Root-Domain vs Subdomain Linkbuilding
-
Hello Mozzers!
Couple of days ago I received a request to start optimizing a wordpress website, the domain itself has been around for around 10-12 years so it's it can be considered as one that has real history behind it. The page has been moved from HTML/FLASH to wordpress about 3 - 4 years ago and hasn't been any SEO maintenance on it. The site used to rank for first position with several keywords, but now understandably, it has greatly decreased.
My main question would be, that when I've checked the root domain's and the subdomain's metrics with MOZ Open Site Explorer, the sub domain (with "www.") showed a PA 40 and 90 external links while the root domain (without "www.") only has 27 PA and 6 External links.
I know that the 301 or server redirects only transfers about 90% of the link juice to the targeted URL but the difference between the 2 results seem way too big for me.
What do you think? Is this normal?
During future link building is it more beneficial to target the root domain so the page won't lose that "10%" by redirecting the new link from sub-domain to root domain?
Is it possible to get more juice transferred?Thank you very much,
Adam -
Hey
I'm a bit confused - not the first time! Would very much appreciate if you good folks could shed some light on a couple of questions.
Our site in the search console is inputed as www.domain.co.uk
Is this our subdomain?
When I'm using Open Site Explorer and filter by Target, say "this root domain" is it now showing me inbound links to domain.co.uk instead?
Lastly how does this affect rankings i.e getting links to www.domain.co.uk or domain.co.uk as whoever types in either domain gets to the correct site.
-
Thank you CKG for your answer, it's much appreciated.
I have already started to move to www. , I changed in WordPress settings, from non-www to www version, also selected the preferred version www. in webmaster tools and contacted the server administrators about the change. My only last problem is the battle with the htaccess to redirect the rootdomain to the www. subdomain but I should get it sorted out pretty soon
Cheers,
Adam -
Hey
I think you should go through both for analysis purposes however in order to moving forward you should be focusing on one URL which contains www.
here are the link for you to help yourself to understand the difference between these.
http://moz.com/community/q/root-domain-and-subdomain-links-opensite-explorer
-
I have just come across the same issue for a site I am optimising. For me, when www is used the page authority in OSE is 42 compared to 33 when there is no www.
It would be really good to hear what people's views are on this.
Billy
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
-
Redirecting dofollow, high-domain-authority links from one site to another: good idea?
I have two sites that offer help for freelance writers. The first gets almost no search traffic and is very low priority for me. The second is my main priority and gets substantial search traffic. The low-priority site has a significant number of dofollow backlinks from high-domain-authority sites. Is it a good idea to 301 redirect these links to similar/related posts on my high-priority site? Would this potentially boost the SEO of my high-priority site? Thanks for any help!
Link Building | | John88990 -
What to do with expired domains waiting to create web site
Hi users MOZ:
Link Building | | NachoRetta
I bought a couple of expired domains to create a private blog network but I can't create the sites yet. While i prepare the sites, it is good idea to do a 301 redirect with them?1 -
Direct from one website toanother but different domain name
i have two web site same subject but two different name how can i direct ?
Link Building | | fabric-fabric0 -
Domain Authority and Page Authority down - Change of Server
Dear All, Today I noticed that our page authority and domain authority is down, and the number of linking domains is also down. We do not have too many linking domains to our site, but at least one blogger link to us, with a very nice article about our site (since some months ago) and this link does not appear in the site explorer (follow link). This blog is well indexed by google, but impossible to see using open site explorer for some reason unknown to me; and two pages we helped, and they link also to us (follow links): their links appear in the webmaster tools, but not in the site explorer. Neither the blog nor those two pages were in the site explorer before, the links that were removed are from other sources (SEO analisys pages, automatic generated when I run a test by them, so I supossed not high quality links at all, not content related, we don't miss them). Our site was partially down for 1 1/2 day this week due change of server, from a shared hosting to a VPS. Now all pages are up again, and we are improving everything, working really hard (almost no sleep at all in two days). Could it also have something to do with the lower domain authority? How bad penalized google the time down of a domain? How long will we feel the effects of that? Listing published in our site are ranking exactly as before, but I am afraid this could change in the near future. Since the end of December (not directly related to my question), we do not have this nice snipped showing the main pages of our site, when we writte the exact domain name in google. At the time, we did not any change, and this did not affect the listings ranking (they even improved in some cases); we rank better for the main keyword, so the snipped changed, without other problems. So, the questions: Have made site explorer any change in the last days, to discard low quality links? Could be the lower domain authority related to the down time of our site? How long can be felt the effects of the down time in google results? Is it something that can be felt forever? =( Do you have any idea why google decides in some cases to remove the site links in the snipped? General question, I know it is not possible to answer it for any specific domain without looking at it. We would like to have those links again. Is there something we can do in order site explorer visit that blog I mentioned? I will try to crawl it using the dashboard to see what happen. Many thanks for your help! Daniel
Link Building | | te_c0 -
Advisable to pay for a link from a highly reputed site in same domain?
Is it okay to pay for a link if the site is a very highly reputed (PR4) one in the same domain as your site? Thanks
Link Building | | EricMoore0 -
Linkbuilding - Which is best?
Okay so we all know that: 1 Link on 10 Sites > 10 Links on 1 Site (potentially untrue with spammy links on 1 site than 10 links on high authority but that's not the point of this discussion) I've had some discussions at work I seem to be fighting a losing battle... So the questions is... which is better? 1 Link on 1 Site vs 5 Links on 1 Site (same site) We seem to operate on the form of - once we have a link from the site (in most cases blogs for product reviews / guest posts) - that's it , we move on and never talk to them again. For continued growth of links, would it be beneficial if we guest posted on some sites once a month? Then we get a steady stream of links each month.
Link Building | | FreddieChatt1 -
Link Acquisition - PA vs PR
I am wondering if someone can please advise on link acquisition. I have the opportunity to acquire a few good backlinks that will bring both traffic and some potential link juice. All things aside, if we are strictly comparing Page Authority with Google PageRank which will provide the most benefit to my SERP ranking? 1. Google PageRank 4 and Page Authority of 25 or 2. Google PageRank 2 and Page Authority of 35 We are strictly talking about SERPs!
Link Building | | initialeffort1