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.
Should I use change of address when moving to subdomain
-
Hi guys
So we had a domain that was only for one country, www.example.com
1 year later we decided to go to another country so we will have all the current website under a country subdomain like : ae.example.com
we did a 301 redirect
Should I perform a change of address action from www.example.com to ae.example.com ?please help
Thanks -
Thank you for your answer, yes we moved from www.example.com to
uk.example.com and the new countries will have
us.example.comnow since all old links were for the www.example.com UK we are thinking of using the change of address in Search Console.
-
Thank you for your answer: we did a 301 but I was considering the "change of address tool" to make sure we don't lose any backlinks.
-
I assume you mean an "official" change of address in Search Console? Yes, if this is an official, permanent move then you should do the official change of address in WMT.
Use the change of address tool
If you've moved your site to a new domain or subdomain, use the Change of address tool in Search Console. A change of address notification helps you manage the transition needed by Google to index your new URLs at the new address, while minimizing impact to your current ranking in Google Search results.
-
I am a little unclear on the question however a 301 redirect is the best way to tell google to forget about the old URL focus on the end URL of the redirect. It is as clean and efficient as you get.
But to be clear direct from google webmaster:-
"301 redirects are particularly useful in the following circumstances:
- You've moved your site to a new domain, and you want to make the transition as seamless as possible."
https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/93633?hl=en
Hope that answers your query.
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
-
Using hreflang for international pages - is this how you do it?
My client is trying to achieve a global presence in select countries, and then track traffic from their international pages in Google Analytics. The content for the international pages is pretty much the same as for USA pages, but the form and a few other details are different due to how product licensing has to be set up. I don’t want to risk losing ranking for existing USA pages due to issues like duplicate content etc. What is the best way to approach this? This is my first foray into this and I’ve been scanning the MOZ topics but a number of the conversations are going over my head,so suggestions will need to be pretty simple 🙂 Is it a case of adding hreflang code to each page and creating different URLs for tracking. For example:
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Caro-O
URL for USA: https://company.com/en-US/products/product-name/
URL for Canada: https://company.com/en-ca/products/product-name /
URL for German Language Content: https://company.com/de/products/product-name /
URL for rest of the world: https://company.com/en/products/product-name /1 -
Franchise sites: Should each franchise have a subdomain or subdirectory?
One of my clients has about 40 franchisees who are going to have their own sites on a WordPress multisite installation. The question they're wondering: should these be on subdirectories (thesite.com/this-franchise) or on subdomains (this-franchise.thesite.com)? Which is best for SEO? Thanks!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | ideasandpixels0 -
Changing domain for a magento store
Hi all, wondering if i could gather some views on the best approach for this please... We currently have a magento site up with about 150,000 pages (although only 9k indexed in Google as product pages are set to no index by default until the default manufacturer description has been rewritten). The indexed pages are mainly category pages, filtering options and a few search results. While none of the internal pages have massive DA - seem to average about 18-24 which isn't too bad for internal pages, I guess - I would like to transfer as much of this over to the new domain. My question is, is it really feasible to have an htaccess with about 10,000 301 redirects on the current domain? The server is pretty powerful so could probably serve the file without issue but would Google be happy with that? Would it be better to use the change url option in WMT instead. Ive never used that so not sure how that would work in this cause. Would it redirect users too? As a footnote, the site is changing because of branding reasons and not because of a penalty of the site. Thanks, Carl
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | daedriccarl0 -
Dev Subdomain Pages Indexed - How to Remove
I own a website (domain.com) and used the subdomain "dev.domain.com" while adding a new section to the site (as a development link). I forgot to block the dev.domain.com in my robots file, and google indexed all of the dev pages (around 100 of them). I blocked the site (dev.domain.com) in robots, and then proceeded to just delete the entire subdomain altogether. It's been about a week now and I still see the subdomain pages indexed on Google. How do I get these pages removed from Google? Are they causing duplicate content/title issues, or does Google know that it's a development subdomain and it's just taking time for them to recognize that I deleted it already?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | WebServiceConsulting.com0 -
Follow or nofollow to subdomain
Hi, I run a hotel booking site and the booking engine is setup on a subdomain.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | vmotuz
The subdomain is disabled from being indexed in robots.txt Should the links from the main domain have a nofollow to the subdomain? What are you thoughts? Thanks!0 -
How do I list the subdomains of a domain?
Hi Mozers, I am trying to find what subdomains are currently active on a particular domain. Is there a way to get a list of this information? The only way I could think of doing it is to run a google search on; site:example.com -site:www.example.com The only issues with this approach is that a majority of the indexed pages exist on the non-www domain and I still have thousands of pages in the results (mainly from the non-www). Is there another way to do it in Google? OR is there a server admin online tool that will tell me this information? Cheers, Dan
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | djlaidler0 -
Subdomains and SEO - Should we redirect to subfolder?
A new client has mainsite.com and a large numer of city specific sub domains i.e. albany.mainsite.com. I think that these subdomains would actually work better as subfolders i.e mainsite.com/albany rather than albany.mainsite.com. The majority of links on the subdomains link to the main site anyway i.e. mainsite.com/contactus rather than albany.mainsite.com/contactus. Having mostly main domain links on a subdomain doesnt seem like clever link architecture to me and maybe even spammy. Im not overly familiar with redirecting subdomains to subfolders. If we go the route of 301'ing subdomains to subfolders any advice/warnings?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | AndyMacLean0 -
How long is it safe to use a 302 redirect?
Hi All, Lets assume there is site A and site B, both sites are live on the internet today as standalone businesses, but they sell very similar products. Site B has built up some link equity and will eventually become the domain for site A due to an organisational re-brand. For the time being however site A will remain, but site B needs to disappear temporarily, but not lose the link equity which has been built up against it. My current thinking is to 302 redirect site B to site A such that users and search bots accessing site B will be redirected to site A whilst leaving the link equity that exists against site B fully intact and allowing us to continue to grow it should we wish to. The question is, does anybody have a view on how long it is safe to use a 302 temporary redirect for? i.e., is 8-10 months to long. Thanks, Ben
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | BenRush0