Getting the SEO right for blog on different server
-
Hi There
This must be a common scenario but there's very little help on it. Right now I have:
www.domain.com hosted on a Windows dedicated server.
I have blog.domain.com hosted on a separate hosted Wordpress server and I use an A Record at the DNS level to make sure the sub domain works. Easy peasy!
However we want to move our blog so its at www.domain.com/blog as we're definitely seeing an issue with the sub domain hosting of the blog in terms of SEO.
My problem is that I cannot install WP onto the windows server, its' just not feasible as too much is going on with it, so i can;t simply redirect my blog.subdomain.com to www.domain.com/blog as it won't exist.
How do I do this and maintain the SEO/link juice?
Any help much appreciated!
-
Alright, well my advice runs counter to common wisdom: don't worry so much about whether it's on a sub-domain.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_MswMYk05tk
https://www.mattcutts.com/blog/subdomains-and-subdirectories/
My feeling is that you should worry a lot more about what the blog is linking to.
I've personally had access to look into 2 of the most-cited subdomain examples. In one of them the company moved into a subdomain, but broke a massive document up into about 7 pieces - and each piece started getting organic traffic. This happened at the same time, so I don't think it can be attributed to the sub-domain movement. In another case the blog logo linked back to the blog home, and there were almost no links to the sales pages. Changing the header resulted in more links to the root domain, so yes - rankings improved.
I've heard other anecdotes of people moving to sub-folders and seeing big boosts in their non-blog rankings due to the links from the blog. For the last 5 years, though, I've seen no credible evidence. I've been in a good position to see the opposite. One more story: a friend of mine just moved a MASSIVELY-cited blog (blog PA 75) off the sub-domain, but his nav was already mirroring the www version (which has 1/15th the links). Impact on rankings: absolutely none.
I'd still install on the same server if I could, just for the sake of maintenance, but if you can't find a technical solution just make sure you link architecture makes sense.
-
I really don't know because I know the square root of nothing about IIS I'm afraid.
Sorry, not an awful lot else I can help with on this one.
-Andy
-
Cheers for the reply.
The trouble is that we have a lot of mission critical services running on this server, add to that we have limited PHP, mySQL etc skills as we're Microsoft bods here. Installing all of this onto our server is not really an option, more a recipe for complete disaster!
One idea we had was creating some kind of folder in IIS on the main server www.domain.com that then redirected/re-wrote to blog.domain.com. THe principle is that same as people visiting friendly URLs that actually map to .aspx pages but on a domain level, not page level. My head's exploded a bit so i'm not sure if that would work at all with correct link juice being passed.
-
Hi,
Have you had a look at installing Wordpress under Windows? There are also alternatives to Wordpress if you wish to look at these.
I'm not aware of a workaround otherwise - it isn't something I have ever had to do, but someone else might chip in with ideas.
-Andy
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
-
How to reduce blog Spam Score? It it effect in All type of blog
Hi, I am working on blog , and a few days ago when i check the spam score rise up to 1 to 10 ..i have searched many method on internet but it is not works. i am very worried about this. is it problematic. how can i fix this here is the blog - Jonakaxom Can anyone explain about this . what should i do now.....
Technical SEO | | Tormura0 -
Bulk redirection of blogs
Hi all, we're going to changing the url structure of our website. Moving from: /news-and-views/blog/thisistheblogpost to /blog/thisistheblogpost (ie removing the /news-and-views/ portion of the url). There's approximately 300 posts. I have 2 questions - will this have an impact on domain wide authority? and is bulk 301 redirects the best solution? The blogs themselves don't get a huge amount of traffic but we just want to make sure we don't do something that will be penalized by search engines.
