Best way to handle SEO error, linking from one site to another same IP
-
We committed an SEO sin and created a site with links back to our primary website. Although it does not matter, the site was not created for that purpose, it is actually "directory" with categorized links to thousands of culinary sites, and ours are some of the links.
This occurred back in May 2010. Starting April 2011 we started seeing a large drop in page views. It dropped again in October 2011. At this point our traffic is down over 40%
Although we don't know for sure if this has anything to do with it, we know it is best to remove the links.
The question is, given its a bad practice what is the best fix? Should we redirect the 2nd domain to the main or just take it down? The 2nd domain does not have much page rank and I really don't think many if any back-links to it.
Will it hurt us more to lose the 1600 or so back links? I would think keeping the links is a bad idea.
Thanks for your advice!
-
Maybe just a little more confused <g> Thanks for the assist.</g>
The 2 sites are quite related as to the nature of the content. Perhaps doing a domain 301 redirect might be the best choice.
We're flying blind here. Clearly traffic dropped significantly but we're out here trying to fix what we are not even sure is broken.
-
Thank you. There are 2 separate sites, both owned by us. There are about 1600 links from the "directory" site, back to our main site.
-
Redirecting one site to another when the two sites are not highly related doesn't help SEO in a major way. And if there is or was ever any real value to the directory, if people type that domain and end up on your site but don't get redirected to another directory (or at the very least a new custom page that explains why they were redirected and thus that new custom page at least has content related to the topic of that directory), it will be confusing to them and that in turn would not help SEO either.
Given your situation, if you set up such a page, don't communicate in that description the reason you shared here about why the site was created, because that's not necessary. Instead, just describe what the directory was focused on overall. And explain that you hope to one day resurrect the directory on this site, but in the mean time, hope visitors will find your site helpful...
(In other words, use marketing spin to make it sound all positive all around, while keeping topical focus on target to match the value of the 301 from an SEO perspective)
Did that make sense or did I just confuse you further?
-
Just speaking to the very last part of your question and hoping I understand you correctly: it will not hurt you to lose those 1,600 backlinks if they're all from the same site that is actually your site. Changes are, Google is already discounting them. And if it's not, it will only be like losing one link, not 1,600, because all the links are from the same site and are not giving you any kind of extra boost.
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
-
Free tool, and it ranks well for adult sites and checking if they are down, will that hurt us with ranking for normal sites with google?
Hi all, We rank for searches around "is youporn down" and similar because we provide a free tool to check if a website is up or down: https://downforeveryoneorjustme.com/youporn I am worried that ranking for these adult searches is hurting us with ranking for things like "is reddit down", thoughts? I'd appreciate some input!
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | bwb0 -
Exchange link from sites in same google account
Hi everyone, Anybody have experience when you have some websites which stored in Google Webmaster Tool and they exchange links between sites. So is it good for sites? We are hosted on different server. Thank you so much
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | Jeepster0 -
Linking my pages
Hello everybody, i have a small dilemma and i am not shore what to do. I am (my company) the owner of 10 e-commerce web sites. On every site i have a link too the other 9 sites and i am using an exact keyvoerd (not the shop name).Since the web stores are big and have over a 1000 pages, this means thet all my sites have a lot off inbound links (compared with my competiton). I am woried that linking them all together could be bad from Googles point of wiev. Can this couse a problem for me, should i shange it? Regardes, Marko
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | Spletnafuzija0 -
One of my outbound links website go hit by panda!
Hi mozzers, today I received a message from one of my blogger partners announcing me that he got hit by panda. 2 weeks ago I had him placing 2 anchors one in our main domain and a second one on our subdomain. I know panda focuses essentially on dups and I have paid attention to our webmaster tools to make sure we haven t got any messages Which we re good with. What do you guys suggest, will this affect us at some point or we re good? also in case that we re good will panda affect the blogger's authority therefore ours? if yes I should probably remove them, right? Thanks
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | Ideas-Money-Art0 -
Will my association's network of sites get penalized for link farming?
Before beginning I found these similar topics here: http://www.seomoz.org/q/multiple-domains-on-same-ip-address-same-niche-but-different-locations http://www.seomoz.org/q/multiple-domains-on-1-ip-address We manage over two dozen dental sites that are individually owned through out the US. All these dentists are in a dental association which we also run and are featured on (http://www.acedentalresource.com/). Part of the dental associations core is sharing information to make them better dentists and to help their patients which in addition to their education, is why they are considered to be some of the best dentists in the world. As such, we build links from what we consider to be valuable content between the sites. Some sites are on different IPs and C-Blocks, some are not. Given the fact that each site is only promoting the dentist at that brick and mortar location but also has "follow" links to other dentists' content in the network we fear that we are in the grey area of link building practices. Questions are: Is there an effective way to utilize the power of the network if quality content is being shared? What risks are we facing given our network? Should each site be on a different IP? Would having some of our sites on different servers make our backlinks more valuable than having all of our sites under the same server? If it is decided that having unique IPs is best practice, would it be obvious that we made the switch? Keep in mind that ALL sites are involved in the association, so naturally they would be linking to each other, and the main resource website mentioned above. Thanks for your input!
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | DigitalElevator0 -
Site Maps
I have provided a site maps for google but although it craws my site www.irishnews.com at 6:45AM the details in the site map are not seen on google for a few days - any ideas how to get this feature working better would be great. example <url><loc>http://www.irishnews.com/news.aspx?storyId=1126126</loc>
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | Liammcmullen
<priority>1</priority>
<lastmod>2012-01-23</lastmod>
<changefreq>never</changefreq></url> thanks0 -
Over optimization penalty on the way
Matt Cutts has just anouced that they are bringing in a penalty for over optimized sites, to try and reward good content. http://searchengineland.com/too-much-seo-google%e2%80%99s-working-on-an-%e2%80%9cover-optimization%e2%80%9d-penalty-for-that-115627?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=feed-main
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | AlanMosley3 -
If a site is punished by google like -30, or -60, are the link from that site efficient?
Like this way, if I build a blog and in some situation, the blog is punished by google as some reason I don't know, all the rank dropped and got the -30 punishment. If I put a outbound link on the sidebar, or footer position. what it'll be for that link? A is punished, a link is put on the A website and link to B website what that link means to B punished got many ways Thank you
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | yifang01230