Skip to content
    Moz logo Menu open Menu close
    • Products
      • Moz Pro
      • Moz Pro Home
      • Moz Local
      • Moz Local Home
      • STAT
      • Moz API
      • Moz API Home
      • Compare SEO Products
      • Moz Data
    • Free SEO Tools
      • Domain Analysis
      • Keyword Explorer
      • Link Explorer
      • Competitive Research
      • MozBar
      • More Free SEO Tools
    • Learn SEO
      • Beginner's Guide to SEO
      • SEO Learning Center
      • Moz Academy
      • MozCon
      • Webinars, Whitepapers, & Guides
    • Blog
    • Why Moz
      • Digital Marketers
      • Agency Solutions
      • Enterprise Solutions
      • Small Business Solutions
      • The Moz Story
      • New Releases
    • Log in
    • Log out
    • Products
      • Moz Pro

        Your all-in-one suite of SEO essentials.

      • Moz Local

        Raise your local SEO visibility with complete local SEO management.

      • STAT

        SERP tracking and analytics for enterprise SEO experts.

      • Moz API

        Power your SEO with our index of over 44 trillion links.

      • Compare SEO Products

        See which Moz SEO solution best meets your business needs.

      • Moz Data

        Power your SEO strategy & AI models with custom data solutions.

      NEW Keyword Suggestions by Topic
      Moz Pro

      NEW Keyword Suggestions by Topic

      Learn more
    • Free SEO Tools
      • Domain Analysis

        Get top competitive SEO metrics like DA, top pages and more.

      • Keyword Explorer

        Find traffic-driving keywords with our 1.25 billion+ keyword index.

      • Link Explorer

        Explore over 40 trillion links for powerful backlink data.

      • Competitive Research

        Uncover valuable insights on your organic search competitors.

      • MozBar

        See top SEO metrics for free as you browse the web.

      • More Free SEO Tools

        Explore all the free SEO tools Moz has to offer.

      NEW Keyword Suggestions by Topic
      Moz Pro

      NEW Keyword Suggestions by Topic

      Learn more
    • Learn SEO
      • Beginner's Guide to SEO

        The #1 most popular introduction to SEO, trusted by millions.

      • SEO Learning Center

        Broaden your knowledge with SEO resources for all skill levels.

      • On-Demand Webinars

        Learn modern SEO best practices from industry experts.

      • How-To Guides

        Step-by-step guides to search success from the authority on SEO.

      • Moz Academy

        Upskill and get certified with on-demand courses & certifications.

      • MozCon

        Save on Early Bird tickets and join us in London or New York City

      Unlock flexible pricing & new endpoints
      Moz API

      Unlock flexible pricing & new endpoints

      Find your plan
    • Blog
    • Why Moz
      • Digital Marketers

        Simplify SEO tasks to save time and grow your traffic.

      • Small Business Solutions

        Uncover insights to make smarter marketing decisions in less time.

      • Agency Solutions

        Earn & keep valuable clients with unparalleled data & insights.

      • Enterprise Solutions

        Gain a competitive edge in the ever-changing world of search.

      • The Moz Story

        Moz was the first & remains the most trusted SEO company.

      • New Releases

        Get the scoop on the latest and greatest from Moz.

      Surface actionable competitive intel
      New Feature

      Surface actionable competitive intel

      Learn More
    • Log in
      • Moz Pro
      • Moz Local
      • Moz Local Dashboard
      • Moz API
      • Moz API Dashboard
      • Moz Academy
    • Avatar
      • Moz Home
      • Notifications
      • Account & Billing
      • Manage Users
      • Community Profile
      • My Q&A
      • My Videos
      • Log Out

    The Moz Q&A Forum

    • Forum
    • Questions
    • Users
    • Ask the Community

    Welcome to the Q&A Forum

    Browse the forum for helpful insights and fresh discussions about all things SEO.

    1. Home
    2. SEO Tactics
    3. Link Building
    4. Does linking to a subdomain give link juice to the main domain?

    Moz Q&A is closed.

    After more than 13 years, and tens of thousands of questions, Moz Q&A closed on 12th December 2024. Whilst we’re not completely removing the content - many posts will still be possible to view - we have locked both new posts and new replies. More details here.

