How to correctly move subdomain to subfolder (google webmaster)?
-
Hello,
This is my first post in here
I just wondered what is the correct way to move a subdomain to subfolder?
I've moved it, re-done sitemap, so that main website would include a subfolder, as they are part of one big website now (it was something like a blog on a subdomain).
Subdomain now does correct 301 redirects.
Submitted new sitemap to google, asked google to re-fetch the whole domain (thus subfolder should be re-fetched too, as it's part of main nav).
The areas i'm in doubt:
I can tell google that the domain got moved, however it is moved to the one that is already approved in the same account, but is in a subfolder, so should i do this? Or should i simply somehow erase it on webmaster?
The blog was launched about a month ago, and it isn't perfectly optimized yet, it wasn't on google SERPs pretty much at all, excluding googling it straightly, and there are pretty much 0 traffic from google, almost all of it is either direct either referral, mostly social,
Thanks,
Pavel
-
I'm just made a similar move, moving my blog from blog.domain.com to domain.com/my-blog.
I don't think I can use the Google change of address - it is throwing me an error when I get to that step in the change of address because I'm going to a sub directory, not to the root. "The old site redirects to www.domain.com/my-blog, which does not correspond to the new site you chose."
Should I care? I'm getting organic traffic already on the blog URLs, and Google has indexed about half of the URLs that I submitted via the sitemap.
-
Yep! Sounds like that'd be the right thing to do. : Given the situation you'd probably be fine just resubmitting your XML sitemap—your main domain isn't changing; it's just getting a new subfolder—but I can't imagine it'd hurt.
-
Thanks for such a quick response!
0 Traffic isn't an issue, as it's for blog only, and i'll solve it
The thing that concerns me is that on google change of address - it refers to subdomain movement to another domain, so i.e. in google webmasters i got:
Now blog was moved to mywebsite.com/blog
So i should submit new address to mywebsite.com, thus the one i already have in google webmaster console?
Thanks :S
-
Here are some best practices based on your situation:
- Make sure you've used the change of address tool for the subdomain - "Request an address change.
Use the **Change of address **tool when your site move entails a domain or subdomain change, such as changing from http://fish.example-petstore.com to http://example.com or http://example-petstore.com." See https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/83106?hl=en - Also - one thing to do with your XML sitemaps is to ensure that both your old and new XML sitemaps are still submitted to Search Console. This will allow Google to read the old and the new. When it reads the old XML sitemap it will follow those URLs and redirects to find and index the new URLs. You can remove the old sitemap only when all of your new URLs are indexing to your standards.
- If you're getting 0 traffic from Google, check your Search Analytics in Search Console to make sure you're actually ranking for at least long tail keywords. 0 traffic means there's a problem. Check your robots.txt and Meta Robots to ensure everything is properly set up. Do a "site:yoursitename.com/blog" search in Google to make sure your blog URLs are ranking. Also search for your website name to make sure the blog is ranking for the site name at least.
Good luck!
- Make sure you've used the change of address tool for the subdomain - "Request an address change.
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
-
Google showing 3 different results for homepage
Hello All! First post in this community. I hope someone can help with an issue I'm having with my website, 3vdental.com. 1. When I Google my brand name, 3V Dental Associates, I see one result on the front page. This result shows ONLY my brand name as the title tag... See here: https://www.screencast.com/t/Vwq4l2Lrn 2. When I Google my domain name, 3vdental.com, I see a second result, that still only shows my brand name as the title tag, but with sitelinks showing in the results... See here: https://www.screencast.com/t/L37hxZ8rd1xp 3. Both results above are not ideal, as they are not displaying the correct title and meta tags set within the Yoast SEO plugin. Here's a front-end view of the site displaying the correct title and meta tags.. See here: https://www.screencast.com/t/CZS3CBja4m Is there any way to correct this so that Google displays my preferred tags when my website is displayed? Thanks for your help in advance!
Local Website Optimization | | Visionisto0 -
SEO for Franchises - Subdomains or Folders?
