Google Treats Subdomains As Internal To The Domain In Webmaster Tools

Aug 17, 2012 - 7:58 am 10 by

Google Webmaster ToolsBack just about a year ago, we covered a change on how webmaster tools handles subdomains. I since forgot about that and now I see John Mueller from Google explaining it again in a Google Webmaster Help thread.

In summary, even though for ranking purposes, Google may not treat a subdomain as part of the internal main domain - Google Webmaster Tools generally does.

John Mueller said in the thread:

In Webmaster Tools we generally treat data from subdomains as being internal with regards to the domain name. With regards to creating a site structure with subdomains or sub-subdomains, we generally leave that to the webmaster :) (though as with other infinite spaces, we discourage the use of wildcard subdomains).

Just a reminder, Google Webmaster Tools and Google's algorithms may treat things different.

Forum discussion at Google Webmaster Help.

 

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