanachandran
Can any one please help in the factors that effects Alexa ranking.
My website Alexa rank got increased at all of sudden. It was 600000 last month it got increased to 1000000 by today and i cant even find the rank in own country which was 22000 before. Please help me in this, my organic traffic and over all traffic is constant only, how ever my website got effected. Please suggest me on this0 -
301 Redirect to mobile site effecting rankings
On my site I redirect users when on a mobile device to be redirected to my mobile version of my site. In the last couple weeks I added that redirect in my htaccess file. I just realized today that I am doing a 301 redirect. In the last few weeks my ranking have gotten lower. I am starting to think that because of the redirect my mobile site is not as optimized as my regular site and therefor is effecting my rankings. My question is how can I redirect my users to my mobile site but not use a 301 AND how do I get google to use my main site content for ranking on the mobile side. I want to go back to getting my search rankings on the mobile side using my main sites content. Can I simply remove the 301 on the redirect? Hope that makes sense.
On-Page Optimization | | cbielich0 -
Duplicate Content using templates
Hi, Our web site is designed using a template, which means the header and footer is consistent across all pages. Only the body content is unique on each page. Is the google bot able to see that the header and footer content is defined by the common template? Will this have any impact in terms of duplicate content? For example, we have a two line text in the footer that summarize the services we provide. Because the same text is in the footer of all pages, i am concerned about creating duplicate content. Finally, does it make sense to include keywords in header and footer of the template? Will it have any positive or negative SEO impact?
On-Page Optimization | | petersen0