Wondering if there ever has been any recent consensus on best SEO strategy for a Franchise. I feel it is safe to assume that just having one corporate website with a "store locator" that just brings up the address, phone and hours of a location is not optimal. Yes, the important thing is to get a Google Places for Business listing for each location so you can come up in the 3-pack and regular Maps result, BUT, the rankings for the 3-pack is largely determined by the site's authority and relevance to the specific search term used, IN ADDITION TO, the proximity of the business to the search user's physical location. Apparently it is widely believed that domain authority does not transfer from www.mycorporatedomain.com to somecity.mycorporatedomain.com. And of course we also know there is a potential for a duplicate content penalty, so you can't just duplicate your main site for a number of locations and change the address and phone number on the contact page. If the products and or services are identical for each location, then it's going to be somewhat ridiculous to try and rewrite many sections of the website since the information is no different despite the location. It seems in general more people are advocates of putting location pages or micro-sites in a subfolder of the corporate domain so that it can benefit from the domain's authority. HOWEVER, it is also widely known that the home page (root URL) of any domain carries more weight in the eyes of Google. So let's assume the best strategy is to create a micro-site where phone and address is different anywhere they appear and the contact page is customized to that location, and the "Meet The Staff" page is customized to that location. The site uses the same style 'template' if you will as the main site. Let's also assume you can build a custom home page that has some different content, but still shares the same look and some of the same information as the main site. But let's say between the different phone, address, and maybe some different images and 20% of the content rewritten a bit, Google doesn't view it as dupe content. So would the best strategy then be to have the location home page be: somecity.mycorporatedomain.com and the product and services pages that are identical to the main site you just use a rel canonical to point to the main site? Or, do you make the "home page" for the local business be a subfolder of the main site. So I guess what it boils down to is whether or not the domain authority has more of an effect compared to having a unique home page on a subdomain. What about this? Say the only thing different on the local site is the contact (phone/address) in the header and/or footer of every page, the contact form page, and the meet the staff page. All other content is identical to the corp site, including the home page. I think in that case you need to use a script to serve the pages dynamically. So you would need to server the pages using a PHP script that detects the subfolder name to determine the location and dynamically replaces the phone and address and server different contact and staff pages. You could have a vanity domain mycity.mycorporatedomain.com that does a 301 redirect to the subfolder home page. (This is all ofcourse assuming the subfolder method is the way to go.)
Local Website Optimization | | SeoJaz0 -
Subdomain vs. Separate Domain for SEO & Google AdWords
We have a client who carries 4 product lines from different manufacturers under a singular domain name (www.companyname.com), and last fall, one of their manufacturers indicated that they needed to move to separate out one of those product lines from the rest, so we redesigned and relaunched as two separate sites - www.companyname.com and www.companynameseparateproduct.com (a newly-purchased domain). Since that time, their manufacturer has reneged their requirement to separate the product lines, but the client has been running both sites separately since they launched at the beginning of December 2016. Since that time, they have cannibalized their content strategy (effective February 2017) and hacked apart their PPC budget from both sites (effective April 2017), and are upset that their organic and paid traffic has correspondingly dropped from the original domain, and that the new domain hasn't continued to grow at the rate they would like it to (we did warn them, and they made the decision to move forward with the changes anyway). This past week, they decided to hire an in-house marketing manager, who is insisting that we move the newer domain (www.companynameseparateproduct.com) to become a subdomain on their original site (separateproduct.companyname.com). Our team has argued that making this change back 6 months into the life of the new site will hurt their SEO (especially if we have to 301 redirect all of the old content back again, without any new content regularly being added), which was corroborated with this article. We'd also have to kill the separate AdWords account and quality score associated with the ads in that account to move them back. We're currently looking for any extra insight or literature that we might be able to find that helps explain this to the client better - even if it is a little technical. (We're also open to finding out if this method of thinking is incorrect if things have changed!)
Local Website Optimization | | mkbeesto0 -
Regarding rel="publisher". Company info not shown in google?
Hi, I have a google+ page https://plus.google.com/+ILoveDiamondsdotcom which is verified and link to http://www.ilovediamonds.com with rel="publisher". Why my companies info is not shown in Google search?Its been nearly 3 months.
Local Website Optimization | | ILDSEO0 -
Our Website is showing on the 11th place on Google Map
Hello, We are a photo studio in New York City, our website is
Local Website Optimization | | YourHollywoodPortrait
and our Google Plus page is http://yourhollywoodportrait.com/ https://plus.google.com/+YourHollywoodPortraitStudioNewYork When doing a search in maps for Boudoir Photography New York City we don't appear in the first 10 results, there is even a studio from New Jersey appearing before us. We have only 5* reviews, we did a bunch of local citations and still we are not in the first page of maps. Would you have any suggestions as to what we are doing wrong or should be doing? Thanks a lot for your help! Michael0 -
Google Panda 4.0 update - Good for Small businesses?
Hi guys, We recently did a post on Google Panda 4.0 release. Check this here. Have you seen any notable changes in rankings for your website? Do you think that this update will benefit small businesses/websites? Looking forward to your comments.
