How do we build rank on a domain with an offsite blog?
-
We have a site (domain y) that we'd like to integrate a blog into but our team doesn't have the bandwidth to do this. So, we've been exploring the option of building the blog in WP and hosting on a separate domain (domain x) and redirecting from domain y to it. My concern is how this affects or undermines rank value on domain y (effectively all the value from the blog resides on the blog domain x).
How might we go about integrating an offsite blog into the core domain while maintaining search value? Is there a way? Thanks!
-
Hi Jamie,
For the reverse proxy method, the search engine will perceive that the blog is on the main domain (domain y). As far as any user or Googlebot is concerned, the blog is on domain y in a subfolder – they never see domain x. If you do this, your main challenges will be:
- Making sure that domain x can't be accessed directly (otherwise, your entire blog will exist in two places). They should only be able to access the blog by visiting the correct subfolder on domain y. Domain x can be configured to only accept connections directly from domain y.
- Making sure to configure the proxy correctly. They can be tricky, and may take up some of your team's time.
- Making sure everything remains fast. Although Googlebot has nothing against proxies, if the inclusion of the proxy introduces a big delay to the page load time, that's going to have a negative impact.
-
If you configure the reverse proxy (and redirect traffic going direct to the true hosting [x domain] to the sub-folder on the [y domain]) then it will absolutely be counted as part of the main domain as if it was really just in the sub-folder.
-
Thank you. And what is the impact for SEO and rank building? Does Search Engines recognize the external blog as part of the core domain?
-
Jamie -
Best practice would be to create a sub-directory (yoursite.com/blog/) if you can. Otherwise, create a sub-domain (blog.yourdomain.com).
You could use a reverse proxy to add the WordPress blog to a sub-directory. Here are some step-by-step instructions. This method may not solve your issue of team bandwidth.
You could create a sub-domain on domain y and then add an A record in the domain x DNS settings which points the IP address of domain y. Example instructions from GoDaddy
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
-
Wrong Page Ranking?!?
I did some research today, one of our keywords is "mobile column lifts." I recently redid a page on our website to target this keyword. When I Google search this keyword I see that a page on our site titled "Reconditioned Mobile Lifts" is ranking for this keyword. I took a look with Moz, our mobile column lifts page ranks 90 for the keyword, and the reconditioned lifts page ranks 73 the keyword. Why is this happening? How can I fix this? https://www.slec.com/mobile-column-lifts/ https://www.slec.com/reconditioned-mobile-lifts/
Technical SEO | | slecinc0 -
Which domain we should continue with?
Hello All, We are working with a client who had manual penalty from Google. We worked on that and now penalty has been removed. Client had already started working on the new domain and now the big dilemma is- Which domain should we continue with? Old or New? We are suggesting them to continue with the old one as that domain had good PR, good backlinks, better visibility on their social profiles etc. What do you suggest? any inputs are highly appreciated. Thanks
Technical SEO | | sachin-sv0 -
Keyword domain usage
Hi I have a client who wants some advice on the following and I haven't come up with anything decent yet. So wanted to throw it out here. They own a domain like soccershoes.com which also houses their web site. They have now bought ussoccershoes.com because this US based search term is more popular than simply soccer shoes. How can they utilise this new domain effectively to drive traffic to their main web site? Thanks for any input.
