Moz Q&A is closed.
After more than 13 years, and tens of thousands of questions, Moz Q&A closed on 12th December 2024. Whilst we’re not completely removing the content - many posts will still be possible to view - we have locked both new posts and new replies. More details here.
UTM tracking on a mapped subdomain, is it OK? (DA bonus question)
-
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
-
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 noneI 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.
-
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
-
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.comPer 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."
-
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.
-
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?
-
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://a-moz.groupbuyseo.org/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://a-moz.groupbuyseo.org/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://penguinwp.com/common-utm-campaign-url-tracking-mistakes-to-avoid/
-
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
-
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
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
-
If website users don't accept GDPR cookie consent, does that prevent GA-GTM from tracking pageviews and any traffic from that user that would cause significant traffic decreases?
I've been doing a lot research on GDPR impact and implementation with GTM-GA for clients, but it's been 12 months since GDPR has gone live I haven't found anything on how GA traffic has been impacted if users don't accept cookie consent. However, I'm personally seeing GA accounts taking huge losses in traffic since implementing GDPR cookie solutions (because GTM/GA tags aren't firing until cookies are accepted). Is it common for websites to see significant decreases in traffic due to too many users not accepting cookie consent? Are there alternative solutions to avoid traffic loss like that and still maintain GDPR compliance? It seems to me that the industry underestimated how many people won't accept cookie consent. Most of the documentation and articles around GDPR's start (May 2018) didn't foresee or cover that aspect properly, everything seems to be technically focused with the assumption that if implemented properly most people would accept cookie consent, but I'm personally not seeing that trend and it's destroying GA data (lost traffic, minimal source attribution, inaccurate behavior data, etc). Thanks.
Reporting & Analytics | | Kickboard2 -
How can I track my rankings on Google Images?
I noticed a small amount of traffic coming from a particular very generic keyword. Being pleasantly surprised that we are ranking for this, and after some digging, I found that we are actually ranking in Google images, rather than in the web results. How can I track whether other keywords are ranking in Google images? I use Rank Checker to track keywords in the main web results, but this doesn't have a function for Google Images. Help please - thanks.
Reporting & Analytics | | TheJewelleryEd0 -
How to track subfolders in GA?
Is it possible to get the visitor statistics for a subfolder (example.com/blog/) in Google Analytics? I already have GA tracking set-up like normal, and visitors do get logged, but to see data only for /blog/ I have to go to Content > Site Content > All pages and search for "/blog/". Should I create a new profile in Google Analytics? Or is there a better way to only see stats for a subfolder?
Reporting & Analytics | | Qon0 -
Cookies/Tracking/Code developement
So. I have an online application form, on the website. It's maked with php, html and css. What i like to place on the email, is a cookie tracking system. For example, when someone search on the google for " web design ", and then see my result on google organic, comes the visitor to my site, charge the fields of application forms and click send. Than, me like an admin, i receive an email with informations of a customer, i see name/surname/etc.. but i like to integrate is for example, like to see a: IP from Visitors, who charged the fields Referrerr, if google, like to see which query he typed. How can i do this please?
Reporting & Analytics | | leadsprofi0 -
Conversion Rate Question: Should I Measure Visits or Unique Visits?
When you measure conversion rates, is the equation: conversion rate = visits/conversions or conversion rate = unique visits/conversions I ask because it can actually make a pretty big difference in the conversion rate. For example, if you visit my ecommerce website 100 times before buying something (and assuming you're my only visitor), then my conversion rate is 100% _if I'm determining conversion rates by unique visits/conversions. _However, it's only 1% _if I'm determining conversion rates by visits/conversions. _Wow! Now this is clearly an extreme example, but it should serve to illustrate the point that in more reasonable cases, the way the data is measured can have a potentially significant impact on the conversion rate. Is there an industry standard for this? Am I missing something really basic? Also, here's a little bit of context for the question: I run an ecommerce website powered by the Magento CMS and I'm trying to measure my conversion rate in Google Analytics for individual products. Google Analytics shows me my site wide conversion rate, but apparently I have to do some customization in order to measure conversion rates on the product level. That's fine, but I want to make sure I'm measuring my product conversions in a standard way. Thanks for any and all help! Adam
Reporting & Analytics | | Adam-Perlman0 -
How to track what people type on my text boxes on Google Analytics?
Hi there! In our website, we have a few text boxes that users need to use to complete the goal. The boxes aren't search boxes, but it's still important to us to track what people type on it. I'm looking for a way to track the data through the "event" feature in Google Analytics, but it seems that this tracker can only calculate clicks, or video views etc. Does anyone knows how to track do it?
Reporting & Analytics | | ivan.precisodisso0 -
Tracking pdf downloads
hello, I have a site with 100's of pdf's for download and I would like to track how many people are downloading these, does anyone have a simple solution for this? Is there anyway I can do this in Google Analytics using one piece of code, thanks...
Reporting & Analytics | | Socialdude0 -
Will having a subdomain cause referral traffic from the domain name?
Hi! One of our clients has a site with the store on a subdomain: store.example.com. When we've set up goals for order confirmation pages, we often see most of the sources attributed to example.com. Is this because of the subdomain issue? How would we correct it so that we would see as the referring source for the goal the site that sent to the root domain originally, and not the site that sent to the subdomain? Thanks!
Reporting & Analytics | | debi_zyx0