Is there a problems with putting encoding into the subdomain of a URL?
-
We are looking at changing our URL structure for tracking various affiliates from:
https://sub.domain.com/quote/?affiliate_id=xxx
to https://aff_xxx_affname.domain.com/quote/
Both would allow us to track affiliates, but the second would allow us to use cookies to track. Does anyone know if this could possibly cause SEO concerns?
Also, For the site we want to rank for, we will use a reverse proxy to change the URL from https://aff_xxx.maindomain.com/quote/ to https://www.maindomain.com/quote/
would that cause any SEO issues.
Thank you.
-
Hello Rox,
I hate the idea of you going away unsatisfied with unanswered questions. Let's try to work through this. Let me approach it from a different way, as I may have misunderstood what you were asking.
https://sub.domain.com/quote/?affiliate_id=xxx
https://aff_xxx_affname.domain.com/quote/
The first URL is the one I'd go with because it's easy to rel canonical back to the base URL and you're keeping it all on one subdomain. The second version creates a new subdomain for every affiliate, which I don't think would be a good thing.
Please let me know if I have understood your question this time.
Thanks!
-
I don't feel this question is understood and I'm not sure how to explain it any further so I would like to close it, without marking any answers good or bad. I'm not sure how I would close it so am posting this response. Thank you.
-
Not if that something has to do with affiliate landing pages.
-
Isn't it good to let google see that our site does something as opposed to just being a glorified blog?
-
Hi RoxBrock! Did Everett and Dmitrii answer your question? If so, make sure to mark one or both of their responses "Good Answers."
-
All of those subdomains should have a robots.txt file that disallows the search engine from accessing them in the first place. In that sense, it doesn't matter which you choose for SEO. Or am I missing something?
-
The sub-domain would not be redirected. It would be forwarded on to an application server to parse the sub-domains and continue with displaying a page customized for that affiliate (HTML, CSS, and verbiage all can change).
As for why the URL structure won't work, the site must throw an error if no affiliate ID is specified. It cannot simply assume the one in the cookie is correct.
-
Hi there.
So, are those affiliates domains gonna actually exist and be empty and be redirected from with proxy or it's gonna be simple htaccess rewrite rule?
In first case i can see lots of trouble with UX (do you like when after clicking on a link it takes you to a page, which refreshes several times before giving you end page result? - feels very spammy and unsettling, doesn't it?!)
In second case - there won't be any problems.
P.S. Why parameter URL structure doesn't let you use cookies? You can assign specific cookie based on parameter with simple php get. Or am i missing something?
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 a Few URLs to a New Domain
We are in the process of buying the blog section of a site. Let's say Site A is buying Site B. We have taken the content from Site B and replicated it on Site A, along with the exact url besides the TLD. We then issued 301 redirects from Site B to Site A and initiated a crawl on those original Site B urls so Google would understand they are now redirecting to Site A. The new urls for Site A, with the same content are now showing up in Google's index if we do a site:SiteA.com search on the big G. Anyone have any experience with this as to how long before Site A urls should replace Site B urls in the search results? I undestand there may be a ranking difference and CTR difference based on domain bias, etc... I'm just asking if everything goes as planned and there isn't a huge issue, does the process take weeks or months?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | seoaustin0 -
SEO benefit of tracked URLs
I've found a lot of mixed info on this topic so I thought I'd ask the experts (Moz community). If I'm adding tracking parameters to URLs to monitor organic traffic will this affect the rank/value of the original clean URL? If so, would best practice be to 301 redirect the tracked URL to the original:
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | IceIcebaby
i.e. redirect www.example.com/category/?DZID=Organic_G_NP/SQ&utm_source=Organic&utm_medium=Google TO www.example.com/category Thanks for your help!
