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.
Sub-Domain Google Search Nested under main Domain?
-
Hello,
I have a strange issue that I have not come across before:My subdomain is: michigan.dogdaycare.com.
Some of the Keyword searches show our subdomain being nested under the main domain for Google searches instead of being indexed individually.
Example search term: Dogtopia Bloomfield
https://www.google.com/?gws_rd=ssl#q=dogtopia+bloomfield
-This will show two subdomain links nested under the main domain
Example search term: Dogtopia Birmingham
https://www.google.com/?gws_rd=ssl#q=dogtopia+birmingham
-This shows the subdomain showing correctly in searches and not nested.
Any idea as to how to fix this?
Thanks in advance!
-
Thanks for your advice and tips!
-
I'm wondering if you can correct this with link building. Your domain has some decent authority, so it's probably a trust of the primary domain over the subdomain in this case.
In contrast, I have a subdomain that generated quite a bit of editorial coverage that stands on its own in SERPs, and I believe that is because of the link profile to it.
I'll leave you with a couple ideas...
- Get rid of the button link on the michigan.dogdaycare.com page to /bloomington/ and instead, link them the other way (ie corporate page to business listing on subdomain).
- Also, on the corporate domain, if you do any internal linking, switch them to the Michigan subdomain URL instead of /bloomfield/
- Do something to generate some inbound links to your subdomain listing, and do it without including links to anywhere on the main domain. Honestly, something as simple as Moz Local, a press release that gets picked up by some local publications, and maybe some links to that subdomain URL from some doggy daycare directories will help that, IMO.
- Moving forward, show no link love to the corporate domain page.
-
Within Webmaster Tools you could possibly exclude the subdomain pages from being listed as site links, but Google has stated they're trying to get better at associating when subdomains are similar to subfolders on a site. Rand recently discussed that aspect of it here: http://moz.rainyclouds.online/blog/subdomains-vs-subfolders-rel-canonical-vs-301-how-to-structure-links-optimally-for-seo-whiteboard-friday. Cheers!
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
-
How about a No-index backlink in the eye of Google
I have a doubt - when I create a backlink as a part of SEO in some website when I rechecked the same couple of days after. It hasn't indexed and I checked its robots file. It showing **User-agent: ****Mediapartners-Google ****Disallow: ****User-Agent: * ****Disallow:**However, is this create any backlink support or just this for the purpose of not indexing in google.I make it simple -"Is this kind of backlink creation support my SEO activity or Not?" In this No-index website.
Local Website Optimization | | LayaPaul0 -
How to Get google to get to index New URL and not the OLD url
Hi Team, We are undertaking a Domain migration activity to migrate our content frrom one domain to another. 1. the Redirection of pages is handeled at Reverse proxy level. 2. We do have 301 redirects put in place. However we still see that google is indexing pages with our Old domain apart from the pages from new domain. Is there a way for us to stop google from indexing our pages from Old domain. The recommendations to have Noindex on Page mete title and disallow does not work since our redirection is setup at RP and google crawlers always discover the new pages after redirection.
Local Website Optimization | | bhaskaran0 -
Does having an embedded Google Map still count as a positive SEO signal?
I know this was true a few years ago, however is there still an advantage to having an embedded map vs. a pop up map in 2017?
Local Website Optimization | | BigChad21 -
How to correctly move subdomain to subfolder (google webmaster)?
Hello, This is my first post in here 🙂 I just wondered what is the correct way to move a subdomain to subfolder? I've moved it, re-done sitemap, so that main website would include a subfolder, as they are part of one big website now (it was something like a blog on a subdomain). Subdomain now does correct 301 redirects. Submitted new sitemap to google, asked google to re-fetch the whole domain (thus subfolder should be re-fetched too, as it's part of main nav). The areas i'm in doubt: I can tell google that the domain got moved, however it is moved to the one that is already approved in the same account, but is in a subfolder, so should i do this? Or should i simply somehow erase it on webmaster? The blog was launched about a month ago, and it isn't perfectly optimized yet, it wasn't on google SERPs pretty much at all, excluding googling it straightly, and there are pretty much 0 traffic from google, almost all of it is either direct either referral, mostly social, Thanks, Pavel
Local Website Optimization | | PavelGro920 -
Virtual Offices & Google Search
United Kingdom We have a client who works from home and wants a virtual office so his clients do not know where he lives. Can a virtual office address be used on his business website pages & contact pages, in title tags and descriptions as well as Google places. The virtual office is manned at all times and phone calls will be directed to the client, the virtual office company say effectively it is a registered business address. Look forward to any helpful responses.
