How is it possible to 301 specific pages to a new domain?
-
The old site is small, only 100 pages or so, and about 10 of them are particularly useful. I would like to 301 those 10 pages to 10 similar pages on the new site, and also 301 the other 90 pages to the new site... the new site's home page, I suppose.
Does it make sense to do this and if so how?
I think if I simply 301 the whole of the old domain to the new one, the juice will be shared among the new site's page equally which is not what I want. I know where the htaccess file is and I can 301 a page within a domain but I'm at a loss with this. Thanks for any help.
EDIT:
I'm hoping for something like this:
old.com/page_1 >> new.com/page_A
old.com/page_2 >> new.com/page_B
... and 8 more of those
And then the other 90 pages:
old.com/Remaining pages >> new.com/index
-
Glad it helped and the explanation below is nicely done.
-
Thanks Matt, that put me on the right track. I have posted a full solution is you need it anytime.
-
SOLUTION:
Options +FollowSymlinks RewriteEngine On
#redirect this type of url www.old.com/index.php?everything-after-the-question-mark to a new url
RewriteCond %{QUERY_STRING} ^everything-after-the-question-mark$ RewriteRule ^index.php$ http://www.new.com/new-page? [L,R=301]
#change the above for every specific url with a query string that you want to send to a specific url
#for capturing the rest of the site's query string urls and sending them to a single page - the home page in this example:
RewriteCond %{QUERY_STRING} ^(.*)$ RewriteRule ^index.php$ http://www.new.com? [L,R=301]
#www.old.com doesn't have a query string so needs its own 301:
Redirect 301 / http://www.new.com
-
I think the issue you are having is because you are redirecting a dynamic URL and this is what is causing the problem. There was Q&A on here regarding this ages ago I will try and find it and let you have the link - unless we have an expert that wants to step in..
Try adding a rewrite condition before a rewrite rule:
RewriteCond %{QUERY_STRING} route=product/product&product_id=51
-
For some reason it doesn't work. I've changed the fifth line below for posting here, but the four lines above it is the code that I used in the htaccess. Because it's a 1and1 server which use php4 as default, it has an extra line to use php 5, which the site has always had. The domain-to-domain 301 works ok with this extra line.
AddType x-mapp-php5 .php
Options +FollowSymlinks
RewriteEngine On
Redirect 301 /index.php?route=product/product&product_id=51 http://www.newdomain.com/new-page
-
try this below
Options +FollowSymLinks RewriteEngine on
Redirect 301 /oldpage.html http://www.newdomain.com/newpage.html ```
-
Thanks Matt
The domain-to-domain redirect works but the page-to-page doesn't, even when the page-to-page is the only instruction below "RewriteEngine on".
-
Hi - yeah place all your specific redirects first and then add you blanket redirect at the end.
-
Sorry Matt, that was a bad typo. I've changed that now... I meant 301 those 10 pages to 10 similar pages".
Thanks very much for the link. I might just have to test this with a dormant domain and see if it works, but my worry is that the command to redirect the whole domain will override the commands to redirect the individual pages.
RewriteEngine on
#I would have ten of these:
rewriterule ^index.phproute=product/product&product_id=52(.*)$ http://www.new.co.uk/products/new$1 [r=301,nc]
######## As I would prefer not to do the above for all 100 pages, I would need a way to redirect the remaining pages. I don't know if the following accomplishes this as it's simply a command to redirect the domain?
#######Options +FollowSymLinksRewriteEngine onRewriteRule (.*) http://www.new.co.uk/$1 [R=301,L]
-
Sorry my confusion - when you said "301 those 10 pages to 120 similar pages on the new site". Then your idea is correct it will be best to redirect your old page to a specific new one - I have done this successfully many times myself.
You can does this with your .htaccess - easiest way for you would be to use this:
http://www.webconfs.com/htaccess-redirect-generator.php
When using the tool you only need to initiate the rewrite engine once then just copy the last line for each url redirect:
include this only once:
Options +FollowSymlinks
RewriteEngine on
-
Hi Matt,
It will be one-to-one:
old.com/page_1 >> new.com/page_A
old.com/page_2 >> new.com/page_B
... and 8 more of those
And then the other 90 pages:
old.com/Remaining pages >> new.com/index
-
To me it doesn't make sense to redirect a page using a permanent redirect that tells the search engines the old page has moved to multiple new pages - the new page should only exist in one location from a duplicate content and link juice point of view. I think that would be an improper use of a 301 redirect. You could group pages and point the old page to the first page of each group.
Also note as far as I am aware this is not possible as a 301 redirect will send you to a single location not multiple when you type the old address, so you could point 10 pages at 120 other than creating 10 index pages which group those 120 and pointing one of the 10 original at each of them...
