Lost Google Page Rank. Canonical URL Issue.

14 years ago

Hey Jason,

In my experience I would say it has to do with the subdomain hosting, and if the other domain name is on a shared account, that could have to do with it to.

I've seen similar situations when I buy websites, they have PR4s and 6s and then I move them to my hosting account and poof, I'm back at a PR1

Thanks

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PhillTurner

14 years ago

Hi

I had this one one website the other way it went from 1 to 4 really quick then went back to 2 after no time at all.

Is there any way to check the bank links you had and now, could be just some of the links changed.

yahoo site search might shed some light.

Keyword elite is good but is a chargeable software

Phill

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David Allen

14 years ago

Jason

It might sound a bit daft but have you tried asking Google?

Whenever I have contacted them in the past (via my Adwords account) they have always pointed me in the right direction.

Even though I appreciate they aren't going to tell you exactly what herbs and spices to use, they may have a rule about sub-domains or changing of host that they are willing to point out.

David

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jan roos 14 years ago

Did you notice a drop in traffic or search engine position since the PR drop?

Just curious to see how much weight PR actually carries.

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- Kay King 14 years ago
  
  When I moved to Hostgator I hosted my blog as a subdomain of another domain I already have hosting set up for. Is this a mistake?
  
  When you put the site in a subdomain you created an entirely new site. Google sees a subdomain as a standalone site for most purposes.
  
  Why didn't you use the domain previously used for that site? If you had, the PR likely would have remained the same.
  
  kay
  
  Remember - your backlinks also point to the old domain and to page under that domain.
  
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  4morereferrals 14 years ago
  
  Originally Posted by Kay King
  
  Remember - your backlinks also point to the old domain and to page under that domain.
  
  Ding Ding Ding ... I believe we have ourselves a winner.
  
  If you dropped the blog on a subdomain of another domain or even the same domain - all your old backlinks are NO longer pointing to the right places.
  
  Cant ya put it back the way it was?
  
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  Jason Moffatt 14 years ago
  
  I think I may have a bad idea about what a subdomain is.
  
  All the old links still go to the same place. I don't need to do all that 301 stuff. All the URL's are still the same. It's just on another hosting account.
  
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  https://www.jasonmoffatt.com
  
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Bill_Z

14 years ago

As far as I know, making it a subdomain should be OK as Google treats the subdomain as a separate domain from the main domain. And I don't think the pop up would do it either.

But when you moved it to a new domain, all of the backlinks you had pointing to your old blog domain need to be pointed back to your new blog domain. Have you done a 301 redirect from your old domain to your new one?

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Tom Goodwin

14 years ago

...and the correct answers to the OP query about why a subdomain is not the same thing as a domain...

Originally Posted by Kay King

When you put the site in a subdomain you created an entirely new site. Google sees a subdomain as a standalone site for most purposes.

Why didn't you use the domain previously used for that site? If you had, the PR likely would have remained the same.

kay

Remember - your backlinks also point to the old domain and to page under that domain.

Originally Posted by Bill_Z

As far as I know, making it a subdomain should be OK as Google treats the subdomain as a separate domain from the main domain. And I don't think the pop up would do it either.

But when you moved it to a new domain, all of the backlinks you had pointing to your old blog domain need to be pointed back to your new blog domain. Have you done a 301 redirect from your old domain to your new one?

Links to http://www.myawesomeblog.com will not help it if you move the content to http://myawesomeblog.chocolatechipsundae.com, unless you 301 it.

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Michael Oksa

14 years ago

Hi Jason,

It looks like you got some good answers so far, but there was something about your post that I really enjoyed.

What is it?

The fact that you posted it. All too often people are afraid to ask what they think are "easy" questions. But they don't have to be. Nobody knows everything, and I hope your post encourages others to ask questions of their own.

All the best,
Michael

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AFI 14 years ago

Google is most likely ranking the PR of the other domain. I think that was your big mistake. Keep it on your domain that you had the higher ranking for.
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Warrior Helper

14 years ago

I think Jennifer is right. When you moved the site off the main domain and placed it under a subdomain of a different root domain name Google now sees it as a new site, not the existing one you already had.

The backlinks also play a huge role here as well. Since all the backlinks point to the old root domain name the blog no longer has the same backlinks as it did before, and that will effect your PR as well.

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AFI

14 years ago

Originally Posted by VMS Services

I think Jennifer is right. When you moved the site off the main domain and placed it under a subdomain of a different root domain name Google now sees it as a new site, not the existing one you already had.

The backlinks also play a huge role here as well. Since all the backlinks point to the old root domain name the blog no longer has the same backlinks as it did before, and that will effect your PR as well.

Exactly. It's not the FILES that are getting the page rank, it's the DOMAIN.

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Rashell

14 years ago

2. When I moved to Hostgator I hosted my blog as a subdomain of another domain I already have hosting set up for. Is this a mistake?

Just wondering...

Did you mean that you hosted it as a subdomain ie jasonmoffatt.otherdomain.com

or as an add-on standalone domain under the otherdomain.com account?

Rashell

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Marc Rodill

14 years ago

Originally Posted by Rashell

Just wondering...

Did you mean that you hosted it as a subdomain ie jasonmoffatt.otherdomain.com

or as an add-on standalone domain under the otherdomain.com account?

Rashell

Add-on domains at Hostgator are automatically subdomains if I remember correctly.

