WordPress Sub-directory for SEO
-
Hi There,
I'm working on a WordPress site that includes a premium content blog with approx 900 posts.
As part of the project, those 900 posts and other membership functionality will be moved from the main site to another site built specifically for content/membership.
Ideally, we want the existing posts to remain on the root domain to avoid a loss in link juice/domain authority.
We initially began setting up a WordPress Multisite using the sub-directory option. This allows for the main site to be at www.website.com and the secondary site to be at www.website.com/secondary.
Unfortunately, the themes and plugins we need for the platform do not play nicely with WordPress Multisite, so we started seeking a new solution, and, discovered that a second instance of WordPress can be installed in a subdirectory on the server. This would give us the same subdirectory structure while bypassing WordPress Multisite and instead, having two separate single-site installs.
Do you foresee any issues with this WordPress subdirectory install? Does Google care/know these are two separate WordPress installs and do we risk losing any link juice/domain authority?
-
@himalayaninstitute said in WordPress Sub-directory for SEO:
WordPress can be installed in a subdirectory
I have done this a lot and I mean a lot what you want to do is set up a reverse proxy on your subdomain and this will allow you to not only bypass having to use multisite for subfolder but if you want to power it separately you can you do not have to it all. You should probably use your same server and power through Fastly our CloudFlare
once you set this up it is super easy to keep it running in your entire site will be much faster as a result as well
my response to someone else that needed a subfolder
https://mza.seotoolninja.com/community/q/topic/69528/using-a-reverse-proxy-and-301-redirect-to-appear-sub-domain-as-sub-directory-what-are-the-seo-risksplease also look at it explained by these hosting companies is unbelievable easy to implement compared to how it looks and you can do so with Fastly or cloudflare in a matter of minutes
-
https://servebolt.com/help/article/cloudflare-workers-reverse-proxy/
-
https://support.pagely.com/hc/en-us/articles/213148558-Reverse-Proxy-Setup
-
https://wpengine.com/support/using-a-reverse-proxy-with-wp-engine/
-
https://thoughtbot.com/blog/host-your-blog-under-blog-on-your-www-domain
-
https://crate.io/blog/fastly_traffic_spike
*https://support.fastly.com/hc/en-us/community/posts/4407427792397-Set-a-request-condition-to-redirect-URL -
https://coda.io/@matt-varughese/guide-how-to-reverse-proxy-with-cloudflare-workers
-
https://www.cloudflare.com/learning/cdn/glossary/reverse-proxy/
-
https://gist.github.com/LimeCuda/18b88f7ad9cdf1dccb01b4a6bbe398a6
I hope this was of help
tom
-
-
@nmiletic The content section of the site requires a unique UI Design and other robust functionality, so having a separate theme/plugins in its own directory is going to be the way we go here. Thanks for your assistance!
-
@himalayaninstitute Have you thought about adding a page and making all of this new content a subpage? Or changing your permalink structure to include a category in the URL? You can then add all of these posts under that category and have the URL show up as www.example.com/category/page-or-post-name
-
The website at the subdirectory will be an online learning platform with a blog, online courses, memberships, gated content, etc. The content currently lives on the main site, so, it's great that we can move it into the subdirectory without taking a hit from Google.
Since these are fundamentally two separate websites, we're not concerned about needing to manage them independently.
Thanks again for your input and advice, we greatly appreciate it!
-
@amitydigital said in WordPress Sub-directory for SEO:
Google will view it as one site so you shouldn't have any issues from that perspective. The Google bot is just looking at pages and won't know/care that the underlying CMS that is running some pages is a different install than other pages. The downside is you now have two websites to maintain, two themes, two sets of files, etc... That may result in a bit of a headache in the future.
As @amitydigital put it, the issue with your approach would be repetitive tasks. You will not loose any DA nor PA (being that you implement a correct 301 redirection). What is going to be on the subdirectory?
-
Google will view it as one site so you shouldn't have any issues from that perspective. The Google bot is just looking at pages and won't know/care that the underlying CMS that is running some pages is a different install than other pages. The downside is you now have two websites to maintain, two themes, two sets of files, etc... That may result in a bit of a headache in the future.
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 to Boost Your WordPress Website Speed to 95+ (Without Premium Plugins)
I'm reaching out for some advice on improving my WordPress website's speed. I'm currently using a free theme for this fusion magazine and aiming for a score of 95+ on Google PageSpeed Insights. I'm aware that premium plugins can significantly enhance performance, but I'm hoping to achieve similar results using primarily free solutions and manual optimizations.
Technical SEO | | mohammadrehanseo0 -
Volusion SEO
I have an SEO setting on our Volusion e-commerce store enabled, it is titled "Enable full URL for Home Page Canonical Link (include /default.asp)" I am questioning whether or not this should be enabled for optimal SEO performance. Can anyone provide any advice on this?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | PartyStore0 -
International SEO
Hi all, The company that I work for is planning to target some french (and some other foreign) keywords. The thing is, in our industry, you can't just hire someone to translate the content/pages. The pages have to be translated by an accredited translator. Here's the thing, it costs a LOT of money just to translate a few thousand words. So, the CEO decided to translate a few of our 'core' pages and SEO them to see if it brings results. My questions are, would it be possible from a technical point of view to simply translate a few pages? Would that cause a problem for the search engine crawlers? Would those pages be 'seen' as duplicates? Thanks in advance guys!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | EdwardDennis0 -
SEOmoz recommended Directories
SEOmoz recommends a bunch of directories and some cost money. How much influence do these directories have? Is it worth investing in some where the category makes sense or all where the category makes sense?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | SEODinosaur0 -
Wordpress Titles
My question is about long url titles, my client is using wordpress and the rankings are going well apart from two, which for some reason just wont move. After using some of the tools available on SEO moz which i have found very helpful I have spotted a re-occuring warning throughout the site, the titles, in word press you have this setting (below) page title : %page_title% | %blog_title% My question is my client has quite good brand online but I done want to impact this. The problem I have is that I have a Keyword in the title then the clients company name which is three words and takes up a lot of space. I am thinking about removing this but in two minds so i was kinda hoping for a bit of advice as this looks like a standard in wordpress. Mike
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | TomBarker820