"Fourth-level" subdomains. Any negative impact compared with regular "third-level" subdomains?
-
Hey moz
New client has a site that uses:
subdomains ("third-level" stuff like location.business.com) and;
"fourth-level" subdomains (location.parent.business.com)
Are these fourth-level addresses at risk of being treated differently than the other subdomains? Screaming Frog, for example, doesn't return these fourth-level addresses when doing a crawl for business.com except in the External tab. But maybe I'm just configuring the crawls incorrectly.
These addresses rank, but I'm worried that we're losing some link juice along the way. Any thoughts would be appreciated!
-
If you check out Rand's Intro to SEO slideshare (http://www.slideshare.net/randfish/introduction-to-seo-5003433) slide 46 and 47 talk about URL structure and specifically sub-domains.
As Rob said you do want to sub-folder structures and avoid sub-domains. Hopefully you are old enough to remember when websites like lycos.com were big and people could make their own websites. These were all hosted on subdomains like moz.tripod.lycos.com and because of this structure search engines needed to see subdomains as separate websites. For this reason they have separate grading, change the flow of link juice and can easily count as duplicate content.
Sub-domains are best utilized for information that is distinct enough. Like in the moz example Rands personal blog could theoretically sit at rand.moz.com as its a separate theme, different content, etc it would just loose out on the flow of value.
Once again Rob is right about using 301 redirects to move your subdomains into folders.
Now moving on to the more specific nature of your question "Are fourth level sub-domains any worse than third level sub-domains" I am going to suggest that when asking such a question you've already lost a big chunk of the SEO/inbound marketing battle.
The question you are framing is "I know it isn't good - but is it any worse?" Well even if it's not any worse you already know that it's not great and you should be taking structural steps to build on a sites accessibility, user functionality and it's SEO. If you find yourself asking "Is X any worse?" "How bad is Y?" "Can I get away with Z?" then you should immediately stop pursuing that idea and try and find a different method.
In this case that method is sub-folders and a 301 migration, but remember the framing of your questions and your over all directional strategy need to change to really drive home your campaigns!
-
HAHA. Great. Thanks for the 'prop's. Going 4th and 5th level deep for sub-domains can also impeed the user experience when wanting to reach it directly (typing it manually is a pain!!)..
Thanks anyways, glad I could be of some help.
-
Again - thanks a lot. I totally agree. Next client meeting I'll stress that not only do Ifeel strongly about the subfolder issue, but the good people at SimplifySEO feel the same:) And they know their ish. Or something.
-
Stay away as much as possible for 4th, 5th and 6th level sub-domains, although I have never seen it go beyond 5. I would really try to emphasize the value of re-tooling the domain structure for long term benefits and linking. Keeping sub-domains running isolates link value and doesn't benefit the entire domain - thus making link building a much harder challenge. You are losing link 'juice' for every level of sub-domain used, as the value drops for each section of the domain that extends - hence the reason sub-folders are the way to go (as you already know)...
Good luck with the client and site. Sounds like a tough call. All the best and I hope it works out
-
Hey Rob,
Thanks a lot for this. This is great advice and really well-written. And you're preaching to the choir. I also prefer subfolders, but it's just not in the cards for this client for the time being. As it stands, we're stuck with subdomains.
Any other thoughts re: fourth-level vs. third-level domains, folks?
-
Hey there!
You should try to stay away from sub-domains, unless they really serve a purpose for the domain - then different strategies can be put into place. As I don't know if it's the route you need to take, I am going to proceed to give you an alternate option :).
1. You could always use sub-folders which in a nutshell would allow you to build links to the domain on many fronts and have them all count.
** NOTE: any links built to sub-domains don't flow link 'juice' to within the site. Those links build for whatever reason, will only pass value within that specific sub-domain.
2. What I would do, it replicate and migrate the structure of the sub-domains into the root domain of the site (www.site.com/subfolder1/ and 301 and rel-canonical all the sub-domain pages and structure to the new locations. That way, all link juice, value, etc already established is already kept in tact and just redirect all that value, trust and back-links to pages within the domain.
This to me is the best option to relocate the content, improve the domain structure using sub-folders instead of sub-domains, and maintain the back link profile already build (or existing) on the site/domain URL.
Other factors might affect reasons not to pursue this option, but I have always had success with this in large enterprise sites, when wanting to restructure the way domains handle sub-domains
Cheers!
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
-
Need suggestions on what might be causing rankings drop from top5 to "not in 50"?
