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
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
-
Changing domain name, witch is better - brand name.com vs keyword + brand name.com?
Hi, I just made one decision and now I'm bit worried, if I did right one. I hope that you can give me feedback and advice regarding it. I'm in hookah market, so I do not have any possibilities to buy adds, so SEO is really-really important to us. I know a lot of things what has to be done to perform better, but currently I have just few really important questions. In international market the main keyword is "hookah" and everything related to that. We are small company and our brand is not that well known and do not have high volume traffic on website. Hookah in front of that we tough will give better understanding to audience about what is the page. Which domain name is better for SEO and also branding purposes? Currently we were using the first one without keyword, no we switched to the second one (just about week ago). https://hekkpipe.com https://hookahhekkpipe.com Regarding it, some really important questions: Would the longer version of domain helps us better rank with important keywords to us or not? When we will write good content, which domain is more likely shared? I'm bit afraid that first one and that we made a mistake changing the domain name. When the 1st one, then how big difference does it potentially make? Thank you
Branding | | Karel_K0 -
How Google decide reading time of a page?
Dear friends, I have a question. How google decide bounce rate? For an example- I open a website through organic keyword from Google. Now I have tab of landing page in browser I do not close this tab for 10 minutes and continue doing my other things after some time I come back on that tab and close. Can Google know? This page has been read till 10 minutes. Can Google decide the bounce rate for this session? If I do some click boost for my negative reviews can I do same thing in my website? Is it useful? If I open one tab and come back after one day than what happen? Silly question but confusing me so please help me. I will be very grateful to you! Thanks all
Branding | | docbeans0 -
Product expansion on website. Best practices for Retargeting Interior Pages with a high concern for brand.
For the past year, I've worked on a website that offered one product (Product 1). The homepage targeted both branded terms and the highest volume keywords for the one product. We've built a lot of strong links to the homepage using the natural variations of the targeted Keywords & the homepage ranks very well for these terms. The brand is now expanding its offerings to two products (Product 1 & 2). Thus necessitating the creation of two product subpages. I'm not concerned about ranking of Product 2's page, only Product 1. From a branding perspective, the homepage URL works wonderfully for the expanded offerings. And from an SEO perspective, offering two products allows me to target a very high volume group of keywords on the homepage that now makes more sense given the offerings. This new group of keywords will make even more sense if brand is able to roll out a 3rd product. The profitability of Product 1 & 2 are about the same. The profitability of potential product 3 is far greater 1+2 combined. Product 3 also has the most natural correlation with the group of KWs I plan to target on the homepage, i.e., I care more about the ranking of the homepage once Product 3 has launched. Product 3 will have its own interior product page as there is plenty of search volume for KWs specific to this product. I'm worried about hurting the rankings of the old product and URL confusion between the homepage & the to-be-created Product 1 page. I don't see myself having a lot of options. Options 301 - It does not make sense to 301 redirect the homepage to the Product 1 interior page. The homepage URL has strong branding and will be used in future marketing. I do not believe that I value the maintaining the rankings of Product 1 enough to push for making the new homepage example.com/home or similar to allow for the 301 redirect. Canonical - The content of the homepage will be changing, thus a rel=canonical to the Product 1 page does not make sense, nor does it make sense from a ranking perspective as I also want the homepage to rank for the new set of KWs I will be targeting The only real option I see is attempting to reach out to strong back links with Product 1 anchor text (or context) & asking them the switch the URL to the Product 1 interior page. Combine this with proper site-wide internal linking to the new Product 1 interior page & an anchor text link on the homepage to the new Product 1 interior page. Am I missing something? Am I dismissing either one of the above options too easily. Am I over-thinking this (yes probably)? Would love another set of eyes on this.
Branding | | 2uinc0 -
Author Site And Book Site - Multiple Sites Bad Idea?
The question: I've been doing work for authors lately and a common question is if they should have a site for their book and a site for themselves. Separate sites with different domain names. At first I thought this would be a bad idea. Why spread information across two sites if they can be related and used together in one? But I see a lot of authors doing this and some with marketing companies. One site for the author with information about them, their books, their social media presence. Then another site for their book, with new social media accounts, other info, etc. What do you guys think? Has anyone tried both and seen any pros and cons? Is there a perfect answer?
Branding | | JoshBowers20120 -
What is the weight of .pro domains? Will they rank?
.pro Domains have ben out there for a while but seem to as late started to be adopted. Thoughts and opinions welcome.
Branding | | bozzie3110 -
Sorting out a proper domain - changing from .org
I have a client with a business.... normal business and he has a .org address. .com and .co.uk are taken buy sites trying to sell those for £100000 each. So.... What would you do... Original - mybusinessname.org OR my-business-name.co.uk mybusinessname.uk.com mybusinessnameuk.com You get the point... Suggestions greatly received on what to recommend to the client...
Branding | | JohnW-UK0 -
Building Site Authority vs. Link Building
Hi,
Branding | | rayvensoft
I just watched the recent Whiteboard Friday, and I have one question. He talks a lot about "Building Site Authority". Is that just Link Building, or is it something else? If it is Link Building, does that mean that exchanging (3 way, or non-reciprocal) links with other "relevant" and good sites still works, as long as you use your brand name and/or url in the anchor text? Or did I misunderstand. Is "Building Site Authority" something entirely different from Link Building? Sorry if it is a basic question, I just want to make sure I understand the difference if there is one. Thanks in advance!0 -
.us domain extension for US locales
I have a large US travel site and am looking to make targeted pages for specific locations, attractions etc around the United States. With many of the TLD's already purchased for these niches, I thought about using the .us extension as it seemed relevant to the topics. Does this hurt seo possibilities or does the .us extension come across as spammy?
Branding | | Millibit2