Switch to naked domain that has higher page authority
-
Brilliant Moz community!
I just started here and find it so helpful and am confident that I can get an answer to this.
Our domain is currently https://www.example.com. I have been wanting to move to https://example.com just for a cleaner URL.
To my surprise, https://example.com has the same DA but a significantly higher page authority than our current https://www.example.com.
Of course my immediate reaction is to 301 to the https://example.com but I wanted to get some advice and anything we should consider before doing this.
My other question would be - how is this possible? I don't remember that we ever used that domain but we also had some rather bad developers a couple of years back.
Thank you so much in advance!
-
Thank you, Rob! I'll let you know how it goes.
-
My pleasure sir - glad to be of help!
Yea I remember running the naked switch (sounds naughty) for our site a while back and I was a bit jittery but since we are operating with an algorithm the best thing to remember is that you can always make adjustments as long as you are making "educated guesses" with the intent of moving in the right direction.
From what I'm hearing you shouldn't have any issues with the switch - with the canonical tags you are avoiding any chance of duplicate pages and the naked url will give you slightly bigger boosts on the PA side - terrific for local organic ranking and SEO.
The primary focus of not changing URL structure is to avoid getting your link juice bottled up somewhere in your site (or the dreaded repetitive internal linking cycles). Changing domains isn't a terrible idea as long as it's done properly. Sounds like you've got it in hand though so best of luck in moving forward!
All the best,
Rob
-
Rob,
Thank you for such a fantastic and thorough answer. Helped immensely. We are about to move our site to a new host so I am thinking of having them change it all at that point.
So just to confirm, we are going to be changing our canonical domain from https://www. to https://(no www).
I've run many links through the Pro tool and seem to have same or higher PA for each.
I am not sure why, but it seems a little scary to do this :). I think it is because of how much I read about NOT changing domains/URL structure.
Very appreciative!
Kris
-
Hi Kris,
Yes PA will increase with a naked domain - Google has outlined that it enjoys seeing this and has directions on how to do it with Google Sites (Link Below):
https://support.google.com/a/answer/2518373?hl=en
Redirecting is a good move and can be done through your CMS - how you do this will depend on what you are using to operate your site. Keep in mind that redirects can affect the power of any links pointing to your Home Page and this will affect link juice flowing through the rest of your site to some degree. Depending on the scope of your service area and what kind of SEO you are running (Local, Global or PPC), this will have a greater or lesser impact on what you do moving forward.
In terms of what is creating the better PA - a combination of Google's approach to ranking sites and what your external links are pointing to are probably the answer. If external links are pointing to your naked domain instead of the www. version, this would explain what you are seeing.
Without knowing the site or the context it's hard to know for sure, but those are my guesses.
Hope this helps and fire any additional questions/info you want at me and I will try to help out as best I can.
Cheers,
Rob
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
-
.re or .com domain
I am thinking about changing the name of my site. The new name is available with .re domain (that spells the name) or a .com. I have registered the .re and the .com is parked and for sale so my question has 2 parts. Is it worth buying the .com or do I really not need it? How much does it matter in terms of losing traffic and other factors? If I do buy it which should I use as the primary domain? Thanks!
Branding | | yojimbo230 -
Moving Blog from www.topic.domain.com to www.domain.com/blog
Hi Fellow Mozzers, Just started off here on seomoz.org and am super happy to have joined the community! I've recently started a new job as web optimization manager for an education company. There is a lot to do and one of my first tasks is to figure a better strategy for our current blog. I've convinced our management to move our blog from topic.domain.com to domain.com/blog. My research has shown that this is a better strategy so that our blog can receive the DA of our root domain, get more people to click through our site, and even receive more natural searches (PLEASE, someone correct me if I'm wrong on this). Anyway, our blog is currently hosted as a Wordpress blog and we're wondering if it's more worthwhile to build a blog platform ourselves or continue using Wordpress. I am not a technical guy and don't know the backend stuff to make it happen, but my concern is primarily for the optimum search capacity. Also, our bloggers frequently put links to different portions of our website - does this hold any negative SEO value in terms of too much internal linking? I personally wouldn't assume so, but then again I could be wrong. Finally, we also track our main website using Google Analytics- currently, the only tracking we have installed on our blogs is the default provided by Wordpress (yes yes I know, but that's why i'm here -- to fix these weaknesses). I'm assuming we will be able to better track using GA when the switch is made. So, I guess my questions are: (1) Is my research correct in that it's better to have our blog hosted as domain.com/blog over topic.domain.com (2) Are there any best practices in making this switch and/or any negative implications with continuing to use Wordpress or should we build our own platform (we have the internal resources to do so, but would prefer to take the easiest and best route in terms of SEO and community building). (3) Will it still be just as easy to track using GA. Thank you!! Pedram
Branding | | CSawatzky0 -
Google+ Pages and an unknown owner...how do I claim it or get it removed?
