Help needed interpreting inbound link analysis please

[Warren_33]

Hi

I am trying to determine how effective our store blog is and am trying to analyse the inbound links it provides to our store domain but am confused with the results, can anyone help please?

For information the blog is on a subdomain of the store site, has plenty of relevant original content, and has been regularly updated over several years in line with basic Yoast SEO best practice.

When I look at analysis of inbound links and linking domains for the store site in Moz Pro, the blog subdomain does not show as providing any inbound links.

Google Search Console shows similar results, with no inbound links to the store domain showing from the blog subdomain in either 'search traffic > links to your site', or 'search traffic > inbound links'.

Open Site Explorer for the store domain also shows no inbound links from the blog subdomain to the store with 'link source > only external' selected.

But if I change to 'link source > only internal' then all of the inbound links from the blog subdomain to the main store that I would expect to see appear.

Should I be concerned by the fact I can only find these inbound links under this one specific search and not in any of the others?

Does this suggest a problem in the passing of any current and future SEO benefit from subdomain blog to main domain?

Or should I not worry about it too much?

I am looking to begin a full overhaul of all SEO for the store and blog from the ground up and want to be sure the connections between the blog subdomain and store are functioning properly before I start.

Any help in unpicking this would be really appreciated

Thanks very much

[RobCairns]

Hello!

Great question and one many SEO's still struggle with.

Here's a great article I read recently on just this topic - it covers a lot, but the first thing it tackles is the use of subfolders vs. subdomains when creating blogs for ranking primary domains (your situation).

http://seopressor.com/blog/subdomain-vs-subfolder/

Personally I think there are benefits and problems with creating a subdomain for SEO purposes to boost rankings of a primary site. What you are describing in terms of what your analytics is showing makes sense - the subdomain still acts as part of your primary domain when it comes to passing on links, but it ranks on its own as subdomains do. Therefore, the SEO of your site is not going to be improved as much by a blog on a subdomain as it might as part of a subfolder.

(i.e. example.com/blog is a better way to go than blog.example.com when it comes to pure link juice and SEO)

In fact, the way you currently have it set up, you may be shooting yourself in the foot since the link juice that is passed from your subdomain will be reduced, and only your blog will rank organically, meaning people might not even make it to your store (as you have created a barrier from a UX perspective, requiring them to browse through a middle point to get there).

You might look at migrating everything to a subfolder instead of using a subdomain, although I would be cautious of this approach if you have a ton of content on your subdomain currently. Here's a post from a while back where Rand spoke to this procedure:

https://moz.com/blog/subdomains-vs-subfolders-rel-canonical-vs-301-how-to-structure-links-optimally-for-seo-whiteboard-friday

While some things have changed, this is still pretty solid advice. As a general rule, I try to show my clients the value of subfolder blogs for primary domain ranking purposes, and will only move forward with a blog on a subdomain if there is an extremely good reason.

Hope this helps and feel free to reach out if you want to discuss further.

Cheers,

Rob

[Warren_33]

Hi Rob, thanks for the in-depth answer and resources, very helpful

I would love to shift our blog to a subfolder, but this may cause problems too. This is because our main store site is built with BigCommerce, meaning the only option to get the blog into a subfolder there is using BigCommerce's built-in blog functionality.

Good news: we have all of our blog content in a subfolder

Bad news: SEO functionality of the BigCommerce blog is average at best. Layout, navigation and UX is poor

Do you think the pros outweigh the cons?

The other alternative is to rebuild the store from the ground up for ecommerce and blogging and bring everything under one domain that way in a site optimised for both.

This is likely beyond our budget right now however. I don't see this being realistically possible for another 12 months. In the meantime I am searching for the best way to maximise the assets we have (blog, main site, etc) for max SEO benefit and growth over the next year.

All thoughts and advice greatly appreciated!

[RobCairns]

A lack of blog functionality can be an issue, but only if you are counting on your blog content to generate interest in your products/services. If you are only using your blog as a ranking mechanism for your store, and don't need your visitors to go there in order to influence them into a buying situation, I wouldn't be terribly worried about how UX-friendly your blog is. In this case, the pros definitely outweigh the cons in terms of switching over.

However, if your blog is very interactive and your products  require review videos or "how-to's" to help potential customers make a purchase decision, then it is probably a better idea to retain a UX-friendly blog platform and forego the ranking benefits.

Rebuilding the site is likely the best option in light of the information you have provided, although if resources are tight this may not be an option. If you would like, I can take a closer look at your site - feel free to shoot me a PM and we can take a look at steps you might take to improve your SEO as cost-efficiently as possible.

Cheers,

Rob

[Warren_33]

Hi Rob

That's a big sway in favour of shifting to the subfolder, and will absolutely take you up on your offer via PM, thanks very much