Purchased biz with good URL, not sure what to do with it...
-
First, thanks in advance for any help I can get with this one. My company leads guided hiking tours in national parks all over the West. We purchased a company with a fantastic URL that focuses on our our top revenue-producing park, and they've been in business for more than 14 years, and have had that URL the whole time. Their site is horribly designed and optimized, but they do well anyways. We are absorbing his business into ours for other reasons, but keeping the name as a DBA.
I was originally planning on redesigning and optimizing the site, so we'd have 2 websites out there directing people to us. But I'm beginning to learn that's maybe not smart, even if the content is original.
So should I
1. continue with a redesign of his site and have 2 sites out there. If so, what's the minimum % of duplicate content I should shoot for?
2. do a 301 redirect to my main website - would that even help or would it nullify the benefits completely?
Again, thanks for any input!
-
Thanks again for the input! Hugely helpful!
-
....and wrote the content from scratch.
Nice work!
Even so, a duplicate content reader is saying there's 30% duplicate.
I would not worry about that at all.
Good luck with the site and the new biz.
-
Thanks so much EGOL - I appreciate the input! The reason I asked about the duplicate content is that the hikes we offer in this park will be on both sites, so there will inherently be some overlap of content. I've actually already created the new site and wrote the content from scratch. Even so, a duplicate content reader is saying there's 30% duplicate. Thought? Thanks!
-
continue with a redesign of his site and have 2 sites out there.
I would take this route. Fantastic URL.... long reputation.... ranks pretty well... you are doing a DBA.... No brainer to me.... allow it to stand with upgraded design, better optimization.
If so, what's the minimum % of duplicate content I should shoot for?
huh? minimum?
Both of these sites should be absolutely 100% unique.
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
-
Is it a good idea to direct a new url to a subfolder?
Hello everyone, I have a client who is in public relations. He is wanting to integrate SEO into his business and is hiring me to help. He purchased a domain that is separate from his existing website, but wants to keep the services and existing blog (which will include SEO) on his current site. For example, he has: www.example.com and wants to add a SEO folder which will contain our services: www.example.com/prseo the domain he purchased (as another example) is: www.prseo.com but wants to direct it to the folder he has set up @ example.com/prseo Can anyone offer advise? Is this a good idea?
Technical SEO | | visabelmedia0 -
Removed URLs
Hi all, We have recently removed 200+ articles from our blog. However, those links are still being shown on Google weeks after their removal. In there a way to speed up the process? What effect will this have on our SEO ranking?
Technical SEO | | businessowner0 -
Main vs Pointing URL Confusion
Hi, I have a new website that deals with 3 very similar businesses The main purpose of the website is to assist the consumer to search, compare and book chaffered transportation online. The 3 businesses are taxi cab hire, limo hire, party bus hire. My main domain is www.mytaxicab.co.za. I also own the domains mylimo.co.za and mypartybus.co.za. My question is, from a best practice SEO perspective, how should I set this up. Should I have one main site www.mytaxicab.co.za and have the 2 other niche domain names point in eg user types www.mypartybus.co.za and lands on www.mytaxicab.co.za/party-bus-hire or is there a better way? Any help or insite would be appreciated
Technical SEO | | chirsirwin0 -
Ok to Put a Decimal in a URL?
I'm in the process of creating new product specific URLs for my company. Some of our products have decimals in them for their names as a unit of measurement. For example - .The URL for a 050" widget would be something like: http://www.example.com/product/category/.050-inch-widget My question is - Can I use a decimal in the URL without ticking off the search engines, and/or causing any other unexpected effects?
Technical SEO | | CodyWheeler0 -
URL paths and keywords
I'm recommending some on-page optimization for a home builder building in several new home communities. The site has been through some changes in the past few months and we're almost starting over. The current URL structure is http://homebuilder.com/oakwood/features where homebuilder = builder name Oakwood Estates= name of community features = one of several sub-paths including site plan, elevations, floor plans, etc. The most attainable keyword phrases include the word 'home' and 'townname' I want to change the URL path to: http://homebuilder.com/oakwood-estates-townname-homes/features Is there any problem with doing this? It just seems to make a lot of sense. Any input would be appreciated.
Technical SEO | | mikescotty0 -
Query string in url - duplicate content?
Hi everyone I would appreciate some advice on the following. I have a page which has some nice content on but it also has a search functionality. When a search is run a querystrong is run. So i will get something like mypage.php?id=20 etc. With many different url potentials, will each query string be seen as a different page? If so i don't want duplicate content. So am i best putting canonical tags in the head tags on mypage.php ? to avoid Google seeing potential duplicate content. Many thanks for all your advice.
Technical SEO | | pauledwards0 -
Should Canonical URLs be used in Wordpress?
Wordpress offers Canonical URLs in the "All in one SEO" settings. I know that canonical tags for page content will cause the search engine to ignore the content, but I don't understand this setting in Wordpress. The Canonical URLs box for my blog had been checked until a couple weeks ago. I unchecked it (removing the canonical tag) and now I have about 300 duplicate content pages acccording to my SEOMoz reports. It appears that it's just the blog tag in the url now that is causing the confusion. Here's an example of the same url with two tags: http://www.rmtracking.com/blog/tag/aclu/ http://www.rmtracking.com/blog/tag/rfid/ Should I activate the canonical URL setting in Wordpress again. If not, how can I fix this? Your assistance is greatly appreciated. Regards, Brad
Technical SEO | | BradBorst0 -
URLs: To Change or Not to Change
Hello, We recently launched a redesigned site in Drupal in December of last year. We are an eco-travel company. My current URL's look like this: /africa-and-middle-east/kenya-tanzania /central-south-america/galapagos-islands My pages have good term targeting grades, and the rankings for the terms we are targeting - "kenya and tanzania safaris" and "galapagos islands cruises" are decent, but not great - most are on page 2 or 3. The one URL where I targeted our most important term, "amazon river cruises," I am still on page 2. /central-south-america/amazon-river-cruises My questions are: Did I miss an opportunity with the rest of the URL's, and should I consider changing the rest to more targeted terms with 301s? Since the new site launched in January, perhaps I have not given enough time for my new URL's to index and mature. Would it be easier to set up landing pages with unique article content that targets terms such as "galapagos islands cruises" and "kenya and tanzania safaris"? If so, how can I do it in such a way as to not "compete" with the pages I want to drive them to? This also raises the question of redirecting the same URL twice i.e. I would have 2 redirects in place for the same url e.g. from the former site to the new site, and yet another redirect to the most-recent URL. Is that a problem? Sorry if I've asked too many questions in one post. 😉 Any advice appreciated.
Technical SEO | | csmithal0