Subdomains seen as one site
-
Earlier this month Google announced that sub-domains are now
be treated as one site. At first I thought this was good news as I like to use
sub-domains for separation of categories and the like. But what about links
from one sub-domain to the other, they uised to be external links now they are
internal links. If you don’t have many external links, I would say that the
cross sub-domain links would have been important, if you have a lot of external
links then the flow of link juice would be of more benefit. I think overall its
is a good thing.Does anyone have any opinions about this or know of any writings
on the subject since this announcement?http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com/2011/08/reorganizing-internal-vs-external.html
-
Well you want to see them as they are considered for ranking. If for ranking a subdomain link is considered an internal link then yes, thats how WMT should report it.
-
I am not a legal expert but it is my understanding if you own the root domain, then you own the subdomains. Even if you use sites like wordpress.com or blogspot the legal owner of the subdomains is the root domain owner. If you violate their terms of service, the main company will kick the subdomain user off and take control over the account.
With respect to Google WMT, I think it's a convenience thing. In most cases, you want to know what other sites are linking to your site. It is usually not helpful to know your own subdomain is linking to your root domain. You expect that as you do other internal linking. It makes the analysis of external linking a bit easier to remove all internal links.
-
Exactly so I am thinking they will basically just aggregate any sites that use the same domain under the same webmaster account.
-
Yes i did not read too clearly, the comments explaned much more.
but it makes one think,about the old question about how google handles subdomains(for rankings). when does it see them as the same site and when does it see them as seperate.
I am guesisng they already do rank sites using the rules in article. I look after a site that has nothing more then a home, about, search and contact page on root domain, with several sub-domains. yet the home page ranks well for all the subdomains catgories. -
The announcement is informative but in my opinion highly misunderstood.
Dr. Pete asked the key question which was answered in a reply from the original author:
"This update only changes how links are displayed in Webmaster Tools. It doesn't affect how links are valued in relation to the search algorithm or ranking. It has nothing to do with Panda, nothing to do with keywords, nothing to do with PageRank."
In short, nothing has changed. The only difference iis how links are displayed when you are viewing the root domain in Google WMT.
-
I get your point, what they dont make clear is if you only list the root domain then how do they know you own the sub domains also, aer you to put the same verification code in each site?
And if they are going to see then as the same site are they going to sdee them that way for ranking? or do they already for that reason?
-
From reading that article it looks like they are doing this for their webmaster tools, but don't mention if they are combining subdomain links and primary domain links into their SERP calculations as if they were the same site.
Knowing if it affected SERP calculations is more important. Have you seen any articles on that (going to search shortly for that ;))
That would be more interesting to me as our site currently has at least 6 subdomains for publicly accessible sites, and while I would love to move them all under sub folders it requires a decent bit of effort on our side. If Google just counted them all under the same link profile for rankings then it would save time and money, and give Google a better view of our web presence as a whole. This would be better for the end user as the end user would be able to get to our blogs, forums, portal, and API knowledgebase easier from search results when just searching for our company name. So I can see it being useful for Google since it is useful for users.
For that article (webmaster tool purposes) I think it makes sense as it helps simplify reporting for the "www" subdomain. It makes it easier to aggregate your data, and see it how Google really sees it (especially if you have a rewrite from www.example.com to just example.com or vice versa). So it sounds good to me
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
-
EMD's How much should you offer for a good one?
Hi Everyone, I am launching out into an e-commerce site and I am looking at purchasing an EMD as my brand. The brand of product I am selling is different "brand" but the e-commerce brand I will be building will be for a three word keyword that is competitive and gets great traffic. My questions are these: 1. Is an EMD worth it? The asking price is $42k for a site that is a keyword that gets 60k searches per month. 2. How much should offer without being rude to the seller? 3. The $42k represents a significant portion of my start up cash. Forget converting, (that will be an ongoing tweak that I am committed to perform) will a good EMD help brand the site and drive the traffic? My thinking is that with social media and ppc you could burn through that money and not be any further ahead. Thanks a ton in advance for the weigh in. Happy Holidays everyone. Gary
Industry News | | gdavey1 -
Are there any noob sites that might enlighten me to how everyone earns income here?