    Does linking to a subdomain give link juice to the main domain?

    Link Building
    3
    4
    7388
    Loading More Posts
    • Oldest to Newest
    • Newest to Oldest
    • Most Votes
    Reply
    • Reply as question
    Log in to reply
    This topic has been deleted. Only users with question management privileges can see it.
    • Vsky
      Vsky last edited by

      I have a few domains that I'm going to use for link building, will the link juice from the sub domains transfer to the main domain?

      1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
      • AlanBleiweiss
        AlanBleiweiss @MarieHaynes last edited by

        Yeah it can get really confusing.  Here's the concept.  Each Root domain can have many subdomains, as well as sub-folders.

        Any link pointing to any subdomain or subfolder will provide some linking value to the entire root.  It's not as much as that individual subdomain or subfolder gets, however the cumulative impact is there and it's real.

        The reason is pretty straight forward - any sub, (domain or folder) is naturally associated with the root.  It contributes to the overall weight of that root.

        It's not unlike the branches of a tree.  While the rain may fall directly on a branch, some of the water has the ability to work it's way back to the main trunk of the tree.

        Just like water that seeps into the ground and soaks into the roots, can and will work it's way up the trunk and to the branches.

        1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 2
        • MarieHaynes
          MarieHaynes @AlanBleiweiss last edited by

          I always thought that a link to a subdomain did not benefit the main domain.  Alan, can you explain this more?  If an external website links to subdomain.mydomain.com will mydomain.com get link juice from this?

          AlanBleiweiss 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
          • AlanBleiweiss
            AlanBleiweiss last edited by

            If you mean - if we get an inbound link pointing to the subdomain, will the root domain benefit?" the answer is yes to a certain extent.  How much will depend on how closely related the subdomain topical focus is to the root domain, as well as how strong the link is from the perspective of the source site.

            If you mean - if we point a link from within a subdomain to a page on the root domain, will the root domain benefit?" Then the answer is also yes, but how much depends on many other factors. And those links will carry less value than most quality inbound links coming from other root sites not in your control.

            MarieHaynes 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 3
            • 1 / 1
            • First post
              Last post

            Got a burning SEO question?

            Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.


            Start my free trial


            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.

            • See all categories

            Related Questions

            • SolveWebMedia

              Should I disavow these links?

              backlinks toxicbacklinks audit backlinkaudit disavow

              Hi all, I have a ski website that I am currently performing a toxic backlink audit on. I have noted that a lot of the links being flagged as toxic/spammy by the tool I am using seem to be the same/similar sites with different URLs. The sites are vaguely related to skiing (relating to helicopter travel options for travelling to ski resorts) but it is concerning me that there are so many of them and they are being flagged as so toxic.
              Do you think it is worth disavowing these? Or contacting the owner to ask them to remove the link? I have included an example of some of the links below. https://www.cannes-helicopters.co.uk/index.php?menuopen=21&showcontent=5
              https://nice-helicopter.co.uk/index.php?menuopen=21&showcontent=5
              https://monaco-helicopter.co.uk/index.php?menuopen=21&showcontent=5 Slightly different site but same favicon icon:
              https://monaco-helicopter.co.uk/index.php?menuopen=21&showcontent=5
              https://www.whitetracks-holidays.com/Helicopter_Transfers_Villars_Switzerland.htm Thanks in advance for any advice / help!

              Link Building | | SolveWebMedia
              0
            • michaelfisk

              Creating a subdomain or subdirectory for each major city for our main website...

              If our website is abc.com I am wanting to create a subdomain or subdirectory for each major city for SEO targeting purposes. But I want each domain to go to our see the same content from the main website abc.com. What's the best way to accomplish this? Duplicating our main page over and over sounds terrible , especially when trying to make changes down the road. Should we create an alias for each location? example.. abc.com/new-york, abc.com-chicago, etc...? If we go that route how does google acknowledge that? Would that mess up our SEO or help? Thanks!