Technical SEO | | francisclark2 -
SEO for Parallax Website
Hi, Are there any implications of having a parallax website and the URL not changing as you scroll down the page? So basically the whole site is under the same URL? However, when you click on the menu the URL does change? Cheers
Technical SEO | | National-Homebuyers0 -
SEO of Social Media Pages
I have noticed something odd about how Google ranks social media pages, and was hoping someone would have a good explanation. When I search for a particular name in Google, the first two results are Twitter pages of two people who share the same name. #1 is an older account with more Tweets, but it has fewer followers, no external backlinks, and the URL is unrelated to the name #2 is a newer account, but it has more followers, a few external backlinks, and the name itself is in the URL. It has fewer overall Tweets, but has Tweeted more frequently over the past several months. #2 is also happens to be in the same City as I am. Given my understanding of Google's ranking factors, I would not have expected #1 to outrank #2. In fact, I would not have expected #1 to even be on the first page. What could be causing #1 to rank so highly? Does it make sense that the age of the account or the number of Tweets would affect SEO at all? Really, I am just trying to understand what are the main factors that determine the ranking of social media profile pages. Thanks
Technical SEO | | timsegraves0 -
Website analysis for SEO
Hi, We have been trying to gain ranking for 7 keywords for a year now but have been unsuccessful We are not sure where we are going wrong, if someone could please help us out, we are happy to pay for your time.
Technical SEO | | mframing0 -
Need Third Party Input. Our Web host blocked all bots including Google and myself because they believe SEO is slowing down their server.
I would like some third party input... partly for my sanity and also for my client. I have a client who runs a large online bookstore. The bookstore runs in Magento and the developers are also apparently the web host. (They actually run the servers.. I do not know if they are sitting under someones desk or are actually in a data center) Their server has been slowed down by local and foreign bots. They are under the impression my SEO services are sending spammer bots to crawl and slow down their site. To fix the problem they disallowed all bots. Everything, Google, Yahoo, Bing. They also banned my access from the site. My clients organic traffic instantly took a HUGE hit. (almost 50% of their traffic is organic and over 50% is Organic + Adwords most everything from Google) Their keyword rankings are taking a quick dive as well. Could someone please verify the following as true to help me illustrate to my client that this is completely unacceptable behavior on part of the host. I believe: 1.) You should never disavow ALL robots from your site as a solution for spam. As a matter of fact most of the bad bots ignore robots.txt anyways. It is a way to limit where Google searches (which is obviously a technique to be used) 2.) On site SEO work as well as link building, etc. is not responsible for foreign bots and scrappers putting a heavy load on the server. 3.) Their behavior will ultimately lead to a massive loss of rankings (already happening) and a huge loss of traffic (already happening) and ultimately since almost half the traffic is organic the client could expect to lose a large sum of revenue from purchases made by organic traffic since it will disappear. Please give your input and thoughts. I really appreciate it!
Technical SEO | | JoshuaLindley1 -
Local SEO - Page Titles
Hi Folks, Complete newbie (well last 12 months) I have recentley added a blog to my site and have been doing quite a bit of quite word researching through google. I have found some good keywords that have up till now escaped me! Heres my question because I trying for local traffic, mainly newcastle durham and sunderlanddo i go with one of the following two options get two very similar keywords in my article and go for both and rely on google to bring up local listings for the end user in my area e.g Small garden design | Garden design from the experts. (keywords bold ) or Garden Design | Newcastle | Sunderland | Durham | so I have geo locations in title either way I will obviously have both keywords and locations in the artcle Help please I dont want to write many hours and find I have missed a trick! Many thank guys n girls!
Technical SEO | | easigrassne0 -
Best Practice to Remove a Blog
Note: Re-posting since I accidentally marked as answered Hi, I have a blog that has thousands of URL, the blog is a part of my site. I would like to obsolete the blog, I think the best choices are 1. 404 Them: Problem is a large number of 404's. I know this is Ok, but makes me hesitant. 2. meta tag no follow no index. This would be great, but the question is they are already indexed. Thoughts? Thanks PS A 301 redirect to the main page would be flagged as a soft 404
Technical SEO | | Bucky0