Redirect issue launching duplicate product categories on another TLD
-
Dear Mozzerz
We run this e-commerce website (superstar.dk) where we are selling all different kinds of wristwatches from different brand names (Casio, Garmin, Suunto etc). We just bought another website selling watches (xxx.com) and therefore we would like to move some of the content from superstar.dk to the new website xxx.com, making superstar.dk into a more niche website. So we are basically taking a brand with all the products in it and shutting it down on superstar.dk and instead launching it on xxx.com. Superstar.dk will still be running, just with a more niche product- and brand selection.
So my question is, should we redirect all the old product categories that we are shutting down to the new website on another TLD where we are opening them again and the same for the products (e.g. superstar.dk/garmin -> xxx.com/garmin)? Or would it be better to keep the redirects within the same website/TLD (e.g. superstar.dk/garmin -> superstar.dk)?
A few examples:
superstar.dk/garmin -> xxx.com/garmin
superstar.dk/suunto -> xxx.com/suunto
etc..
superstar.dk/product1 -> xxx.com/product1
superstar.dk/product2 -> xxx.com/product2
etc. -
That would point the most authority at the home page, but isn't the best user experience. Our concern is that Google monitors how people use 301s in terms of how it affects user experience and whether the redirection was done purely for SEO purposes. However, if you can do that without confusion, it would be a good option.
-
Wouldn't it be better to boost the frontpage of superstar.dk, redirecting all url's here (if we keep the confusion of our visitors out of the quation) ?
-
Hi Soren,
If I were going to redirect internally (i.e. remove the brands, sub-categories and products but not redirect those pages to xxx.com), I'd consider creating a page on a new URL on superstar.dk, explaining why the pages are gone and linking to xxx.com. This won't confuse users, but will keep the authority of those redirected pages within the old domain.
If I were going to redirect to the new site, I would clearly do as you've mentioned above, redirecting www.superstar.dk/product1.html to www.xxx.com/product1.html and so forth.
-
Thank you for your take Jane. We would like to keep superstar.dk as a well ranking website on all other categories (we are only removing 2-4 brand). Would you redirect the brand categories, sub-categories and product url's to the frontpage of superstar.dk or how would you do the redirects?
-
I would agree with Rishi that redirecting between domains can be a little bit troublesome - it should make a lot of sense, but it's a tactic that has been abused for spam / low quality purposes in the past, and any tactic that has been abused is likely to be scrutinised at some point.
Ignoring potential future issues for a second, I would also say that whether to redirect or not depends on your goals. If you wish to pass all the authority from a well-established, well-ranked existing site (superstar.dk) and move the brand (besides the small niche you'll keep), redirection could be very helpful. If you don't want to remove any equity from superstar.dk, redirection to the home page or to a page explaining the site's changes + linking to the new website, could be good too.
-
If the new website is really new I suggest testing to see what happens when you redirect from the older site. If the older site pages dont have rankings and or any authority, I wouldnt bother either way.
-
The new website has not even launched yet. We wan't to be sure how to handle this case before we launch. So what is your recommendation?
Anyone else who knows what best practice would be in our specific case?
-
So my question is, should we redirect all the old product categories that we are shutting down to the new website on another TLD where we are opening them again and the same for the products (e.g. superstar.dk/garmin -> xxx.com/garmin)? Or would it be better to keep the redirects within the same website/TLD (e.g. superstar.dk/garmin -> superstar.dk)?
Historically my answer would have been straightforward. Redirect to the new site. However with the changing rules in search engines I would advise caution. Does your new website have stable rankings? Is it worth the risk of 301's from another site?
My opinion is use of 301s for ranking cross domains may be a tactic that borders on the grey area and could lead to a penalty in the future.
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
-
Huge httaccess with old 301 redirects. Is it safe to delete all redirects with no traffic in last 2 months?
We have a huge httaccess file over several MB which seems to be the cause for slow server response time. There are lots of 301 redirects related to site migration from 9 months ago where all old URLs were redirected to new URL and also lots of 301 redirects from URL changes accumulated over the last 15 years. Is it safe to delete all 301 redirects which did not receive any traffic in last 2 months ? Or would you apply another criteria for identifying those 301 that can be safely deleted? Any way to get in google analytics or webmaster tools all 301 that received traffic in the last 2 months or any other easy way to identify those, apart from checking the apache log files ?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | lcourse0 -
Problem: Magento prioritises product URL's without categories?
