Will rankings for my micro site rank better if I 301 redirect it to my main site?
-
This is my first time asking so I will try to be as clear as possible.
Ok, I have a micro site that is an (exact match domain) and the domain is a couple 3-4 years old and ranks very well for several search terms. The main two terms it ranks for are like this.
houses for rent in XXXXX
XXXXX homes for rent
(XXXXX equals a city name)
The issue is this site has no backlinks, zero advanced SEO, I only did basic optimization to it when i set the site up. Even site structure, url structure all are not good.
The only page I have ever even seen rank is the main root url. But with all that the site does really good in the top 1-2 results for key search terms.Now, I have a main site that is a very big site that has steadily been climbing in search terms every month with great backlinks, optimized for the city and all.
It currently ranks on second page for the listed search terms listed above.What I want to do is 301 redirect this microsite to my city page on my main site that is much better optimized for the key city terms.
The 301 redirect would point this "root domain" (mymicrosite.com) to my city page that looks like this.www.mymaindomain.com/city/XXXXXXX
If I do this will Google rank my main URL city page as well as it ranks this microsite with zero links, seo, etc, etc. What happens if it does not? Will I be able to turn off the 301 redirect and keep the microsite rankings?
My main reason for wanting this is I want this city page to rank well and I only want to optimize one site instead of both.
Any help would be great!
-
Glad to help Robbie and it is great to get a report back on what happened. Thanks so much.
-
Robert,
Thanks for your help and great input for this issue. The 301 redirect so far worked just as I expected it would. Actually after the redirect the new site ranks better than the old site.
One thing I have heard many times is a "301 redirect does not transfer rankings" Well now I have solid proof that this statement is totally incorrect. Because as of today my 301 redirect has launched my target page to page one and ranks better than the old site.
Either way I do appreciate your time and input for this topic.
Thanks!
-
Thank Robert,
Your first paragraph may have answered my question. Although I have seen this proved completely wrong a few years ago when a major competitor was bought out and they did 301 redirects and it did rank them for the terms for the site that they bought.
The only reason I do not post my url's publicly is our competitors do use SEOmoz so I keep it private. I will send you a private message so you can see the urls directly.
-
A 301 redirect does not transfer rankings. So if your home page on micro site is ranked first for a given term, it does not mean a 301 will get you ranked first for that term.
You have to compare the sites two pages (it sounds as if you are saying home page to home page). If one is ranking first for a term XYZ rental and the other is not, what are the content differences, title tag & other on page differences, etc. Have you looked at Google analytics to see if there is info there? Etc.I would suggest putting the two url's out there and letting a mozzer assist. Or use your private question and get one of the associates to help (they are quite knowledgeable and like what they do - or are great actors!). You get one private question a monty.
Many people get worried that if they put their site URL's up someone is in someway going to learn from you ,etc and get ahead of you. It is really quite the opposite: You ask questions that you think you should know already and someone comes along who has been there and helps you out. Occasionally, there is an incorrect or incomplete answer and someone comes along and corrects the answer (I know, I have had some corrective assistance to a couple of answers I gave... but I manned up and thanked them If the sites are a client site as opposed to an owned site that is a bit different. But I have clients that allow me to post information about some of their sites and I do.
I have yet to see perfection in the SEO world. I have found some pretty smart people here though.
-
Thanks for the reply Robert.
The main reason I think personally my main site will rank better for these search terms is the microsite is a city specific site and pretty small with no back links or content other than listings so i will not suffer any loss there.
So I want to take this city specific site that currently ranks on first page of Google for many terms and redirect it to my city specific page on my main site. The microsite does not get any traffic to internal pages so I think redirecting the main URL of it to the city specific page on my main site should transfer the page #1 rankings to my main site. I think i will just try it and see what happens.
-
Robbie,
The 301 redirect would point this "root domain" (mymicrosite.com) to www.mymaindomain.com/city/XXXXXXX
The key to this redirect is that you want to insure you 301 each url on the micro site to a specific url on the main site. You want to do this in the .htaccess file. You don't redirect the root domain to root domain.
Also you state the "site has no back links, no advance SEO", does it have any DA/PA? If the site has a PA 1, DA of 7 for example, I do not see where it will help you. When you redirect, you are trying to move the links to the main site so that you maintain that link juice to the new site (you will lose a bit 5 to10%). This way, when you change a domain name, sell a business, etc. you do not need to try to go to each site linking to the "old" site and ask them to link to the new.
With "what happens if it doesn't work, can I change back?" While I cannot say I have ever tried to, I can tell you that I have done a few redirects of sites and I always watched the old site to see if it lost value and the other gained.
I have a site we did a full redirect to new site in late August. When we initially did it, the old site home page had a PA 44 and a DA of 39, the new had PA 1 and DA 1. Today 3.5 months later Old site is PA 33 DA 31 and new site is PA 44 DA 33. The big difference is there are only two links showing for the old site now.
