UTM tracking on a mapped subdomain, is it OK? (DA bonus question)

[JabeKay]

Hi,

This is a technical question. OK, two technical questions. Please bear with me and I'll do my best to explain...

We have a WordPress blog (business account, hosted by WordPress). We use it to blog and send traffic to our separate e-commerce site. We use UTM tracking to see which blog posts perform best.

Our e-commerce site has a high domain authority. Our blog, not so much.

In an effort to increase the domain authority of the blog we have mapped a subdomain of the e-commerce site to the Wordpress blog (still hosted by WordPress).

Q1. Will this actually raise the blog's DA?

If the blog does get a DA boost, I guess it'll be because Google now sees it as part of a powerful domain.

But if it is technically part of the powerful domain...

Q2. Should we remove the UTM parameters from the blog?

I've read that you should never use UTM on internal links because it messes with your Google Analytics data. But I'm unsure if links on a mapped subdomain count as 'internal links'.

Any help would be gratefully appreciated.

Thanks in advance.

J

[MrWhippy]

Hi again,

I have just checked and you have a redirect chain which is not good.

Status Code URL IP Page Type Redirect Type Redirect URL
301 http://blog.example.com/  server_redirect permanent https://blog.humankinetics.com/
301 https://blog.example.com/  server_redirect permanent https://humankinetics.me/
200 https://example.com/  normal none none

I have removed any identifying data but trust me it's from your link.

I would work to get the 301 pointing straight from both the first two links to the third so there is no extra step in the middle required.

and now back to your original questions.

Did the links I provided earlier help with the UTM question?

As for adding DA/PA to your blog have you seen any increase since you made the change? You may get some from it but as I said earlier I don't think you will get much. Monitoring is the only way you will know for sure.

[MrWhippy]

Hi JabeKay,

Apologies for the delay in replying its been a busy day.

I need to have a read over the info you have provided and digest it, I will then come back with what I can to help.

By the way, you may want to check the link at the bottom of your last post

Steve

[JabeKay]

Does it show the new URL in the browser or the original URL when the page has stopped loading?

Yes, once the page has loaded it displays the old URL.

Perhaps this exchange from our tech team might shed some more light.

On 5/15/19, at 8:21 am, James wrote:
Mike, We need to create and register a subdomain named blog.example.com

Per the instructions, we will need to our NS records to network solutions. The current site that blog will map to is https://example.me/ in which is hosted via wordpress in which that is going to stay there as well as the name. The instructions for non-wordpress domain registrar customers is linked below:

https://en.support.wordpress.com/domains/map-subdomain/#adding-a-mapping-subscription

On 5/15/19, at 12:18 pm, Mike wrote:
The records for blog.humankinetics.com have been added to internal and external DNS. Someone still needs to add a "mapping subscription" to the Wordpress site to enable it.

I believe I added the "mapping subscription."

[MrWhippy]

I'm not sure but if you type the newly created subdomain URL into a browser it redirects to the WordPress blog at its usual address.

Does it show the new URL in the browser or the original URL when the page has stopped loading?

I don't think so. Wouldn't that create some kind of loop where the new subdomain redirects to the usual blog URL then that redirects back to the new subdomain?

It depends on which method you have used. If you have done a DNS mapping for the new subdomain then redirecting the old URLs will be fine in theory. If when you load the page you see the original URL then there is no need to do this. (see my earlier post for info on things to be aware of when redirecting).

If you are not sure if it will create a loop test it on one URL that is nested deep in your site and has little to no traffic.

It all depends on the setup that has been put in place. If you can find out the answer to that then I can give you a clearer answer.

I can't see much point in redirecting the new subdomain to the original URL though, I wouldn't have thought much link juice would be passed via this method. I could be wrong it's not a situation I have found myself in. I would definitely advocate lots of monitoring and testing to see the results.

[JabeKay]

Thanks again,

When you say mapping I assume you mean via DNS so that the subdomain for the blog is pointing straight to the host server and you are not redirecting?

I'm not sure but if you type the newly created subdomain URL into a browser it redirects to the WordPress blog at its usual address.

If you have done this have you redirected the old domain for the blog to the new subdomain with 301? if not you need to do this to preserve what you can of the link juice.

I don't think so. Wouldn't that create some kind of loop where the new subdomain redirects to the usual blog URL then that redirects back to the new subdomain?

[MrWhippy]

I haven't tried it but I am pretty sure you can run Shopify and WordPress on the same domain. You may have to use subfolders but that would be better than a separate domain.

If you can't run the two together, running it on a subdomain is ok, but it will probably be treated as two different domains by Google. When you say mapping I assume you mean via DNS so that the subdomain for the blog is pointing straight to the host server and you are not redirecting?

If you have done this have you redirected the old domain for the blog to the new subdomain with 301? if not you need to do this to preserve what you can of the link juice.

See my responses here for more on large redirects https://moz.com/community/q/301-redirects-large-htaccess-file-question

I haven't really looked at UTMs on internal pages, however, subdomains are normally considered separate domains as far as I am aware.

These links may help

https://moz.com/community/q/subdomains-or-separate-domains-for-dealers

https://chrisberkley.com/blog/subdomains-for-seo/

https://www.analyticsmania.com/post/transfer-utm-parameters-google-tag-manager/

https://www.bounteous.com/insights/2016/08/11/two-steps-correctly-tracking-subdomains-google-analytics/

https://penguinwp.com/common-utm-campaign-url-tracking-mistakes-to-avoid/

[JabeKay]

Thanks Steve,

What you recommend would be ideal but sadly this is not an option.

The e-commerce site is on the Shopify platform and the blogging functionality is not as good as WordPress.

Also, the native Shopify blogging feature is currently being used to host book excerpts.

Finally, our tech team has said that this is the only configuration they will green light.

J

[MrWhippy]

Hi JabeKay,

Is there a reason the blog is on a different domain?

It seems to me like you are working to build the strength of two separate domains when you could put all your efforts into one.

I would seriously consider moving the blog to the e-commerce site domain and 301 redirecting the old blog domain to the e-commerce domain.

This way new content is in the right place and building traffic for the place you want it.

If this is not an option let me know.

Steve