Changing URL to a subdomain?

[mjmaxwell]

Hi there,

I had a website www.footballshirtcollective.com that has been live since July.  It contains both content and eCommerce.

I am now separating out the content so that;

1.  The master domain is www.footballshirtcollective.com (content) pointing to a new site

2.  Subdomain is store.footballshirtcollective.com (ecommerce) - pointing to the existing site.

What do you advise I can do to minimise the impact on my search?

Many thanks

Mike

[eLab_London]

Hi Mike,

I personally wouldn't use a subdomain for this. I would just separate my site out as it is under one URL. I don't like using subdomains and probably would try to avoid it, I have yet to read a success story when using them.

If you design your site well then I don't see why you cant host both under one domain, what was your reason for using them in the first place?

Good luck!

[eLab_London]

Just on this using a sub folder may be a better option.

[mjmaxwell]

Hi. Thanks for the answer.

I had to seperate them as I have advertisers interested in advertising on the content but they wouldn't on the ecommerce site.

How would I set up the subfolder?   How long do you think it'll take to build organic search to the site again?

Thanks

Mike

[dohertyjf]

Hi there -

This is a pretty common setup for ecommerce sites with both content and products. Of course, I'd always recommend doing something like www.footballshirtcollective.com/store/ with your product URLs there, which would likely allow you to exclude advertisers/advertising from those pages.

If you do want to use the subdomain and are already committed to that, then there are definitely ways to make it work very well for SEO.

A subdomain is basically a separate website. You need to do everything for it that you would do for the www subdomain (www is technically a subdomain, after all), including but not limited to:

• Verify in Search Console
• Have GA set up
• Crawlable site structure
• Sitemaps
• Well-formatted URLs (lowercase, hyphens, etc)

Since you are moving the URLs from www to store., you also need to implement direct and correct 1:1 301 redirects from the www. to the store. URLs. DO NOT do a blanket redirect of all the current ecomm www URLs to the base of store.footballshirtcollective.com.

Hope that helps!

Self-promotion - if you're looking for help with migrating your content between platforms, I have people on Credo who can help you - https://www.getcredo.com/bizverticals/ecommerce-platform-migrations/

[mjmaxwell]

Thanks John - that's really helpful.

Do you know how I go about setting the eCommerce site as www.footballshirtcollective.com/store?

Many thanks

Mike

[dohertyjf]

Hey Mike, that's all going to depend on which ecommerce shop you're using and if they are able to do a reverse proxy like that. Otherwise, subdomain is how you need to go.

[mjmaxwell]

Cool thanks

[SeoSheikh]

If it's an off the shelf store software that you're using, they mostly let you choose the location that you want your store to sit in, so be sure to check that out.

Alex