Cookieless subdomains Vs SEO
-
We have one .com that has all our unique content and then 25 other ccltd sites that are translated versions of the .com for each country we operate in. They are not linked together but we have href lang'd it all together.
We now want to serve up all static content of our global website (26 local country sites, .com, .co.uk, .se, etc) from one cookie-less subdomain. Benefit is speed improvement. The question is whether from an SEO perspective, can all static content come from static.domain.com or should we do one for each ccltd where it would come form static.domain.xx (where xx is localised to the domain in question)
-
Hi Aires - if I'm understanding your question correctly (content will essentially be pushed by a server connected to domain A when people visit domains B, C, D, E, F, etc behind the scenes) it sounds like you should be fine. Search engines don't much care where the content requests are going to, which is how things like CDNs work, so as long as the requests to www.domainb.de, for example, return the same content as before, you should be fine.
If, however, you're suggesting that requests that used to go to, for example, www.domainb.de, will now redirect to static.domaina.com, that's a different story and could have a substantive SEO impact (as the ccTLD benefits, and all the links/signals that help domainb.de will be lost). If you're redirecting those ccTLDs, that could have some negative impact on localization, which could be helping you out now.
I'm not sure I perfectly understood your question, but hopefully this is helpful.
Best of luck,
Rand -
I think you have the best possible answer above.
Good Luck.
-
Wow Thanks Rand, I'm a long time fan of yours! I am kind of Starstruck, learnt most of what I know from you and this site. When I was SEO Manager at The Open University I mentioned your name several times in all our board meetings.
Yes exactly, I was inquiring about the content requests, no changing of the domains. I had assumed that and even told my Boss however needed confirmation and who better to give me it.
Thank you again, would you be so kind to add me on LinkedIn so I can tease everyone in the office

Aires Loutsaris
Thanks

-
Sounds like you should be all set! Thanks for the very kind words, too, Aires
Let me know if I or Moz can ever be helpful.