Local Website Optimization | | FRL2 -
Why My Site is Ranked for Few Hours on Daily Basis in Google SERPs
We have observed Google is shuffling our ranking on daily basis for our website: www.strokesexhibits.com, which is annoying. Almost on daily basis, in evening hours we are in ranking against almost every keyword for few hours (roughly 6-12 hours) but in the morning hours we are back to 50+ to 100+ positions. This is not happening with our domain only but facing same issue with the Google plus pages and few articles which we have on some high authority sites are behaving in same way. For better understanding, please have a look on following stats (Evening Screenshots were recorded yesterday after 8:00 PM, Morning screenshots were recorded after 9.30 AM - GMT +4 Time Zone). all following results are related with google.ae Keyword: Exhibition Stand Evening: 2 Google plus posts are in ranking + One main website page is ranking. Position 2: http://screencast.com/t/Yf2SLQNRJEm Position 4, 6: http://screencast.com/t/sDs2nShaAGr2 Morning: Google Plus pages disappeared + Different main website page is in ranking in back pages. Position 87: http://screencast.com/t/XT8hCEmOY Keyword: Exhibition stands Evening: 2 Google Plus posts are in ranking + One main website page Position 2,3,6: http://screencast.com/t/kF3PaVtwWe Morning: All above pages disappeared from ranking & new pages appeared in back pages. Position 75: http://screencast.com/t/nMTEWJlT Keyword: Exhibition stand design Evening: 2 Google Plus & one main website page is in ranking Position 4,5: http://screencast.com/t/ENUg4Do4i Position 78: http://screencast.com/t/xf8NeMzH Morning: Above pages disappeared and 2 new pages got ranking in back pages. Position 72, 73: http://screencast.com/t/1VidK4cx Keyword: Exhibition companies in dubai Evening: 2 Google Plus pages are on first page + Home page of website on back pages. Position 4: http://screencast.com/t/F3ljdakI3bU Position 8: http://screencast.com/t/evuDLuuL Position 70: http://screencast.com/t/xQ24Mdm9DV Morning: Home page dropped 11 positions + google plus disappeared Position 81: http://screencast.com/t/FD1IxnqL Keyword: Exhibition stand fabrication: Evening: 2 main website + 2 google plus + 1 second brand site + 1 third party website + 1 youtube link – all related to us are in ranking Position 1,2: http://screencast.com/t/kZACVnUS1yG Position: 4,5,7: http://screencast.com/t/JyAKX2bv66t Position 11,12: http://screencast.com/t/2CdJMMHB8 Morning: One page lost by position 1 + One page disappeared and new page appeared in ranking + google plus disappeared + youtube gained ranking of 2 positions + 3rd party link also gained ranking by 3 positions. Position 2, 4: http://screencast.com/t/JwJfa0Je Position 8, 10: http://screencast.com/t/wHup3X6Isu Keyword: Exhibition stand contractor Evening: 2 Google plus links + One main website link on back pages. Position 4,6: http://screencast.com/t/bMJlI7cco Position 100: http://screencast.com/t/twBOwFbR Morning: Google plus disappeared + main website page still on back pages & gained 2 positions. Position 98: http://screencast.com/t/tMXHmkiQWFE Keyword: Exhibition stand installation Evening: 2 main website + one Google plus is in ranking Position 2,4,5: http://screencast.com/t/GfyXZn19 Morning: All 3 pages disappeared & new single page is in ranking Position 3: http://screencast.com/t/i0fdgZvVZwUk Any Suggestion???
Local Website Optimization | | strokesinteriors0 -
International Site Geolocation Redirection (best way to redirect and allow Google bots to index sites)
I have a client that has an international website. The website currently has IP detection and redirects you to the subdomain for your country. They have currently only launched the Australian website and are not yet open to the rest of the world: https://au.domain.com/ Google is not indexing the Australian website or pages, instead I believe that the bots are being blocked by the IP redirection every time they try to visit one of the Australian pages. Therefore only the US 'coming soon' page is being properly indexed. So, I would like to know the best way to place a geolocation redirection without creating a splash page to select location? User friendliness is most important (so we don't want cookies etc). I have seen this great Whiteboard Friday video on Where to Host and How to Target, which makes sense, but what it doesn't tell me is exactly the best method for redirection except at about 10:20 where it tells me what I'm doing is incorrect. I have also read a number of other posts on IP redirection, but none tell me the best method, and some are a little different examples... I need for US visitors to see the US coming soon page and for Google to index the Australian website. I have seen a lot about JS redirects, IP redirects and .htaccess redirects, but unfortunately my technical knowledge of how these affect Google's bots doesn't really help. Appreciate your answers. Cheers, Lincoln
Local Website Optimization | | LincolnSmith0