Since we handle a lot of Real Estate business, one thing you want to be sure of is that your Google Places and Bing Bus. Portal, Yahoo Local. Have the new site if at all possible. It may be fine for a short run, but you will gain more from having a correct, thorough local presence. Do the same with any citation sites.
Good Luck.
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
Trailing slash on the main website - do i need a 301 ? Is my 301 correct?
Hello, Im a bit confused. If i use a tool like majestic to look at my website links, www.example.com and www.example.com**/ have huge difference in their authority.** Do i need to make a 301 redirect to the site with the splash or not? Will google itself understand that they are my main site? Is this the "http://www.website.com.com/"/> correct canonical? Meaning it has trailing splash and also RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^www.example.com [NC]
Technical SEO | | advertisingcloud
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ http://example.com/$1 [L,R=301] - this one has trailing splash, correct?0 -
How best to fix 301 redirect problems
Hi all Wondering if anyone could help out with this one. Roger Bot crawler has just performed it's weekly error crawl on my site and I appear to have 18,613 temp redirect problems!! Rather, the same 1 problem 18,613 times. My site is a magento store and the errors it is giving me is due to the wishlist feature on the site. For example, it is trying to crawl links such as index.php/wishlist/index/add/product/29416/form_key/DBDSNAJOfP2YGgfW (which would normally add the item to one's wishlist). However, because Roger isn't logged into the website it means that all these requests are being sent to the login url with the page title of Please Enable Cookies. Would the best way to fix this be to enable wishlists for guests? I would rather not do that but cannot think of another way of fixing it. Any other Magento people come across this issue? Thanks, Carl
Technical SEO | | daedriccarl0 -
How do sites manage to rank better with no fresh content
hi, trying to work out why there are lots of sites that are ranking better than me. Our site www.in2town.co.uk has always been on the first page and for a long time we were number one in google for the term lifestyle magazine as well as being on the first page for other keywords. Our site is www.in2town.co.uk We had a site upgrade a few months ago and since then we have seen our rankings have dropped like a lead balloon. I do not understand why sites such as the following seem to rank better than me for the word lifestyle magazine http://www.lifestyle.org/ http://www.24sevenlifestyle.com/ http://www.lifestylesmagazine.com/website/ http://motabilitylifestyle.co.uk/ http://www.alifestylemagazine.com/ if anyone can help me understand what i am doing wrong and why my rankings have gone out of the window then it would be a huge help.
Technical SEO | | ClaireH-1848860 -
How does this rank? - a page that is 301 redirected
How does a 301ed page rank in google? In google I searched for" ikea.ca" which is set up as a 301 redirect to www.ikea.com/ca/en and was surprised to see the url --> www.ikea.ca actually ranking. IKEA Canada <cite>ikea.ca/</cite>IKEA Featuring Scandinavian modern style furniture and accessories. Include storage options, lighting, decor products, kitchen appliances and beds. Bedroom - Kitchen - Living Room - IKEA North York
Technical SEO | | Morris770 -
301 Redirect Questions
I have a site I built on a wisiwig editing platform that will not allow a 301 redirect. The site has already been remade and I need to point it to another domain. To do the redirect, can I change it to another domain host that will allow a 301 or will that make me loose the authority of the site? I may not be able to move the content of the site. Please help.
Technical SEO | | photoseo10 -
Is it a good idea to make 301 from a site which you know google has banned certain keywords for to a new site with similar content
Here is a short question re. 301. I read Dovers article on how to move an old domain to a new one. Say you have been a little inexperienced regarding linkbuilding and used some cheap service in the past and you have steadily seen that certain keywords have been depreciating in the SERP - however the PR is still 3 for the domain - now the qustion is should you rediect with a 301 in .htaccess to a new domain when you know that google does not like certain keywords with respect to the old site. Will the doom and gloom carry over to the new site?
Technical SEO | | Kofoed0 -
Looking for some help adding a 301 redirect for my Site
Hi there, I am trying to eliminate the 'www' using a 301 redirect script as I have duplicate page titles for both versions (with and without the 'www') I checked the page authority and found the pages without the 'www' to be ranked higher. For this reason I believe it would be wise to go for this option. I have an .htaccess file, all I need is the code and I should be ok 🙂 Thanks!
Technical SEO | | debeenus0 -
Will 301 redirecting a site multiple times still preserve the original site value?
Hi, All! If site www.abc.com was already 301 redirected to site www.def.com, and now the site owner wants to redirect www.def.com to www.ghi.com - is there any concern that it's not going to work, and some of the original linkjuice, rank, trust, etc. is going to vanish? Or as long as the 301s are set up right, should you be able to 301 indefinitely? Does anyone have any experience with actually doing this and seeing good/bad/neutral results? Thanks in advance! -Aviva B
Technical SEO | | debi_zyx0