Root Domain -or- Subdomain Metrics: how about the www versions?

[GregB123]

I am totally stumped by how Moz regards Root Domains vs Subdomains. Help?

Root Domain is pretty easy, it just has nothing in front of it. Like  mysite.com

Subdomains appear to be totally undefined. This is especially vague in the "Competitive" sections. That's "Competitive Domain Analysis" in Moz Pro, and "Competitive Link Metrics" in Moz Analytics. In both I can see the comparisons on either the Domain (root) Level or the Subdomain level. But neither tell which Subdomain they are providing data about!

Is it www.mysite.com? Or is it store.mysite.com? Or is it blog.mysite.com? Or is it ????

I believe that SEO best practice is to choose to use either mysite.com or www.mysite.com and redirect everything to that version. But Moz Analytics does not let you enter www.mysite.com when setting up a Campaign (it strips off the www). Fortunately Moz Pro does let you set up a campaign for www.mysite.com

But (as far as I can tell) neither program will let choose to enter your competitors by their preferred URL, meaning as competitor.com or www.competitor.com or store.competitor.com - and from looking at my campaign data I think we really should be allowed to do so. The comparisons are quite different when looking at Domain or Subdomain level because some competitors redirect everything to the www version (like I do) and some don't. Right now we are comparing apples to oranges to mystery fruit (since we do not know what subdomain the Moz data is for)

I don't mean this to be a rant. But has anybody else noticed this? Or am I just totally off-center here and missing some important insight?

[GregB123]

Re-reading my post, part of it seemed unclear...

What I think would be wise would be if the "Competitive" section let you choose exactly what URL structure to use when comparing yourself to competitors.  Then you could look at the search results to see if your competitor normally appears as a root domain or a subdomain, and compare them as such. Like this...

www.mysite.com -vs- store.competitor001.net -vs- competitor002.com -vs- www.competitor003.com

There could also be a tab to compare all 4 at the root domain, but it seems much more valuable to compare them using the URL structure that actually appears in the search results.

Then we would really be comparing apples to apples

[RobertFisher]

Gregory,

Not a problem,

When you are setting up a campaign, if you look it will explain each. Do not worry about the www. non www version of a root domain. If you have set it correctly, it is going to track the preferred domain.

On the competitive data, if you have put in a competitor as www.competitor.com, but they have a preferred domain of competitor.com, that will give you the correct data. If they have not done the 301 or selected a preferred domain, you would actually need to have both in. A way to check that you are getting the correct data is to run the competitor in OSE just to reassure yourself.

When putting in a competitor, assuming they were using a subdomain like selling.goodstuff.com, you can enter that in and it will be accepted.

So, the biggest issue you should be seeing is assuming a competitor did not do the canonical redirect/preferred domain, then to have absolute data you would need to track them as each. Personally, I would track the strongest of the two and not worry re the other.

I hope this helps you out, good seeing you on the Q&A

Robert

Edit to add screen shot

9Zs6cIG.png

[GregB123]

Hi Robert,

Your attached image seems to be for Moz Pro, which works a little better for this subdomain issue. The Moz Help Desk folks have told me that there is a problem with Moz Analytics not using the www subdomain (it gets stripped off) and that they are working on it.

But the "Competitive" sections are not fixed by putting in the competitor's preferred subdomains. This is because the output on the Competitive Analysis page still re-arranges them to either lump all the Root Domains together or lump all the Subdomains together - but never a mix of the four preferred domains (1 being the user's domain and the other 3 being the competitor's domain).

[RobertFisher]

I went into Moz analytics and can set up a campaign (already have them set) with or without the www. I am assuming (see image) that at some point if you have both for competitors somehow it is overriding and you are getting either/or?

My question would be as to the overall result, are you seeing something that is incorrect? So, even if it strips out the www, when you compare the results in OSE, are they different?

Have you tried a subdomain competitor like sell.stuff.com? Or, is it just re the www/non www? With mine, where I know a competitor has the non but www is showing, the results are not incorrect; that is why I ask.

Best, and this is interesting.

Robert

RwzyAOT.png fO8O2ZB.png

[GregB123]

Robert wrote: "I went into Moz analytics and can set up a campaign (already have them set) with or without the www."

I wish I could   The Help Desk folks took a look at my account and wrote back "You are absolutely correct. The www is supposed to be displayed in your campaign settings so this is definitely a bug. I will have our engineers look into this and will let you know what I find out"  Maybe it's just me...

Robert wrote: "My question would be as to the overall result, are you seeing something that is incorrect? So, even if it strips out the www, when you compare the results in OSE, are they different? "

Oh yeah. I will (hopefully) attach a picture below showing the Moz Analytics / Competitive Link Metrics for one of my sites. Hopefully you can see that there are huge differences depending on if it is displaying the root domain or the subdomain.

When I look at the Google search results, it appears that we all use the www or store subdomain - which appears to be weaker than the root domain results for all of us.

Maybe I should change all my 301 redirects to the root domain version?

domain-vs-subdomain.jpg

[RobertFisher]

I am guessing that when I set up mine the bug was absent and hence, I have both (or at least campaigns with the www and some without - none with a mix). That might be helpful in them finding the bug...or not. 
I have to say you found a good one Greg.

And, it is obvious the change is germain based on the images you have.

I think you should get a T-shirt for this one!!!

Best and I am impressed at how you've gone through this. You are more than a seller of planting implements and cool dryers by far my friend!

Robert

[GregB123]

Note to Moz Staff:  I wear a medium shirt

It would be a cool thing to wear to my weekly 1 Million Cups local entrepreneur meeting

[GregB123]

Wow! They actually sent me a shirt.

Thanks Moz staff!