Does an subdomain hosted offsite provide SEO value
-
We have a job board hosted through an applicant processing system which we've setup as a subdomain (jobs.ourcompany.com), most of the assets are hosted on our primary domain (ourcompany.com). My question is does having it hosted offsite provide any value? Do we get credit for that content being shared and distributed on the web or does the applicant processing system?
As I see it the options are (correct me if I'm wrong):
-
Host the job listings on our primary domain (ourcompany.com/jobs) and have it point to the application on the subdomain. Advertise the job listings pointing to the primary domain on the paid sites. The free job listing sites will automatically point to the sub-domain because the applicant processing system automatically submits them.
-
Host the job listings entirely on the sub-domain applicant tracking system and link to it from our primary site navigation. Advertise the job listings to the sub-domain so that both free and paid point to the same place.
Obviously the second one would be much easier just not sure on the technical side of our website getting credit by search engines as the one who has produced the content.
-
-
Thanks Michael for the response.
The primary reasoning we were thinking of using the subdomain is technical in that the applicant processing software only allows us to use a subdomain to display our job. They effectively host the job board on their servers and we setup a cname (jobs.ourcompany.com points to ourcompany.jobapplicantsoftware.com). With the content hosted there is sounds like they get the credit or does our subdomain?
My other idea is setting up a canonical tag for the pages hosted on jobs.ourcompany.com to point to ourcompany.com/jobs. I could create two copies of the same content so the users wouldn't know the difference. Wonder if that would work?
-
Agree with Lesley - a sub-domain is a separate site and equal effort will have to go into optimizing and ranking both sites.
In reality although Google treats the sites as separate the subdomain aspect gives it away, along with a whois lookup - the link value isn't going to massive at all to leverage from. In other words I would only use the sub-domain for a strong business purpose or for technical reasons, not as a mechanism to gain anything SEO wise. A stronger, well structured and growing central domain will always win.
I think I understand your process and reference to "paid", but even so that word always makes me feel a bit nervous. So as a side note make sure you no-follow anything that can be "construed" as paid for.
-
From my own experience blog.site.com and site.com are treated as two different sites. So you might be getting some link juice from your job section pointing to your site, but you are not getting as much equity as you would if the site was in a sub directory and not a sub domain.
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
-
Subdomains or Subdirectory for multisite SEO structure?
Hey Mozzers, I work for a startup releasing several apps all within their own niches: hiking, mountain biking, skiing, running etc.. We've decided to go for the Wordpress Multisite route and I was wondering what the best site structure was. For example: Would hike.myapp.com or myapp.com/hike be more beneficial to our growth plans? My thinking follows that of geotargeting strategies for franchises (uk.travel.com etc) and to go for the subdomain option in order to build each individual 'sites' authority because each sport has niche audiences. Or am I talking nonsense? I've read varying advice and thought I'd ask you guys. Cheers, A
Technical SEO | | AdamRob011 -
Which Web host do you use?
A friend of mine has a successful website which is hosted by the company he used to use for developing his site. As he no longer uses them feels he should use it. Who do you use for hosting a small to medium sized business?
Technical SEO | | Ant710 -
Does Quantcast interfered with SEO?
Quantcast (http://www.quantcast.com/), a stats program was removed from my clients website because the former SEO consultant said it interefered with his SEO efforts, claiming the google bots weren't reading it right. I have never heard of that before and my client now wants Quantcast back on their website. Has anyone heard of this problem with Quantcast?
Technical SEO | | StreetwiseReports0 -
Feedback for the onpage seo for this site
Hi, Can the seo gurus here, suggest me if any on page factors affect my site? http://www.ridpiles.com/ Recently i have added, the following post to the main home page, http://www.ridpiles.com/2012/02/different-types-of-cures-for-piles/ This page is somewhat different than the title keyword. As the main page titile is "hemorrhoids treatment". The newly created blog post is on "cure for piles" Does this blog post has any affect on the on page factors due to different title? And do i require any changes regarding the on page seo? Will be waiting for your replies.
Technical SEO | | Indexxess0 -
ECommerce Platform Switch and SEO Loss
Hi - We're switching eCommerce platforms, and naturally we're worried about losing organic search ranking. From what I've read on the message boards, I understand it's important to try to minimize as many 301 redirects as possible. Here's my problem: Our Product URLs are like this (ex: http://www.stupid.com/fun/TOLMG.html). On the new platform, URLs cannot contain capital letters. 😞 According to the new eCommerce platform's design team: "Google and other search engines do not see that as a change in URL, they are not case sensitive and will not affect search listings" How accurate is this? And how come on our current platform, if I use an all lowercase URL, it get a 401? (ex: http://www.stupid.com/fun/tolmg.html) Will we be fine switching our Product URLs to lowercase on the new platform? One thing also to note: Our Category URLs will remain the same. Are there any other areas of a typical eCommerce store that I should avoid changing URLs if I want to prevent SEO loss? Thanks! -Justin
Technical SEO | | JustinStupid0 -
Preserving Link Value
My client has an existing domain, domain A. They recently purchased and absorbed another company with their own domain, domain B. For marketing purposes company B will be rebranded as company A. They want to redirect domain B to domain A. The problem is that company B has by far the more visible domain, with 4x the number of inbound links. If I redirect domain B to domain A, what will happen to these links? I'm thinking their value will be lost.
Technical SEO | | waynekolenchuk0 -
Local SEO Optimization
hi, Looks for advices,tips, links ressource to improve local seo optimisation in google places for domain "google. fr" as website business is in France ! Tks a lot in advance..
Technical SEO | | mozllo0 -
Subdomain Robots.txt
If I have a subdomain (a blog) that is having tags and categories indexed when they should not be, because they are creating duplicate content. Can I block them using a robots.txt file? Can I/do I need to have a separate robots file for my subdomain? If so, how would I format it? Do I need to specify that it is a subdomain robots file, or will the search engines automatically pick this up? Thanks!
Technical SEO | | JohnECF0