Local Website Optimization | | ChristinaRadisic0 -
Website Migration - remove unnecessary sub-folder?
Rebuilding a site that currently has good rankings. The original site was build in Joomla. I am doing the rebuild on WordPress. The old site is at the domain www.savannah-dentist.com, but clicking on any link generates a url with a subfolder; i.e. the website is at www.savannah-dentist.com, click on the logo and you will go to www.savannah-dentist.com/rosenthal/, the "meet the doctors" link goes to "www.savannah-dentist.com/rosenthal/meet-the-doctors" When I rebuild the site, do I have to retain that url structure? If I get rid of the folder and make everything simply like www.savannah-dentist.com/meet-the-doctors, will I be jeopardizing our rankings? Thanks! -Adam
Local Website Optimization | | aj6130 -
SEO: .com vs .org vs .travel Domain
Hi there, I am new to MOZ Q&A and first of all I appreciate all the folks here that share their expertise and make everyone understand 'the WWW' a bit better. My question: I have been developing a 'travel guide' site for a city in the U.S. and now its time to choose the right domain name. I put a strong focus on SEO in terms of coding, site performance as well as content and to round things up I'd like to register the _best _domain name in terms of SEO. Let's suppose the city is Atlanta. I have found the following domain names that are available and I was wondering whether you guys could give me some inside on which domain name would perform best. discoveratlanta.org
Local Website Optimization | | kinimod
atlantaguide.org
atlanta.travel
atlantamag.com Looking at the Google Adwords Keyword tool the term that reaches the highest search queries is obviously "Atlanta" itself. Sites that are already ranking high are atlanta.com and atlanta.gov. So basically I am wondering whether I should aim for a new TLD like atlanta.travel or rather go with a .org domain. I had a look around and it seems that .org domains generally work well for city guides (at least a lot of such sites use .org domains). However, I have also seen a major US city that uses .travel and ranks first. On the other hand in New York, nycgo.com ranks well. Is it safe to assume that from the domain names I mentioned it really doesn't matter which one I use since it wouldn't significantly affect my ranking (good or bad)? Or would you still choose one above the other? What do you generally thing about .travel domain names (especially since they are far more expensive then the rest)? I really appreciate your response to my question! Best,
kinimod0 -
International Site Geolocation Redirection (best way to redirect and allow Google bots to index sites)
I have a client that has an international website. The website currently has IP detection and redirects you to the subdomain for your country. They have currently only launched the Australian website and are not yet open to the rest of the world: https://au.domain.com/ Google is not indexing the Australian website or pages, instead I believe that the bots are being blocked by the IP redirection every time they try to visit one of the Australian pages. Therefore only the US 'coming soon' page is being properly indexed. So, I would like to know the best way to place a geolocation redirection without creating a splash page to select location? User friendliness is most important (so we don't want cookies etc). I have seen this great Whiteboard Friday video on Where to Host and How to Target, which makes sense, but what it doesn't tell me is exactly the best method for redirection except at about 10:20 where it tells me what I'm doing is incorrect. I have also read a number of other posts on IP redirection, but none tell me the best method, and some are a little different examples... I need for US visitors to see the US coming soon page and for Google to index the Australian website. I have seen a lot about JS redirects, IP redirects and .htaccess redirects, but unfortunately my technical knowledge of how these affect Google's bots doesn't really help. Appreciate your answers. Cheers, Lincoln
Local Website Optimization | | LincolnSmith0