Hello, I am working on a clients social networking campaign and have found a Google+ page for their company. It looks like it was created approx a year ago. The client doesn't know who created it or what account has control of it in their network. I need to make a Google+ page for them so I can use it in their marketing that I can actually access. I was wondering if anyone has any insight on how I can either: Find the owner/email that is associated with the Google+ Page? or Have it removed so I can create a fresh one? which I know I can report the page as compromised but will that work in a timely manner? Please any thoughts or feedback would be greatly appreciated, and thanks!! 🙂 Jeff
Branding | | allstatetransmission0 -
Need help on redirects and which domain to make my main
Hi there i have at the moment abcecigs.com as my main domain for my electronic cigarette company, I have now aquired abcelectroniccigarettes.co.uk and abcelectroniccigarettes.com which one would be best for my main domain? i will be having mostly UK customers to keep postal cost down ect, what would be the best way to go about having my main domian changed to one of the better electroniccigarettes.co.uk or .com domains, and still have abcecigs.com used as I have a few links posted to there. Thanks alot
Branding | | cars1110 -
Has anyone had problems with thier google maps page after the google plus intergration?
About a month ago Google contacted one of my clients to inform them that the Google places is discontinued and their Google plus page will be the new Google places. They gave my client an $100 adwards credit for adwords express so their location will still show up for their business name during the change from Google places to Google plus.. When you type in the business in a local area or on a GPS now.. It is no where to be found. You have to know the address to get directions or go there on a mobile devices. The Google plus page for all of these locations is not currently showing up either. I have contacted Google and Once again something has been released without implementing it correctly. No one seems to know what is going on... after talking to three people. Does anybody know what is going on ???? This is a huge deal when being a local company.
Branding | | JohnParker27920 -
Redirecting Domain to Main Domain
I have a site that is rolling out a new "Daily Deals" feature. The feature is found on MyBrandName.com/daily-deals. Would it hurt or help to buy the domain main MyBrandNameDeals.com and redirect it to the initial URL above? I think branding the feature itself could help because it is separate from the rest of the site, but if people bookmark/link to the new domain (MyBrandNameDeals.com), I will lose some of the link juice in the redirect. Are there pros that would outweigh possibly loosing some link juice from the redirect?
Branding | | Hakkasan0 -
I need to get my hands on some already registered domains?!?
Hi Guys & Gals, There are a couple of already registered domains i'd like to get my hands on, but i'm coming up against a brick wall. I have already tried contacting the domain owners directly if there contact info is available through whois and tried using a domain brokerage service from the likes of SEDO to try and acquire the domain on my behalf...but they seem to only work they have solid whois contact info to use. My problem is that where do I turn now after the above routes failing? Are there any good domain brokerage services you are aware off or any other approach I could try to aquire such domains?? Thanks James
Branding | | cewe0 -
Travel agents are creating Google Place pages for our properties - is this a bad thing?
I'm currently trying to develop a clear understanding and policy for my company on how we deal with Google place pages, specifically where we stand on places pages being created by our agents. We run a business in the travel industry with a number of locations around the world. Our services are sold via travel agents. Naturally, we set up places pages for each of our locations but recently we've noticed agents setting up places pages for these locations with different titles & their own contact details (same address though). In one case we've received verification postcards which we've been asked to pass on. The pages are set up in 'good faith' to promote business in the agents respective countries and languages but i'm concerned that we are ending up with multiple pages for the same location, hurting our brand, losing our own pages through being buried and ending up with our account being suspended at some point down the line. There are a number of terms on Google guideline page, in particular, this one: "Do not create more than one listing for each business location, either in a single account or multiple accounts." I contacted my Adwords account manager but didn't get a very clear response on this. What i'm looking for is some 3rd party, definitive advice/opinions on this scenario. Should we be asking agents not to create place pages? Why should they list.. could it end up hurting both of us? Are there pros and cons to this or is it a clear cut case?
Branding | | seoec0