Do subdomains negatively impact SEO

[Shirley.Fenlason]

If we want to eliminate one of our domains and consolidate it with our main domain by the subdomain approach, would that negatively impact our SEO? Example: change www.xyz.org to www.xyz.abcd.org,

Thanks, in advance, for your feedback.

[seoman10]

I would certainly avoid it unless you have a specific purpose.

If Google can see the site it will certainly index it.

Domain structure is only a small element of the ranking signals.

If you have links pointing to the domain you will need to set up redirects to maintain your link structure, you may lose a small amount of authority losing a 301 but not much.

Hope that helps

All the best

[julie-getonthemap]

My own experience is that subdomains don't hurt. I have several subdomains on my own site, and pages on that site are top ten in Google. Despite everything that I've read saying that a subdomain doesn't benefit from being attached to a strong domain, my experience has told me otherwise.  Perhaps it's because most SEO advice is geared to Big Biz SEO vs. Local SEO. That's why I love MOZ so much, they don't ignore the little guys.

[impactzoneco]

I think you may have some traffic loss in the short-term, but over the long term, you ought to be able to get the site traffic back up, especially if you point the old domain to the new subdomain, along with related 301 redirects for individual pages, if you keep the same or a similar site structure.

I happened to have read this earlier today.

"Keep in mind though that subdomains may not fully benefit from the link equity, positive metrics or rankings from the main domain they are associated with and vice versa, if Google thinks of them as being under separate ownership. For example, a blog on blogspot.com does not benefit from the authority of blogspot.com.

That said, if you already have content on a subdomain, it’s worth noting that the effort and consequences of moving that content to a root domain is typically not worth it, unless you spot an issue that compels you to do so.

(If you do decide to move the content from a subdomain to your main domain, a short-term loss in traffic is typical.)"

Via Moz's Top 10 newsletter: https://www.stonetemple.com/subfolders-subdomains-microsites-and-seo/

So, I think you need to fully evaluate the value of moving to a subdomain over staying on a 2nd level domain.

-- Jewel