              Link Building | | michaelfisk
              0
            • chaudhary0489

              Internal Linking - Post links vs Side Bar Links behaving differently

              Hi, I have a question regarding the internal linking behavior.  My website is www.hindimeaning.com  which is approx 3 years old. I have approx 450 posts. Now i have a widget on right sidebar "Popular posts". A widget below my posts "Related Posts". And a simple html CSS menu above the posts (I removed menu around 6 month before so currently it will not show.) I crawled my site with moz crawler (same are the result from google crawler as well) and it shows menus links as internal links. While sidebar widget "Popular posts" and "Related Posts" are not showing as internal links. If we talk theoretically what i learn till now is "every link on a page behaves as internal link". Then why the widget links are not showing as internal links. Thanks, Mahesh Kumar

              Link Building | | chaudhary0489
              0
            • T-J-I

              Nasty links

              Hi My first q on here (hoorah!), and it's about links (boo!). I've got what appears to be a handful (but worryingly, increasing in number) of links pointing to my site like this: http://condos.mrgulffront.com/florida-condos-for-sale/320-scenic-gulf-drive-miramar-beach-fl-32550-mls-567591/ I've made contact with the sites concerned, and had only one positive response who flatly denied all knowledge of it. The issue (as far as I can see) is that as in the above example the links (on the bottom right in the grey box) are forever changing so not always visible. Can anyone offer any guidance as to these kinds of nasty links.... I'm right at the v beginning on this "path of seo understanding" so please don't assume prior knowledge! Thanks in advance.... tom

              Link Building | | T-J-I
              0
            • RankStealer

              Does Link Juice Flow From Banner Ads.

              Hi Guys I have been checking out a couple of my competitors and noticed that in site explorer there were sites that were passing what I would consider strong amounts of link juice for their banner adverts. I checked the anchor text which was always (Img ALT) Also the links are follow and placed on the home page too. So I wondered how google view this Im sure adverts were supposed to be no follow and if so then do you think there is a benefit from me taking one of these banner adverts to increase the level of link juice passing to my site.

              Link Building | | RankStealer
              0
            • JesseCWalker

              Do links within imbeddable widgets carry link juice?

              I'm dipping my toes into infographic design. On of my desired outcomes is to gain links by having other sites embed my graphic. I'm considering using Tableau's interactive data visualization software to do so; thus creating a widget, embedding it on my blog, and including the embed code for others to post. Is it possible to include a juice passing link in such an infographic?  I know its possible to include links inside the tableau graphic but not sure if they have straight SEO value. If these links are not juice passing would it be better to go with a simple image link that passes value?

              Link Building | | JesseCWalker
              1
            • seanmccauley

              How long does it take for link juice to pass

              If I were to receive a follow link from a blogger with DA 40 PA 40 today, relevant anchor text linking to correct page, etc., how long do you consider it takes until maximum SEO effect is achieved? Thanks

              Link Building | | seanmccauley
              0
            • explorionary

              Does Linkedin still pass link juice?

              It looks like LinkedIn's links are using the http://www.linkedin.com/redirect?url= prefix for the external Websites links and is recently using 302 redirects.

              Link Building | | explorionary
              0

            Get started with Moz Pro!

            Unlock the power of advanced SEO tools and data-driven insights.

            Start my free trial
            Products
            • Moz Pro
            • Moz Local
            • Moz API
            • Moz Data
            • STAT
            • Product Updates
            Moz Solutions
            • SMB Solutions
            • Agency Solutions
            • Enterprise Solutions
            Free SEO Tools
            • Domain Authority Checker
            • Link Explorer
            • Keyword Explorer
            • Competitive Research
            • Brand Authority Checker
            • Local Citation Checker
            • MozBar Extension
            • MozCast
            Resources
            • Blog
            • SEO Learning Center
            • Help Hub
            • Beginner's Guide to SEO
            • How-to Guides
            • Moz Academy
            • API Docs
            About Moz
            • About
            • Team
            • Careers
            • Contact
            Why Moz
            • Case Studies
            • Testimonials
            Get Involved
            • Become an Affiliate
            • MozCon
            • Webinars
            • Practical Marketer Series
            • MozPod
            Connect with us

            Contact the Help team

            Join our newsletter
            Moz logo
            © 2021 - 2025 SEOMoz, Inc., a Ziff Davis company. All rights reserved. Moz is a registered trademark of SEOMoz, Inc.
            • Accessibility
            • Terms of Use
            • Privacy

            Looks like your connection to Moz was lost, please wait while we try to reconnect.