-Reed0 -
CHange insite Urls structure
Hello Guys! I have a situation with a website and I need some opinions. Today, the structured of my site is: (I have had this site architecture since many years) Main country home (www.mysite.com.tld) o Product_1 Home (www.mysite.com.tld/product1/) § Product_1 articles www.mysite.com.tld/product1/product1_art1 www.mysite.com.tld/product1/product1_art2 www.mysite.com.tld/product1/product1_artx o Product_2 Home (www.mysite.com.tld/product2/) § Product_2 articles www.mysite.com.tld/product1/product2_art1 www.mysite.com.tld/product1/product2_art2 www.mysite.com.tld/product1/product2_artx I have several TLDs with their main and their products. We are thinking in modify this structure and begin to use subdomains for each product (The IT guys need this approach because is simpler to distribute the servers load). I not very friendly with subdomains and big changes like this always can produce some problem (although the SEO migration would be ok, problems could appear, like ranking drops), But, the solution (the reasons are technical stuff), requires the mix of directories and subdomains in each product, leaving the structured in this way: Main country home (www.mysite.com.tld) o Product_1 Home (www.mysite.com.tld/product1/) § Product_1 articles product1.mysite.com.tld/product1_art1 product1.mysite.com.tld/product1_art2 product1.mysite.com.tld/product1_artx o Product_2 Home (www.mysite.com.tld/product2/) § Product_2 articles product2.mysite.com.tld/product1_art1 product2.mysite.com.tld/product1_art2 product2.mysite.com.tld/product1_artx So, the product home will be in a directory buy the pages of the articles of this product will be in a subdomain. What do you think about this solution? Beyond that the SEO migration would be fine, 301s, etc, can bring us difficulties in the rankings or the change can be done without any consideration? Thanks very much! Agustin
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | SEOTeamDespegar0 -
Subdomains for US Regions
The company I work for is expanding their business to new territories. I've got a lot of stabilization to do in the region/state where we're one of the most well known companies of our kind. Currently, we have 3 distinct product lines which are currently distinguished by 3 separate URLS. This is affecting the user flow of our site, so we'd like to clean it up before launching our products into the various regions. The business has decided to grow into 5 new states (one state consisting of one county only) — none of which will feature all 3 products. Our homebase state is the only one that will have all 3 products this year. My initial thought was to use subdomains to separate out the regions, that way we could use a canonical tag to stabilize the root domain (which would feature home state content, and support content for all regions), and remove us from potential duplicate content penalization. Our product content will be nearly identical across the regions for the first year. I second guessed myself by thinking that it was perhaps better to use a "[product].root/region" URL instead. And I'm currently stuck by wondering if it was not better to build out subdomains for products and regions...using one modifier or the other as a funnel/branding page into the other. For instance, user lands on "region.root.com" and sees exactly what products we offer in that region. Basically, a tailored landing page. Meanwhile the bulk of the product content would actually live under "product.root.com/region/page". My head is spinning. And while searching for similar questions I also bumped into reference of another tag meant to be used in some similar cases to mine. I feel like there's a lot of risks involved in this subdomain strategy, but I also can't help but see the benefits in the user flow.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | taylor.craig0 -
Canonical url question
i just search seomoz tooll it say duplicate content for www.mysite.com and www.mysite.com/index.php should i use canonical url for this ? is yes then is this right ?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | constructionhelpline0 -
Changing a url from .html to .com
Hello, I have a client that has a site with a .html plugin and I have read that its best to not have this. We currently have pages ranking with this .html plug in. However If we take the plug in out will we lose rankings? would we need a 301 or something?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | SEODinosaur0 -
Changing URL Structure
We are going to be relaunching our website with a new URL structure. My question is, how is it best to deal with the migration process in terms of old URLS appearing whilst we launch the new ones. How best should we launch the new structure, considering we've in the region of 10,000 pages currently indexed in Google.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | NeilTompkins0 -
Mobile subdomain recommendations - Mobile SEO
My company is moving forward with creating a subdomain for mobile visitors (m.examplesite.com). I know there is much discussion on subdomain vs one url with different style sheets. That ship has sailed and the subdomain is the way we are proceeding. Google appears to recommend leaving both sites open to the normal Googlebot and redirecting the mobile bot to the mobile site (as we will be redirecting mobile visitors to the mobile subdomain). Has anyone had experience with this. Any duplicate content issues? Does anyone feel strongly that the normal Googlebot should be blocked from the mobile site (this seems to go against Google's recommendations)? It seems like another option is to use the canonical tag and let the search engines know the traditional site is the canonical page/version. Any recommendations? Any other issues that should be considered?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | btdavis0