Linking from high ranking sub domain pages to less ranking main domain pages to benefit latter

[vtmoz]

Hi all,

We have our product guide pages on sub domain which are years old, so have some backlinks and high ranking for the beand related queries. Now we created new guide pages on our main website and we want these new pages to rank top beating the old pages from sub domain. Again we can't deindex or rel canonical to solve the issue as there are some part of users still using the old pages. We are planning to give a link from every old page of sub domain to same new page on main domain. Will this linking increases the authority of new pages technically and helps in ranking better? Like we give a link to "Moz guide 1" page to "Moz guide 2" page to rank latter better.

Thanks

[Linda-Vassily]

First, why can't you canonicalize the old subdomain pages to the new ones? It won't affect people who are using those old pages since the old pages will still be available. Canonicalization only affects search (unlike 301 redirects, which would make the old pages unavailable).

Links from a higher ranked page to a lower ranked page will help the lower ranked page, but if what you want is to have the new pages beat the old pages, this won't do it.

[vtmoz]

Hi Linda,

Thanks for the suggestion. Below are the questions I have if we canonicalize:

1. Still there are people Google for them, how they land on these pages?

2. If we still proceed, there are many backlinks for the old pages, does that PR or link juice will be passed to new pages?

3. What if we canonicalize and link from new pages to old pages as there might be few users looking for old pages but landed on new pages.

Thanks

[Linda-Vassily]

You have to decide how important the new pages are compared to the old ones.

If you really want the new pages to beat the old pages, you should 301 the old pages to the new ones. (You could even make another new page, "old guides," that you could link to from the new page, if there is enough demand for the old guides.)

1. If you are trying to move authority away from the old pages and onto the new pages, the old pages won't be as findable in search. You have to decide whether this is important.

2. Yes, canonicals do pass page rank though (as with many things in SEO) there is debate about the details.

3. Yes, you could do that, but it is sending Google mixed messages. First you tell them to ignore the old page and look at the new page, but then the new page points to the page you said to ignore. (Take a look at Pete Meyers' Whiteboard Friday for more on this.) The other problem with this approach is that the old content would still be out there, potentially getting links or other recognition that you'd rather have for the new page. (Even though page authority can be passed in various ways, you always lose something during transfer.)