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    Internal linking to subdomains

    Technical SEO Issues
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    • ngw
      ngw last edited by

      Hi *, I have a main site called example.org, and a lot of user generated pages to foo.example.org / bar.example.org and so on.

      Most of those pages link back to example.org.

      In example.org I have a page that links to all subdomains.

      How can I optimize the pagerank of the list page? Should I add nofollow to subdomain sites to avoid passing link juice to those sites and keep normal linking from subdomain sites?

      1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
      • RyanKent
        RyanKent last edited by

        As a rule, never add "nofollow" to internal links. Your page rank flows TO the link whether it is followed or not. When you add the "nofollow" tag, you stop the PR from flowing FROM the link and it simply dies.

        seoug_2005 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 2
        • seoug_2005
          seoug_2005 @RyanKent last edited by

          Will you please clarify " Your page rank flows TO the link whether it is followed or not". I thought that if we add rel=nofollow, the pagerank does not flows to the target page.

          RyanKent ngw 3 Replies Last reply Reply Quote 0
          • RyanKent
            RyanKent @seoug_2005 last edited by

            That is correct. PR from a nofollowed link does not flow to the target page. It does not flow anywhere and dies on the existing page.

            1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
            • ngw
              ngw @seoug_2005 last edited by

              Yes, but from what I understood subdomains are not always considered internal links, that's why I asked.

              I thought that having a lot of subdomains linking TO a page but not receiving any pagerank FROM that page would be beneficial to the listing page.

              1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
              • RyanKent
                RyanKent @seoug_2005 last edited by

                It's true that subdomains are not internal links. But if they are your subdomains they are trusted links.

                When you place a link, your PR from that page will automatically flow to it. The only question you have to answer is, now that the link juice has been spent, do you want the link's target to benefit from the link and let your PR to flow to the page?

                Can you share a context of where or why you think it would be beneficial to use nofollow on a link to one of your subdomains?

                1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
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