Technical SEO | | yolkcreative0 -
Are these redirects damaging my rankings
Hi, just been going through my google webmaster tools and i have found a number of soft 404 errors and was shocked to see these redirects going to my home page. | URL | Response Code | Detected |
Technical SEO | | ClaireH-184886
| --- | --- | --- |<colgroup><col style="width: 45px;"><col style="width: 80px;"><col><col style="width: 120px;"><col style="width: 90px;"></colgroup>
| | 1 | staging1/jupgrade2/component/k2/item/475-gastric-band-hypnotherapy-expert-says-government-are-not-doing-enough-to-fight-obesity | | 7/25/13 |
| | 2 | staging1/jupgrade2/category-menu/item/1068-coronation-street-nick-proposes-to-leanne | | 7/28/13 |
| | 3 | staging1/jupgrade2/category-menu/item/1086-coronation-street-fiz-nearly-gets-tyrone-in-trouble-with-kirsty | | 7/28/13 |
| | 4 | staging1/jupgrade2/category-menu/item/1155-coronation-street-kylie-considers-telling-david-about-her-affair | | 7/28/13 |
| | 5 | staging1/jupgrade2/category-menu/item/1157-coronation-street-fiz-is-worried-when-kirsty-pays-her-a-visit | | 7/28/13 |
| | 6 | staging1/jupgrade2/component/k2/item/750-actress-hilary-duff-is-sued-over-car-accident | | 7/25/13 |
| | 7 | staging1/jupgrade2/component/k2/item/843-what-your-dogs-bottom-scooting-behaviour%E2%80%99-really-meansI would have thought that the developer who upgraded my site would have either had these blocked or directed them to the correct page. i am now guessing that there are going to be hundreds of these appearing and would like some serious advice.normally with old pages i would have them going to the relevant articles or pages but it seems the developer has redirected hundreds of these to my home page, which i guess is going to confuse google. i would like to know if this will confuse google have all these pages going to my home page.i have tried to find out where the developer in my site has redirected the pages as they are not in my htaccess file, i use joomla.can anyone let me know what i should be doing with these to solve the problemmany thanks |0 -
Will moving a well established Blog to a different URL (on the same domain) affect the SERPs?
Hi SEOmoz experts, We will shortly be launching a new product range (B-Events) on our Events website and I was wondering if moving our current A-Events specific blog will impact the SERPs at all? Quite a few of our blog posts rank well for longtail A-Events terms, so we're a little reluctant to move it. But for the long term it makes more sense than creating & maintaining 2 separate blogs. Current Blog URL: domain.com/a-events/blog New Blog URL: domain.com/news New A-Events Category: domain.com/news/a-events New B-Events Category: domain.com/news/b-events I intend to 301 redirect all of the old URLs (200+) to their new blog category equivalent, will this be enough to keep their positions in the SERPs? Can you recommend / think of anything else, that we might not have considered. Any help would be much appreciated!
Technical SEO | | RobertHill0 -
What's the best way to transplant a blogger blog to another domain?
So I have this client who's got a killer blogger blog—tons of inbound links, great content, etc. He wants to move it onto his new website. Correct me if I'm wrong, but there isn't a single way to 301 the darn thing. I can do meta refresh and/or JavaScript redirects, but those won't transfer link juice, right? Is there a best practice here? I've considered truncating each post and adding a followed "continue reading…" link, which would of course link to the full post on the client's new site. It would take a while and I'm wondering if it would be worth it, and/or if there are any better ideas out there. Sock it to me.
Technical SEO | | TheEspresseo0 -
Question about domain redirects
One of my clients has an odd domain redirect situation. See if you can get your head round this: Domain A is set-up as a domain alias of Domain B Entering domain A or domain B takes you to default.asp on domain B. The default.asp includes VB script to check the HTTP_HOST variable. It checks whether the main doman name for domain A is present in the HTTP_HOST and if so redirects it to domain A/sub-folder/index.htm. If not present it redirects to domain B/index.htm. In both cases the redirect uses a response.Redirect clause. I think what is trying to be achieved is to redirect requests to Domain A to a sub-folder of Domain B. It works but seems extremely convoluted. Can anyone see problems with this set-up? Will link juice be lost along the redirect paths?
Technical SEO | | bjalc20110 -
Domain extension is a ranking factor? Does it change de value of my SEO
Im trying to find a good domain for my business, but a domain for my country ".com.br" with exact keyword is not available any more. I want to know if i buy a domain name with other extension like www.mykeyword.info or .biz is take bad effect in my SEO. Or it doesn't matter? If so, wich extension domain is good for SEO? Thanks!
Technical SEO | | Ex20