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.
Can I safely asume that links between subsites on a subdirectories based multisite will be treated as internal links within a single site by Google?
-
I am building a multisite network based in subdirectories (of the mainsite.com/site1 kind) where the main site is like a company site, and subsites are focused on brands or projects of that company. There will be links back and forth from the main site and the subsites, as if subsites were just categories or pages within the main site (they are hosted in subfolders of the main domain, after all).
Now, Google's John Mueller has said:
<<as far="" as="" their="" url="" structure="" is concerned,="" subdirectories="" are="" no="" different="" from="" pages="" and="" subpages="" on="" your="" main="" site.="" google="" will="" do="" its="" best="" to="" identify="" where="" sites="" separate="" using="" but="" the="" is="" same="" for="" a="" single="" site,="" you="" should="" assume="" that="" seo="" purposes,="" network="" be="" treated="" one="">></as>
This sounds fine to me, except for the part "Google will do its best to identify where sites are separate", because then, if Google establishes that my multisite structure is actually a collection of different sites, links between subsites and mainsite would be considered backlinks between my own sites, which could be therefore considered a link wheel, that is, a kind of linking structure Google doesn't like. How can I make sure that Google understand my multisite as a unique site?
P.S. - The reason I chose this multisite structure, instead of hosting brands in categories of the main site, is that if I use the subdirectories based multisite feature I will be able to map a TLD domain to any of my brands (subsites) whenever I'd choose to give that brand a more distinct profile, as if it really was a different website.
-
Hi Chris, thanks for your answer. I don't have any spam intention, those links will help to navigate from the main site to the subsites, which, being hosted in subfolders of the main site, will have the URL mainsite.com/subsite1; that is, as if they were categories. The point is, I want the whole network based on subdirectories to work as a single site based on categories...
I could do the same using categories on a single site, but hosting it on a subfolder of the main site allows me to transform it on a completely different site simply by making a TLD mapping to its folder. Obviously, making this domain mapping operation would transform "internal" links between subsite and main site into external links, but I'd have the option of removing them prior to making the domain mapping.
-
"Can I safely asume that links between subsites on a subdirectories based multisite will be treated as internal links within a single site by Google?"
At best.
Unless they're otherwise straight-up professional links with zero spam intention, I wouldn't use them.
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
-
Should I move my blog from subdomain to subdirectory?
Hi there, We have a pretty strong organic presence on our consumer facing blog. Around 5.7 million organic clicks Year to Date. It's currently housed in Wordpress on a subdomain. Our team is considering migrating our blog from Wordpress to Sitecore, where our parent organization resides. With that consideration, we're trying to determine if we should preserve the subdomain or move to a subdirectory of the parent brand. Moving to the parent brand would also result in a loss of our custom global nav - we would inherit the global nav of the parent website. We're not concerned about traffic loss risk - we know that we'll lose some but we think the move to subdirectory might be more beneficial in the long run from an SEO perspective. We're mostly concerned about the users getting lost without the global nav specific to the blog. Thoughts/concerns? Thank you!
Web Design | | Jessdyl0 -
Can a cloud based firewall affect my search ranking?
Hi, I recently implemented a firewall on my website to prevent hacking attacks. We were getting a crazy amount of people per day trying to brute force our website. I used the sucuri cloud proxy firewall service which they claim because of the super fast caching actually helps SEO. I was just wondering is this true? Because we're slowly falling further and further down the SERPS and i really don't know why. If not, is there any major google update recently I don't know about? Thanks, Robert
Web Design | | BearPaw880 -
How long should an old site redirecting to a new site remain activated on a server?
Once I switch a site to a new domain (with links to corresponding/relative pages), will I have to keep the old site live forever for those links to work, or how long should I wait before I inactivate the old site on our server?
Web Design | | jwanner0 -
Can anyone recommend a tool that will identify unused and duplicate CSS across an entire site?
Hi all, So far I have found this one: http://unused-css.com/ It looks like it identifies unused, but perhaps not duplicates? It also has a 5,000 page limit and our site is 8,000+ pages....so we really need something that can handle a site larger than their limit. I do have Screaming Frog. Is there a way to use Screaming Frog to locate unused and duplicate CSS? Any recommendations and/or tips would be great. I am also aware of the Firefix extensions, but to my knowledge they will only do one page at a time? Thanks!
Web Design | | danatanseo0 -
Too Many Outbound Links on the Home Page - Bad for SEO?
Hello Again Moz community, This is my last Q of the day: I have a LOT of outbound links on the home page of www.web3.ca Some are to clients projects, most are to other pages on the website. Can reducing this to the core pages have a positive impact on SEO? Thanks, Anton
Web Design | | Web3Marketing870 -
What's the point of an EU site?
Buongiorno from 18 degrees C Wetherby UK 🙂 On this site http://www.milwaukeetool.eu/ the client wants to hold on to the EU site despite there being multiple standalone country sittes e.g. http://www.milwaukeetool.fr & http://www.milwaukeetool.co.uk Why would you ever need an EU site? I mean who ever searches for an EU site? If the client holds on to the eu site despite my position it's a waiste of time from a search perspective is the folowing the best appeasment? When a user enters the eu url or redirects to country the detected, eg I'm in Paris I enter www.milwaukeetool.eu it redirects to http://www.milwaukeetool.fr. My felling this would be the most pragmatic thing to do? Any ideas please,
Web Design | | Nightwing
Cioa,
David0 -
Link colour on page?
I always thought that the link colour has to be different from text colour? I have come across a site http://www.printandpackaging.co.uk/ and it has made me question this belief, they seem to only have bolded the link which would be very nice if this is fine.
Web Design | | BobAnderson0 -
How will it affect my site if i link to a site with adult content?
We are currently working on creating 2 sites for a company, one with no adult content, one with adult content. Will it affect the non adult content site if i link to the other one in terms of Google and being blocked by some internet providers.
Web Design | | MattWheatcroft0