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
-
Creating two websites from one and building up traffic to the new domain quickly
A client has an existing successful website that sells niche products - they are well known in their marketplace. They have two sets of key customers, let's call them (a) and (b), that need addressing in different ways to maximise sales. (a) is the more specialist end of the market, where people have complex needs - there are fewer of them but repeat business is likely, and we can talk to them in more technical language. (b) is the layman's end of the market - there is a vast pool of potential customers but they'll be more casual buyers and need to be addressed more in layman's terms. So what they want to do is to take their existing website, and essentially split it into two different websites, one for each market. The one that will use the existing domain, with all the links that have built up over the years pointing to it, will be the site for the more specialist end of the market (a). The domain name suits it better, which is why he wants to use the existing domain with that site and not the other. (b) will be a brand new domain. The client will write new product descriptions across the board so that the two sets of product information are not duplicate. I'd rather he didn't do this at all, because of the risk involved, and the difficulty of building up the traffic to the new site, which is after all the one with the best chance of mass market sales. But given that the client has decided that this is definitely what he wants, does anyone have any thoughts on what the action plan should be?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | helga730 -
Can a duplicate page referencing the original page on another domain in another country using the 'canonical link' still get indexed locally?
Hi I wonder if anyone could help me on a canonical link query/indexing issue. I have given an overview, intended solution and question below. Any advice on this query will be much appreciated. Overview: I have a client who has a .com domain that includes blog content intended for the US market using the correct lang tags. The client also has a .co.uk site without a blog but looking at creating one. As the target keywords and content are relevant across both UK and US markets and not to duplicate work the client has asked would it be worthwhile centralising the blog or provide any other efficient blog site structure recommendations. Suggested solution: As the domain authority (DA) on the .com/.co.uk sites are in the 60+ it would risky moving domains/subdomain at this stage and would be a waste not to utilise the DAs that have built up on both sites. I have suggested they keep both sites and share the same content between them using a content curated WP plugin and using the 'canonical link' to reference the original source (US or UK) - so not to get duplicate content issues. My question: Let's say I'm a potential customer in the UK and i'm searching using a keyword phrase that the content that answers my query is on both the UK and US site although the US content is the original source.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | JonRayner
Will the US or UK version blog appear in UK SERPs? My gut is the UK blog will as Google will try and serve me the most appropriate version of the content and as I'm in the UK it will be this version, even though I have identified the US source using the canonical link?2 -
Landing pages, are my pages competing?
If I have identified a keyword which generates income and when searched in google my homepage comes up ranked second, should I still create a landing page based on that keyword or will it compete with my homepage and cause it to rank lower?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | The_Great_Projects0 -
Weird Google SERPs after New Domain Transfer 301
Hi, I have some very weird results in the SERPS - We did not do a complete 301 of the entire domain, but rather individual pages. We did the transfer back on 10th of June, and I was checking to see if there were any results on old domain of pages that were transferred to new domain via 301. There were, but... Now I have the following occurring in the search results: Title of Page (Links to old domain!! )
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | bjs2010
www.oldomain.com › ... › Figures & Sculptures › Tall Sculptures (these last 2 breadcrumbs link to NEW domain??!!)
Bla bla bla (meta description from new domain meta description I know it's Monday, but this one has got me quite concerned! - Any insight appreciated! Am I going nuts?0 -
Two pages on same domain - Is this a proper use of the canonical tag?
I have a domain with two pages in question--one is an article with 2,000 words and the other is a FAQ with 300 words. The 300 word FAQ is copied, word-for-word and pasted inside of the 2,000 word article. Would it be a proper use of the canonical tag to point the smaller, 300 word FAQ at the 2,000 word article? Since the 300 word article is identical to a portion of the 2,000 word article, will Google see this as duplicate content? Thanks in advance for any helpful insight.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | andrewv0 -
Should I 301 a penalized domain to another domains subfolder?
I have a niche domain seems to have been hit by Penguin. It had very good rankings before the update, and I think at least a good part of the penalty might be due to overoptimized anchor text. So here is the question; If I decide to take this site down, should I 301 the entire domain to a relevant sub-folder of another site? i.e comtemporaryfurniture.com to domain.com/category/modern-furniture.html Will the penalty get passed onto the new domain? If the penalty is partly due to anchor text, then pointing it to another site's subfolder would mean the tartget URL has more varied anchor text and could boost rankings.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | inhouseseo0 -
301 - should I redirect entire domain or page for page?
Hi, We recently enabled a 301 on our domain from our old website to our new website. On the advice of fellow mozzer's we copied the old site exactly to the new domain, then did the 301 so that the sites are identical. Question is, should we be doing the 301 as a whole domain redirect, i.e. www.oldsite.com is now > www.newsite.com, or individually setting each page, i.e. www.oldsite.com/page1 is now www.newsite.com/page1 etc for each page in our site? Remembering that both old and new sites (for now) are identical copies. Also we set the 301 about 5 days ago and have verified its working but haven't seen a single change in rank either from the old site or new - is this because Google hasn't likely re-indexed yet? Thanks, Anthony
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Grenadi0 -
How to resolve Duplicate Page Content issue for root domain & index.html?
SEOMoz returns a Duplicate Page Content error for a website's index page, with both domain.com and domain.com/index.html isted seperately. We had a rewrite in the htacess file, but for some reason this has not had an impact and we have since removed it. What's the best way (in an HTML website) to ensure all index.html links are automatically redirected to the root domain and these aren't seen as two separate pages?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | ContentWriterMicky0