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Tom Goodwin 14 years ago

Originally Posted by Marc Rodill

Add-on domains at Hostgator are automatically subdomains if I remember correctly.

Hostgator might store the files and what not in a subdomain of your original domain (for convenience sake), new add-on domains are their own domains.

Tom
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Trivum

14 years ago

Yeah, you need to 301 everything. ... Also, I would lose the pop-up for awhile. Google might think someone new took over the blog and is just looking to drain it for everything they can and then let it die. (That's why they made such a big deal of taking the PR away from expired domains. They want to make sure the site is attempting to "contribute value," for lack of a better term.)

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JayXtreme

14 years ago

Step 2 and 3 are a sure thing to annoy Google.

Step 3 is annoying for them, step 2 is what killed your page rank... Your site is essentially a new site, but with plenty of content.

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V12

14 years ago

If you buy a domain with Pagerank, the advice is to switch WHOIS privacy settings ON immediately after taking over, otherwise pagerank will be negatively affected as soon as Google makes it's (or is it his/her?) next visit to the site.

I suspect Google has seen the move from one host to another as change of ownership, so pagerank has dropped.

Abdul.

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Gail Sober

14 years ago

I would pay the few dollars a month for a unique ip address for that site.

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Matt MacPherson

14 years ago

By subdomain I'm assuming you meant add-on domain? If it was an add-on domain and your URL is still the same (jasonmoffit.com) then I see no reason for a PR decline. If it is a subdomain of another top level domain then you're PR is reset. Switch back to the original TLD and you'll be back to the original PR.

Matt

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Kay King 14 years ago

Shared hosting subdomains: how would Google know that you are even using one?

Because a subdomain shows up as a separate site. If you have a domain and launch 5 subdomains for it...each subdomain is indexed and ranked independent of the others. It's odd - but that's how it rolls.

When I moved to Hostgator I hosted my blog as a subdomain of another domain I already have hosting set up for

Geez, make up your mind, dude

If ALL you did was move the site/blog to a different host server - with no downtime and no change in domain name...it wouldn't cause a problem.

An add-on domain should not have that result - but I'd be surprised if you are using add-ons. There are some scripts that don't run well on add-on domains but if you have an HG reseller account the domain should be exactly as it was before you moved it.

I suppose it's also possible that your timing simply coincided with a google burp that changed the ranking temporarily.

kay
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- eiilers 14 years ago
  
  I've seen this before if you went from a static IP address to a shared one. But honestly, as long as your traffic hasn't been affected I wouldn't worry too much...
  
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Rus Sells

14 years ago

PR can temporarily drop when you have to point your domain to a new name server and move your site to a new hosting account. I had this happen to a PR3 domain, it went to PR1 for a month and now its back holding PR3.

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globalpro

14 years ago

Jason,

I think most of what you are experiencing is related to your 'move'. Kind of like if you were to move from one place to another and having your mail forwarded to your new address, it takes a bit to catch up with you.

Even if Google, or any of the SEs, dropped your rank, I think in time it will catch back up with things.

Thanks,

John

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schu31

14 years ago

have you carried a key word strength into your popup?
even though I don't think the pop up has much to do with it and most probably a new strategy of SEO/viral marketing may be needed for your new domain.

I hope you get a great ranking soon.

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Kevin Riley

14 years ago

Google hates the word "Moffatt". Reminds them of the Moffatts, who have been defined by Urban Dictionary as: "a bunch of transexual brothers with floppy hair who made irritatingly stupid pointless music and had a swarm of air headed girls as fans while they were around."

You may need to change your name.

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Jason Moffatt

14 years ago

Thanks for all the replies everyone. I do appreciate it, even if so many different answers just seems to confuse me further.

I was able to speak to my buddy Roy Montero who I really trust with SEO and Google issues and he believes that the loss of page rank may be due to the wrong canonical URL setting. The fix is to set the canonical URL to WWW.

When following links to my site it was eliminating the WWW from the address bar during the redirect.

I really hope this resolves the issue and my page rank comes back on the next update. If not, o well.

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CDarklock

14 years ago

Originally Posted by Jason Moffatt

When following links to my site it was eliminating the WWW from the address bar during the redirect.

Yeah, that would do it. Takes us back to the original answer of having your blog on a different subdomain; www.sitename.com is a subdomain of sitename.com, so when you moved to just sitename.com, you were on a different subdomain... no subdomain at all.

Doesn't make much of a difference, I know, but may help someone else reading the thread to understand a bit more about the subdomain thing.

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Jason Moffatt

14 years ago

Originally Posted by CDarklock

Yeah, that would do it. Takes us back to the original answer of having your blog on a different subdomain; www.sitename.com is a subdomain of sitename.com, so when you moved to just sitename.com, you were on a different subdomain... no subdomain at all.

Doesn't make much of a difference, I know, but may help someone else reading the thread to understand a bit more about the subdomain thing.

Exactly! Thanks.

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V12

14 years ago

Originally Posted by Kevin Riley

Google hates the word "Moffatt". Reminds them of the Moffatts, who have been defined by Urban Dictionary as: "a bunch of transexual brothers with floppy hair who made irritatingly stupid pointless music and had a swarm of air headed girls as fans while they were around."

You may need to change your name.

ROTFLMAO.

This explanation seems to be the easiest to understand so far so it gets my vote. Nothing personal, Jason.

Abdul.

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Lost Google Page Rank. Canonical URL Issue.

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