How Can A SubDomain Out Perform A Root Domain?
-
Hi guys!
I have a rather strange SEO question. It may not be that strange at all actually.
If a site has a subdomain or a shopping cart that is on a subdomain through a third-party shopping cart provider, can the third party shopping cart transfer value to the subdomain causing the subdomain to have greater domain authority than the main site or root domain?
Another question, this subdomain, up until yesterday, blocked google from crawling it with robots txt, however it has a much higher domain authority than the root domain. The root domain has a really low domain authority, despite not blocking google from crawling it. How is this possible?
I hope these questions make sense. I am a little stumped & trying to figure out why the subdomain is out-performing the main site despite being hidden from search, if that's even the case. Please let me know if I have it all wrong..
-
Thanks so much for your answer! This makes a lot of sense!
-
Hi,
Sure it is possible for a sub domain to have higher scores than the root domain. If a lot of link building is done for the root domian it could have some pretty strong "sub Domain and Page" scores. If the root domain got little or no seo work done for it. That can be a problem but if you step up the SEO link building for the root domain then things will get better.
I understand this is really all just one site and you are just putting your shopping cart on the sub domain. Just start pushing your offsite seo and then you will have a strong root and sub domain.
Personally I feel the Root Domain scores are very important and in competitive search terms the Domain scores are usually more important to ranking well.
Best Regards
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
-
Does a root domain get SEO power from its subdomains?
Hi there! I'd appreciate your help with the following case: a) Current 10-year-old website (community) on root domain "example.com" (250,000 incoming quality-backlinks) will move to the new subdomain "newsub.example.com" (301 redirects to the new subdomain for all current subfolders) b) A new website (shop) will launch on the root domain "example.com" Question: Will the new website on "example.com" get SEO power from the old website on "newsub.example.com"? SEO power = linkjuice/authority/trust/history/etc. from the 250,000 backlinks. What I'm trying to achieve: Maintain the built-up SEO power for the root domain "example.com" Thanks for sharing your thoughts on this! P.S. Plenty has been written about subdomains inheriting from their root domains (so please don't share input on the subdomain vs. subfolder debate). But I can't find satisfactory info about the other way around (root domains inheriting from their subdomains), e.g. if wikia.com gets SEO power from its subdomains superman.wikia.com, starwars.wikia.com, etc.)
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | ebebeb0 -
Website Not Performing after switch to HTTPS
We recently switched our client's website to HTTPS but after the move, we've experienced a huge decrease in rankings (off the map), and traffic. Our metas for the homepage are not being picked up by Google, although it was appearing correctly before the switch. We've implemented all redirects, resubmitted URL to Google, and updated GSC. GSC is also reporting errors in our XML stating there are no URLs to crawl. Has anyone had any issues similar? What do you all recommend? Help greatly appreciated
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | SMRTCHInteractive0 -
Why is my domain authority still 1?
I changed the domain of my website from www.vanillacrush.co.uk to www.carissamay.co.uk at the end of December and yet my DA for carissamay is still 1. As advised, I set up a 301 redirect from VC to CM which seems to be working fine. However when I check on redirect detective it tells me I also have a 302 set up. Could this be confusing things? http://www.vanillacrush.co.uk http://www.vanillacrush.co.uk/ http://www.carissamay.co.uk Any help would be greatly appreciated! Many thanks
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Carissamay0 -
Can links be hidden?
I was wondering if anyone can help me with some advice on agency work. We have just employed a new SEO agency to conduct work on one of our websites. I took a look on OSE and GWT to see if we had any new links since the agency started working (1 month ago) but there's was nothing new. When l asked for an update as to what link building efforts had been completed last month, l was told they don't give out a list of links as it could compromise the agencies techniques. They told me that they use software to hide links form link aggregators so that our competitors don't know what we are doing. Can anybody confirm that such software exists or is this agency just taking us for a ride? If there is such a software, could this not hinder what links the search engines could see? Any comments would be greatly appreciated.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | RobSchofield0 -
301 Redirect of subdomain?
Fellow Mozzers, I'm having a hard time wrapping my brain around a redirect issue and thought it was worth posing the question to the Moz community. I did a search first but couldn't find the exact answer I was looking for. How does a 301 redirect work when you redirect a sub domain example.homepage.com to www.homepage.com but you keep the sub directories of example.homepage.com/page-1 active and are trying to rank them? I'm dealing with a current project where this is happening and this doesn't make sense to me, to redirect the subdomain if you're also trying to rank/create search traffic for pages, sub directories on example.homepage.com. This also get's into the debate of if a sub domain site is viewed as it's own website and therefore has to rank itself. If this is true, it seems like we're kind of killing the authority of the site by redirecting it. Additionally, www.homepage.com has a much stronger link profile than example.homepage.com I hope this makes sense. Any thoughts are appreciated. Thanks for your time.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | SMG-Texas0 -
301 Redirecting Multiple Domains
I have several complete websites with blogs setup for different geo locations and was considering forwarding them all to one domain directly would greatly benefit ranking. The blogs are all linked together and that is where most of the links come from. Would I benefit in 301 Redirecting the domains?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | WindshieldGuy-2762210 -
Changing Domain
We have an old domain that we have had registered for many years(pinpoint;asersystems.com) and redirected to our regular domain (which is a short version of our name (pinlaser.com). Management wants to switch and use the longer version as the primary domain for branding purposes. I have cautioned against this for many reasons: Need to do 100's of redirects Potential loss of back links Most links will now be 301 redirects and not look natural to search engines. I would appreciate feedback on any and all risks associated with this potential move. Thanks.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Pinlaser0 -
If parent domain is www, does it matter if subdomain on a different server is non-www?
If you have a main website (www.example.com) with a subdomain of the website (service.example.com) that lives on a separate server with a separate IP address, is there an SEO benefit/advantage to have having the www included in the url since the parent url includes the www? Assume: 1. Applicable 301 redirects are in place on both sites 2. No duplicate content issues Additionally, would your answer be different if the site is a .gov or .edu site vs. a .com?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | SEOteamfl0