When you create a new project in the SEO Tool, you’re asked to provide a host for your primary site and also for your competitors. Typically, SEOs will elect to track the www or non-www version (root domain) of their website and their competitors.
But, what do you do if your site, or one or more of its competitors, employs multiple subdomains that you also want to monitor?
In layman's terms, a subdomain is a child domain of a larger parent domain. Subdomains are created to organise and navigate to different sections of a website that have extensive content or are different thematically! These are treated as separate entities but are linked together under the same site.
How to track your subdomains:
Once you have entered a domain, simply go to “Settings” and "Domains" and you will see the primary host you have entered for your site and the competitors. Click on the "Edit" pen!
There are three different options for tracking domains/ sub-domains:
1. The primary domain with no sub-domain (e.g. This just tracks the www and non-www versions of a domain)
2. The primary domain and all subdomains (e.g. This is a wildcard query: *.example.com)
3. The primary domain and multiple specific sub-domains (e.g. You can specify the subdomains you are interested in, e.g. .mobile.example.com; new.example.com; example.example.com)
Let's take a look at each one!
1. The primary domain with no sub-domain - In this case the platform settings will be as follows, with keyword rankings being displayed for the primary domain (we treat 'www' as a special case - so we will track the 'www' and root domain).
2. The primary domain and all sub-domains - Simply select "specify sub-domains that can be considered as ranking for this domain" and enter in the sub-domain as follows to monitor the primary host ('www' and 'non-www') and all its subdomains:
3. The primary domain and multiple specific sub-domains - Simply select "specify sub-domains that can be considered as ranking for this domain" and enter in the multiple sub-domains to be included, as follows to monitor the primary host ('www' and 'non-www') and these specific subdomains only:
Repeat the process for your competitors to also track subdomains for competing sites.
⚠️ Remember, the subdomain positions will be updated on your next keyword rank check. These changes will also be reflected in other modules that use keyword ranking data such as Project Visibility.
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