Merging two sites into a new one: best way?
-
Hi,
I have one small blog on a specific niche and let's call it firstsite.com (.com extension) and it's hosted on my server.
I am going to takeover a second blog on same niche but with lots more links, posts, authority and traffic. But it his on a .info domain and let's call it secondsite.info and for now it's on a different server.
I have a third domain .com where I would like join both blogs. Domain is better and reflects niche better and let's call it thirdsite.com
How should I proceed to have the best result?
I was thinking of creating a new account at my server with domain thirdsite.com
After that upload all content from secondsite.info and go to google webmaster to let they know that site now sits on a new domain. Also do a full 301 redirect. Should it be page by page or just one 301 redirect?
And finally insert posts (they are not many) from firstsite.com on thirdsite.com and do specific redirects. Is this a good option?
Or should I first move secondsite.info to my server and keep updating it and only a few weeks later make transition to thirdsite.com?
I am worried that it could be too much changes at once.
-
You will lose some link authority that comes with 301 redirects but if the new domain is worth the branding and potential gain of future backlinks, you should go for it.
As BeardoCo said, you need to replicate/recreate the posts from the first two sites onto the third and have individual, page specific redirects set up. This would conserve as much relevancy and link authority as possible.
Also take note that your traffic will most likely tank for 2 weeks while G deals with the site transition. Don't panic, rankings will return within 3 weeks.
Make sure you tell google you changed domains and set up 301 redirects as soon as you do that. Otherwise, you can get hit with a penalty for creating too many pages too quickly + content is duplicate from the other two sites.
Good luck!
-
Thanks for replying.
I would not redirect secondsite.info to homepage. I would maintain all urls so I would be just moving site to a new domain keeping all urls active. On the firstsite.com I would do redirect on each post to new post created on thirdsite.com.
And homepage of firstsite.com to thirdsite.com. But I am worried that this could hurt rankings.
-
I would take the new sites and recreate the posts with identical information. I would then redirect each old website posts permanently to the new posts on the new website. I think you would lose a lot of link juice if you were just to redirect to a homepage.
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
-
Two websites, one company, one physical address - how to make the best of it in terms of local visibility?
Hello! I have one company which will be operating in two markets, printing and website design / development. I’m planning on building two websites, each for every market. But I’m a bit confused about how to optimize these websites locally. My thought is to use my physical address for one website (build citations, get listed in directories, etc. ) and PO Box for another. Do you think there is a better idea?
Technical SEO | | VELV1 -
Should we launch a new site as responsive or mobile.
need advice - we are launching a new responsive website. one team member very vocal that we should launch as mobile. site first then take that away. I think is a waste of time .. thoughts?
Technical SEO | | AJFanter0 -
New SEO manager needs help! Currently only about 15% of our live sitemap (~4 million url e-commerce site) is actually indexed in Google. What are best practices sitemaps for big sites with a lot of changing content?
In Google Search console 4,218,017 URLs submitted 402,035 URLs indexed what is the best way to troubleshoot? What is best guidance for sitemap indexation of large sites with a lot of changing content? view?usp=sharing
Technical SEO | | Hamish_TM1 -
What is the best way to handle links that lead to a 404 page
Hi Team Moz, I am working through a site cutover with an entirely new URL structure and have a bunch of pages that could not, would not or just plain don't redirect to new pages. Steps I have taken: Multiple new sitemaps submitted with new URLs and the indexing looks solid used webmasters to remove urls with natural result listings that did not redirect and produce urls Completely built out new ppc campaigns with new URL structures contacted few major link partners Now here is my question: I have a pages that produce 404s that are linked to in forums, slick deals and stuff like that which will not be redirected. Is disavowing these links the correct thing to do?
Technical SEO | | mm9161570 -
Best way to retain banklink values when moving site?
Hi all, I want to get some opinions on what the best practice is when transferring backlink values from an old site to a new one. On the old site, I currently have a product page and this particular product has multiple models all listed on the one singe page. However on the new site, every model of this particular product has its own page. These product model pages would have relatively similar content apart from several key details which differentiates the models. Firstly would you guys recommend this splitting of models of the same product to different pages? If so, my initial thought process is to 301 redirect the old product page to the new model page that is most popular, and adding rel canonical tags to the other model pages. Would you consider this best practice? Or are there better ways I can be doing this to retain backlink values without also getting penalised due to possible content duplication? Thanks! Jac - sent from my manager's account.
Technical SEO | | RuchirP0 -
How can I redirect old URLs to new ones?
We are trying to optimize our website for search engines and one of the things we have noticed that needs to be changed are the URLs. I know how to modify the URLs but have no idea how I can get the old redirected to the new ones using 301. We have some pages ranking pretty high on Google and we can't loose this traffic. Our website is hosted on Plesk and it was coded using Cold Fusion. I do have access to the .htaccess file. Any help would be highly appreciated.
Technical SEO | | personalproducts0 -
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 -
My site ranking
Hello, I have a website and working more than 1 year ago,I worked hard last year and paid alot to make guys write articles from my website to other forums so my keywords rank high and got good visitors, then I get in much care in SEO and found SEOMoz with is very nice,when I downloaded the tool bar it was a shock to find my website is almost zero although the big effort I had, I can do more but I need to guide what I exactly need to improve my website,I almost read alot of the beginner PDF and got good information to work with and can hire people to help too. I did a real big work sharing my subjects and i can see them in top#5 google but for other sites and now i found I am still zero 😞 adding my links inside also didnt help or counted. attached the statistics of the website and the competitors site to let me know which important things to take care to jump over. would be very thankful for detailed help, Best Regards 1_01308477251.png 1_01308477465.png
Technical SEO | | nesr_20200