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.
Linking from & to in domains and sub-domains
-
What's the best optimised linking between sub-domains and domains? And every time we'll give website link at top with logo...do we need to link sub-domain also with all it's pages?
If example.com is domain and example.com/blog is sub-domain or sub-folder...
-
Do we need to link to example.com from /blog?
-
Do we need to give /blog link in all pages of /blog?
-
Is there any difference in connecting domains with sub-domains and sub-folders?
-
-
np, you don't want to assume things.
this is what Matt Cutts said in 2012: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_MswMYk05tk
It is still advisable that most websites out there rather rely on pages and subdirectories for regular pages and content than subdomains, but nowadays it is a highly subjective thing, basically suit yourself on it.
But keep in mind the simple formula for decision making: Pros v Cons... which outweighs which and why.
subdomains can certainly cause you, the owner and web dev, more work and impose a higher "moving parts" risk under most typical circumstances where /page is a viable alternative.
also look at these
https://a-moz.groupbuyseo.org/community/q/link-juice-from-subdomain
-
Thanks for the response.
We have 6 sub-domains like blog, etc. Our blog is a sub-domain but configured as example.com/blog (wordpress). Others are left as same. sub-domain.com, etc. We have thousands of visits on these sub-domains with hundreds and thousands of pages. So, we are not sure whether these will be treated as individual websites by Google or all together as same website. If they treat as individual website, will there be any link juice passing from and to domain and sub-domains? And my doubt is, what's the best way to link these sub-domains from our domain. I have gone through some posts saying too many links from sub-domain to domain may turn as spam for Google.
-
You really need to understand these terms correctly
sub.domain.com < this is a subdomain
domain.com/page < this is a page and it could also be a folder of your site depending on your config
The answer to your question depends on the need here. Why are you needing subdomains? for multi-lingual site? e.g. us.xyz.com or FR.xyz.com? or just for something like a shop or blog and you are having a debate between making them into a page or a subdomain?
I recommend you spend more time studying what you are attempting to accomplish here. Subdomains should be avoided unless absolutely necessary, each subdomain is treated separately for ranking purposes than pages on the top domain
so domain.com will be treated as one site by google and sub.domain.com will be a whole nother page receiving next to no authority or juice or anything from the main domain short of your internal links. I would roll with a page wherever applicable and possible instead of a subdomain.
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
-
Is a Wordpress AMP plugin sufficient, or should we upgrade our WP theme to an AMP theme?
Hello there, our site is on a Flatsome Wordpress theme (which is responsive and does not support AMP), and we are currently using the AMP for Wordpress plugin on our blog and other content rich pages. My question is - is a plugin sufficient to make our pages AMP friendly? Or should we consider switching to a theme that is AMP enabled already? Thanks!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | tnixis
Katie0 -
Country Code Top Level Domains & Duplicate Content
Hi looking to launch in a new market, currently we have a .com.au domain which is geo-targeted to Australia. We want to launch in New Zealand which is ends with .co.nz If i duplicate the Australian based site completely on the new .co.nz domain name, would i face duplicate content issues from a SEO standpoint?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | jayoliverwright
Even though it's on a completely separate country code. Or is it still advised tosetup hreflang tag across both of the domains? Cheers.0 -
Does having a different sub domain for your Landing Page and Blog affect your overall SEO benefits and Ranking?
We have a domain www.spintadigital.com that is hosted with dreamhost and we also have a seperate subdomain blog.spintadigital.com which is hosted in the Ghost platform and we are also using Unbounce landing pages with the sub domain get.spintadigital.com. I wanted to know whether having subdomain like this would affect the traffic metric and ineffect affect the SEO and Rankings of our site. I think it does not affect the increase in domain authority, but in places like similar web i get different traffic metrics for the different domains. As far as i can see in many of the metrics these are considered as seperate websites. We are currently concentrating more on our blogs and wanted to make sure that it does help in the overall domain. We do not have the bandwidth to promote three different websites, and hence need the community's help to understand what is the best option to take this forward.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | vinodh-spintadigital0 -
Using both dofollow & nofollow links within the same blog site (but different post).
Hi all, I have been actively pursuing bloggers for my site in order to build page rank. My website sells women undergarments that are more on the exotic end. I noticed a large amount of prospective bloggers demand product samples. As already confirm, bloggers that are given "free" samples should use a rel=no follow attribute in their links. Unfortunately this does not build my page rank or transfer links juice. My question is this: is it advisable for them to also blog additional posts and include dofollow links? The idea is for the blogger to use a nofollow when posting about the sample and a regular link for a secondary post at a later time. What are you thoughts concerning this matter?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | 90miLLA0 -
Best way to block a sub-domain from being indexed
Hello, The search engines have indexed a sub-domain I did not want indexed its on old.domain.com and dev.domain.com - I was going to password them but is there a best practice way to block them. My main domain default robots.txt says :- Sitemap: http://www.domain.com/sitemap.xml global User-agent: *
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | JohnW-UK
Disallow: /cgi-bin/
Disallow: /wp-admin/
Disallow: /wp-includes/
Disallow: /wp-content/plugins/
Disallow: /wp-content/cache/
Disallow: /wp-content/themes/
Disallow: /trackback/
Disallow: /feed/
Disallow: /comments/
Disallow: /category//
Disallow: */trackback/
Disallow: */feed/
Disallow: /comments/
Disallow: /?0 -
Outbound link to PDF vs outbound link to page
If you're trying to create a site which is an information hub, obviously linking out to authoritative sites is a good idea. However, does linking to a PDF have the same effect? e.g Linking to Google's SEO starter guide PDF, as opposed to linking to a google article on SEO. Thanks!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | underscorelive0 -
How to do geo targeting for domain and sub directories in Webmaster tool?
Hello All, How can i do geo targeting in multiple countries on my ** root domain and sub **directories in Webmaster tool. My domain is "abc.com" and i want to target three countries UAE , Kuwait, Saudi arabia. So, Can i assign geo targeting in Webmaster tool , Root domain for UAE country and make other two sub directories for Kuwait and saudi ? abc.com - UAE (geo targeting) abc.com/kw - Kuwait (geo targeting) abc.com/sa - Saudi (geo targeting) Or Root doamain should be not assign for any country and Make three sub directories for UAE, Kuwait , and saudi and targeting them there geo locations. abc.com - Unlisted (geo targeting) abc.com/uae/ - UAE (geo targeting) abc.com/kw/ - Kuwait (geo targeting) abc.com/sa/ - Saudi (geo targeting)
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | rahul110 -
How to resolve Duplicate Page Content issue for root domain & index.html?
SEOMoz returns a Duplicate Page Content error for a website's index page, with both domain.com and domain.com/index.html isted seperately. We had a rewrite in the htacess file, but for some reason this has not had an impact and we have since removed it. What's the best way (in an HTML website) to ensure all index.html links are automatically redirected to the root domain and these aren't seen as two separate pages?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | ContentWriterMicky0