More Google Shenanigans - No more subdomains ranking as separate sites

[George]

Besides the fact that I recently watched super troopers (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Super_Troopers) again and just wanted to say shenanigans....

The war on SEO continues. No more subdomains ranking as separate sites.

http://searchengineland.com/071207-090257.php

Guess I'm the defacto SEO reporter these days...

[gluedup2]

I have nothing to add except Super Troopers is one of my favs.

She can sue me.. sue me! sue me!

[n3o]

if this rule is applied to everyone with the exception of hosting sites such as blogspot

how would google find out which one is hosting sites ? esp. the small players ...

[danos880]

Good for me, I hate when a sub-domain out ranks my keyword domain.

[George]

how would google find out which one is hosting sites ? esp. the small players ...Guess the same way they'll just magically know if your link is paid or not.

[minnseoelite]

goooood maybe this will clean up the index a little. about time

[Marty]

Don't think it'll happen.

[mrbrantley]

http://www.google.com/search?sourceid=navclient&ie=UTF-8&rlz=1T4GGIH_enUS241US241&q=howstuffworks

Dont think they will completely eliminate subdomains side-by-side with their orginal domain, but the belt will tighten. I think it will break down like this:

Subdomains with the same IP address (using host headers) will be looked at as one site. ex. auto.example.com has the same IP as homes.example.com then searching Google for "example.com" will only leave you with 2 results, max.

Subdomains with seperate IP addresses which are NOT interlinked will remain their own independent site. ex. you have 5 subdomains on example.com, each with a unique IP. None of them link to eachother (auto.example.com never links to homes.example.com). Searching Google for "example.com" in this instance would display 2 results max result from each subdomain, but infinate results for the top level domain. For instance, if you had 20 subdomains on example.com, upon search you would see upto 40 results; 2 results for each subdomain on that site.

Subdomains with seperate IP addresses but ARE interlinking will be seen as the same site, to some extent. I beleive that heavy deep linking from subdomain to subdomain throws a flag that this is the same site, regardless of IP Address. I do not think a simple 1 link tree to move you around subdomains will cause a problem. ex. linking auto.example.com/cars.html to homes.example.com/house/mexico.html will throw a flag as you are gaining internal links from another domain. If this were allowed, a link from your unique IP subdomain to another one of your subdomains would count as an inbound link, adding rank to your site. However, linking auto.example.com to homes.example.com, all at the top level of that directory, should not cause a problem as you are simply providing navigation to your user.

There seems to be a fine line on how subdomain networking will / not benefit us for SEO. Ive seen results go both ways. Honestly, only reason I use them anymore is for that one extra keyword in the URL.

Hope this post helps...someone correct me if they see anything wrong.

[minnseoelite]

i hope sub domains will all get thrown into the supplemental results

[spotlight-shure]

I don't understand most of this search engine stuff but i click the thread because you said shenanigans. Ha =). But yea i guess this could be a bad thing for subdomains right?

[Marty]

My sites are on sub-domains =O just because it's easier... Oh well!

[Benahue]

i hope sub domains will all get thrown into the supplemental results
I can see the arguments from both sides. But there are lot of advantages to having mult. ones rank. Ultimately, it's not that big of a deal one way or the other though.

[minnseoelite]

yes im sure those on subdomains are saying please no please no lol.

[n3o]

thats gonna be fun ... lets see how google gonna handle it ...

[itbejake]

Not too sure, but would this affect addon domains? You know the ones that you addon through your cPanel, and it automatically creates a subdomain for?

[mrbrantley]

Not too sure, but would this affect addon domains? You know the ones that you addon through your cPanel, and it automatically creates a subdomain for?

Sure will. Dosent matter how you add the subdomain, if it's something.whatever.com, it will get filtered..... if the filtering happens. Again, I suggest if you use subdomains, use them with unique IP and do not cross link btwn you other subdomains.

[Ad disengaged]

Intreresting, but notign earth shattering

Subdommains still ranking well

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=online+games&btnG=Google+Search

Yahoo games ranks #3

[mrbrantley]

Speaking on the terms of multiple subdomains under the same URL ranking for the keyword.

ex.. http://www.google.com/search?sourceid=navclient&ie=UTF-8&rlz=1T4GGIH_enUS241US241&q=how+stuff+works

[minnseoelite]

My guess would be that trusted sites like Yahoo will still retain their subdomain rankings regardless.

[misterproline]

Meh! Just spend the extra few dollars to get a new domain...

[minnseoelite]

lol true. i think if you can't fork over $10 for a domain you're not serious enough about your online business to worry about any of this

[itbejake]

So, my understanding is that subdomains wont rank, but domains will? I have about 3 sites in a shared hosting account at hostgator, and they are all domains. They will still rank separately? Correct?

They are just added using addon domains in the cPanel, my understanding is this points it to a directory on your account. So it should rank separately right?

[minnseoelite]

right now its all just speculation until you start to see high ranking subdomains start to drop from the SERPS. As long as your domain is something like www.mysite.com and not www.mysite.somesite.com you'll be fine IF it does happen

[mrbrantley]

Simply put...if you dont know what the problem is, its not going to affect you. This is intended to weed out a shade of gray when it comes to SEO, not penalize webmasters for the way they structure their site. Its going to hit the people who take over entire pages on Google with nothing but the same site and multi subdomains.

[Jen]

Now someone said that addon domains are treated like this, if they don't start with www...

I have an addon domain that is treated just like it's own...it's not a sub domain hooked onto the main domain.....in other words...it's not subdomain.profile-comments.com

It's it own www.domain.com

Does it matter? Would I be ok? I just registered a domain and want to use an exsisting server I have....

Hope that makes sense as Im tired and a little disoriented......rofl

[minnseoelite]

if its a domain that you actually registered you'll be fine