As you know, Google warned publishers about leasing out portion of their sites so that third-parties can piggy-back off the site's authority and trust and rank their content better. Google then began penalizing some of those sections on the web sites that are leased out in late August.
Now, Google is not just penalizing the subfolders doing this but now also the subdomains doing this.
Here is a tweet from Glenn Gabe showing how CNN's efforts to lease out subdomains is failing for some coupon partners now:
If you've been watching the leased subdomain situation, then you know that subdomains weren't impacted as much yet (and specific big sites in the US weren't either). Well, looks like that changed as of 9/5. Check out the drop for CNN's coupon subdomain. pic.twitter.com/ukuQ4hYvNJ
— Glenn Gabe (@glenngabe) September 11, 2019
Here are those traffic charts from SEM Rush - you can click to enlarge or go to the tweet:
Did you see this happen in your niche?
Forum discussion at Twitter.
Update:
Some subdomains actually saw strong growth since 9/5: https://t.co/3iy7CqVL32
— LoisH 🤘 (@theloish) September 12, 2019