Hi All, Below a list of 4 keywords & respective URLs which raked in top 3 to 5 till around 2 months back, now all these are "not in top 50", and I need help with finding the exact reason. Can you all please help with suggestions on what I should be looking for under the hood. Oticon Hearing Aids:http://www.leightonshearingcare.co.uk/hearing-aids/oticon-hearing-aids.aspx Phonak Hearing Aids:http://www.leightonshearingcare.co.uk/hearing-aids/phonak-hearing-aids.aspx Widex Hearing Aids: http://www.leightonshearingcare.co.uk/hearing-aids/widex-hearing-aids.aspx Resound Hearing Aids:http://www.leightonshearingcare.co.uk/hearing-aids/siemens-hearing-aids.aspx Thanks in advance, any help will be very much appreciated, checked all the basic stuff, and appreciate that there is scope for improvement in terms of page content, internal links etc etc, but cant figure out the reason for such a massive drop in such a short while given the fact, that the these URLs ranked in top 3 to 5 for a few years till 2 months back. Please help!!!
Technical SEO | | LolhcSEO0 -
Subdomains Issue
Hi , We have created sub domains of our site to target various Geo´s. For example, geo, uk.site.com, de.site,com and all these sub domains have the same content as main domain. Will it affect our SEO Rankings? How can we solve this if it affects our rankings?
Technical SEO | | mikerbrt240 -
SEO impact of adding a forum module to a site
I help maintain a site and the owners want to start a forum for their club members. This is a site that runs on Joomla, so it's likely we'll use some form of a Joomla module to add the forum functionality. My main question is whether there is anything to be concerned about for SEO purposes when adding the forum. I've never set one up, so I don't know the best practices for forums/discussion boards (although I'm scouring the web for general info). Should it be a subdomain or on the main domain -- or does this not matter? Are there any general setup processes that I should pay attention to for SEO best-practices? This question was mainly about the SEO impact, but if anyone can point me in the direction of forum best practice info as well, It would be appreciated. Cheers!
Technical SEO | | kariel
Kristy0 -
How to recover from duplicate subdomain penalty?
Two and half a weeks ago, my site was slapped with a penalty -- 60% of organic traffic disappeared over 2-3 days. After investigating we discovered that our site was serving the same content for all subdomains, and Google somehow had two additional subdomains it was crawling and indexing. We solved the issue with 301 redirects to our main site (www) a couple of days after the drop -- about two weeks ago. Our rankings have not recovered, and the subdomains are still indexed per Webmaster Tools. Yesterday we submitted a Reconsideration Request. Will that help? Is there any other way to speed up the process of lifting the penalty? This is the site: http://goo.gl/3DCbl Thank you!
Technical SEO | | tact0 -
I always get this error "We have detected that the domain or subfolder does not respond to web requests." I don't know why. PLEASE help
subdomain www.nwexterminating.com subfolder www.nwexterminating.com/pest_control www.nwexterminating.com/termite_services www.nwexterminating.com/bed_bug_services
Technical SEO | | NWExterminating0 -
How is Google finding our preview subdomains?
I've noticed that Google is able to find, crawl and index preview subdomains we set up for new client sites (e.g. clientpreview.example.com). I know now to use "meta name="robots" and robots.txt) to block the search engines from crawling these subdomains. My question though, is how is Google finding these subdomains? We don't link to these preview domains from anywhere else, so I can't figure out how Google is even getting there. Does anybody have any insight on this?
Technical SEO | | ZeeCreative0 -
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) 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 -
Hyphenated Domain Names - "Spammy" or Not?
Some say hyphenated domain names are "spammy". I have also noticed that Moz's On Page Keyword Tool does NOT recognize keywords in a non-hyphenated domain name. So one would assume neither do the bots. I noticed obviously misleading words like car in carnival or spa in space or spatula, etc embedded in domain names and pondered the effect. I took it a step further with non-hyphenated domain names. I experimented by selecting totally random three or four letter blocks - Example: randomfactgenerator.net - rand omf act gene rator Each one of those clips returns copious results AND the On-Page Report Card does not credit the domain name as containing "random facts" as keywords**,** whereas www.business-sales-sarasota.com does get credit for "business sales sarasota" in the URL. This seems an obvious situation - unhyphenated domains can scramble the keywords and confuse the bots, as they search all possible combinations. YES - I know the content should carry it but - I do not believe domain names are irrelevant, as many say. I don't believe that hyphenated domain names are not more efficient than non hyphenated ones - as long as you don't overdo it. I have also seen where a weak site in an easy market will quickly top the list because the hyphenated domain name matches the search term - I have done it (in my pre Seo Moz days) with ft-myers-auto-air.com. I built the site in a couple of days and in a couple weeks it was on page one. Any thoughts on this?
Technical SEO | | dcmike0