Here is my problem. I run an established site that ranks #20 for a very competitive keyword, call it "hats". I rank for well (top 10) for longer tail searches such as "michigan hats" and "knicks hats". I was wondering if I changed my entire site from www.mysite.com to hats.mysite.com and did a 301 from all old pages to the equivalent page on hats.mysite.com would it hurt my rankings on all the other keywords? Would it not do anything? Would it boost my rankings for all queries containing "hats"? I know this is a guess at best but I figured someone out there has tried this and can give an informed opinion...
Results will vary based on what engine we're talking about. For Google, it shouldn't matter... So long as you handle the redirect correctly. That being said, I don't see it increasing your rank either, just because "hats" is in your subdomain.
If it shouldn't hurt my ranking then I might try it... Hopefully it does help. I was just afraid that it would hurt rankings because google might view the site as brand new and I might lose any benefit my sites age has given me. (fyi my site is 3+ years old)
Good post. I am always too frightened to do something like this. Let us know what happens. Trouble is eventually the two will complete especially if you fire some juice at it and, and a few months later the sub will nuke the origional so I guess. I like the thought though. Maybe better to practice on a dummy if that is possible. The sub has obvious advantages long term.
The issue is that "Hats" are my only product and so to do this I need to do it on my main site. Anyone else have any experience/an opinion?