WMT Change of address when moving to subdir

[piperis]

A client is moving their site that has had its own domain for years to their main domain under a subdir. So, product.com is going to brand.com/product with all pages and paths staying the same, no content is being removed.

We have 301 the old domain to brand.com/product however, should we also submit a change of address in Google's WMT? The reason I ask is because the site wont be located at brand.com but at brand.com/product and do not want to confuse Google, as the 301 redirects will not match the change of address exactly.

[Andy.Drinkwater]

The change of address in GWT only handles domain to domain moves and wouldn't understand how to handle this. If Product.com was moving to Brand.com, then you would be correct to use this then.

What you are doing using the 301's is correct.

-Andy

[piperis]

Yes, this is what I was thinking. I guess I'll just let the old WMT account for product.com just deactivate itself once it notices that validation file is no longer there.... Just feels a bit weird "not telling Google what we've done" through WMT....