I know...very odd beginner question so let me elaborate. I have always worked in the corporate grind. I quit and opened up a couple of small (fairly unsuccessful) businesses since 2007. I enjoyed the SEO parts of building the business but just couldn't get them to stick. (local service businesses) I have fallen into some lead gen business with my old customers and I am trying to build that now. How are the majority of the SEO people earning income here? Are most selling their SEO services to other small businesses? Are most earning ad type income here? (how does that work?) I am quickly being forced back into the corporate grind again and would really prefer to learn and taylor my SEO efforts into staying self employed if possible. Would anyone be able to direct me to sites that might explain how entrepreneurs are earning income around here? A little 'Career Counseling' of sorts? (haha) I sincerely would appreciate some enlightenment. 🙂
Industry News | | MontyTheLab2 -
Does a blog on a subdomain pass on SEO credit to the main domain?
When setting up a Hubspot blog you are asked to create a subdomain such as blog.website.com in order to have the blog hosted there. Two questions: 1. Does a blog on a subdomain pass on SEO credit to the main domain?
Industry News | | cmortensen
My understanding is that a subdomain is treated like a unique site but I'm not finding current articles to confirm this is still true. 2. If it does not pass on credit to the main domain and the subdomain is only building "SEO love" for itself but your posts are getting found and driving conversions... from a marketing perspective does this non-transfer of SEO credit really matter? Meaning if blog.website.com is linked to the navigation on website.com, your site has quality content, has relevant calls to action, and you are lead nurturing like a good marketer... does the passing of SEO credit matter if your posts are what's getting found and filling the top of the funnel? Thank you in advance,
Christine1 -
Why Did Our Site Disappear for 6 Months?
Hello! The company that I work for recently hired a company to do their SEO. After they took over we fell out of the search engines for our keywords for 6 months! (I had previously done the SEO using Moz, but had to step down due to my husband getting cancer. He's all better and I'm back. 🙂 ) We contacted the SEO company recently to find out why the only way we could be found in the search engines was if we searched on our name. The reason they gave was Penguin, Panda, and Hummingbird. I personally don't believe that would cause our site to disappear for 6 months then miraculously reappear for our keywords a few days after us complaining. One of my main concerns is they have submitted us to 140 directories and 20 social bookmarking sites. How do I tell if these are good or bad sites? A few of them I've clicked are suspended and one Google warns about malicious content and to leave immediately - so those are obvious. Thanks for your help! Kelley Insana
Industry News | | Kelley_I0 -
Google Site Warnings via Phone?
I received a voicemail earlier stating that "there are two issues with your company's current Google listing that we need to discuss with the business owner. it is very important that we talk as soon as possible. press 1 to speak with an agent immediately. press 8 if you have already verified your account information or if you are no longer in business and want to be removed from this list. thank you" that's it. no contact number, no reference to what listing or what type of listing (organic, places, etc.) Checked GWT, GA, and the Gmail - there are no warnings or messages in any of those accounts. Has anyone else experienced this?
Industry News | | EmpireToday0 -
How do I ascertain how/why a site appears higher/lower in search results, based on different search terms?
The site in question is www.bullethq.comHere are the search terms I used, and what position Bullethq.com appears in the SERP's: <colgroup><col width="188"><col width="58"><col width="95"></colgroup>
Industry News | | PeterConnor
| Search-term | Position | Page returned |
| irish payroll online | 5 | Home Page |
| irish payroll online software | 20 | Home Page |
| online irish payroll software | 20 | Home Page |
| online payroll | 75 | (Blog post) | Could someone be so kind as to help me figure this out?0 -
Do rankings return to previous rank after a site has been un-indexed?
My client has had a site since 1996 (the first one was a www subdomain, his current site has no www). He came to my company for SEO about a year ago, after having a WordPress site that was accidentally set to not be crawled/indexed by search engines. We set the site to be indexed and added a blog. Since then, he has had slow increase in keyword rankings (on page 3 or most globally searched terms) but is still nowhere near page 1 for most of his keywords. He thinks my company has done nothing, while I see the keyword improvements as a sign of success - slow, gradual - but going in the right direction. I don't know if he was ranking well before he had a site that was not set to be indexed - but if he was on page one, would he eventually return there? Or do we have to build everything over again?
Industry News | | Alex_Ratynski0 -
"Links To Your Site" In Webmaster Tools
How often does Google update the "links to your site" data. It seems that it has been static for about a month now even though we have made a lot of changes Does anyone have any idea? If you have made changes to your links (i.e removed links, updated anchor text, etc.), do you have to wait for this information to be updated to measure the impact? Or is that whenever Google crawls those pages/sites and sees changes there is a adjustment. Thanks
Industry News | | inhouseseo0