HI there, we are moving a website from Shoptrader to Magento, which has 45.000 indexations.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | onlinetrend
yes shoptrader made a bit of a mess. Trying to clean it up now. there is a 301 redirect list of all old URL's pointing to the new one product can exist in multiple categories want to solve this with canonical url’s for instance: shoptrader.nl/categorieA/product has 301 redirect towards magento.nl/nl/categorieA/product shoptrader.nl/categorieA/product-5531 has 301 redirect towards magento.nl/nl/categorieA/product shoptrader.nl/categorieA/product¤cy=GBP has 301 redirect towards magento.nl/nl/categorieA/product shoptrader.nl/categorieB/product has 301 redirect towards magento.nl/nl/categorieB/product, has canonical tag towards magento.nl/nl/categorieA/product shoptrader.nl/categorieB/product?language=nl has 301 redirect towards magento.nl/nl/categorieB/product, has canonical tag towards magento.nl/nl/categorieA/product Her comes the problem:
New developer insists on using /productname as canonical instead of /category/category/productname, since Magento says so. The idea is now to redirect to /category/category/productname and there will be a canonical URL on these pages pointing to /productname, loosing some link juice twice. So in the end indexation will take place on /productname … if Google picks it up the 301 + canonical. Would be more adviseable to direct straight to /productname (http://moz.com/community/q/is-link-juice-passed-through-a-301-and-a-canonical-tag), but I prefer to point to one URL with categories attached. Which has more advantages(?): clear menustructure able to use subfolders in mobile searchresults missing breadcrumb What would you say?0 -
Should I use individual product pages for different formats of the same product?
Hi All -- I'm working with a publishing client who is launching a new site. They have a large product catalogue offered in a number of format types (print, ebook, online learning, packages) with each one possessing a unique ISBN code. From past experience, I know that ISBN codes can be a really important ranking factor. We are currently trying to sort out product page guidelines. The proposed methods are: A single product page for all formats. The user then has the option to select which format they wish to purchase. The page would contain all key descriptors for each format, including: individual ISBN, format, title, price, author, etc. We would then use schema mark-up just to assist search engines with understanding and crawling. BUT we worry that the single page won't rank as well as say an invidual product page with a unique ISBN in the URL (for example: http://www.wiley.com/WileyCDA/WileyTitle/productCd-0470573325.html) Which leads to the next option... Individual URLs for each format. We understand that most e-commerce guidelines state you shouldn't dilute link equity amongst multiple pages with very similar products and descriptions. BUT we want searchers to be able to search by individual ISBN and still find that specific format within the SERPs. This seems to rule out canonicalizing, because we don't prefer one format over the other and still want say the ebook to show up as much as the print version. If anyone has any other options or considerations that we haven't thought about, it would be greatly appreciated. Thanks, U
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | HarborOneBank0 -
Merging Sites: Will redirecting the old homepage to an internal page on the new site cause issues?
I've ended up with two sites which have similar content (but not duplicate) and target similar keywords, rather than trying to maintain two sites I would like to merge the sites together. The old site is more of a traditional niche site and targets a particular set of keywords on its homepage, the new site is more of an authority site with a magazine type homepage and targets the same set of keywords from an internal page. My question is: Should I redirect the old site's homepage to the relevant internal page on the new website...
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | lara_dar
...or should I redirect the old site's homepage to the new site's homepage? (the old site's homepage backlinks are a mixture of partial match keyword anchor text, naked URLs and branded anchor text) I am in two minds (a & b!) (a) Redirecting to the internal page would be great for ranking as there are some decent backlinks and the content is similar (b) But usually when you do a 301 redirect the homepage usually directs to the new homepage and some of the old site's links are related to the domain rather than the keyword (e.g. http://www.site.com) and some people will be looking for the site's homepage. What do you think? Your help is much appreciated (and hope this makes sense...!)0 -
Product descriptions & Duplicate Content: between fears and reality
Hello everybody, I've been reading quite a lot recently about this topic and I would like to have your opinion about the following conclusion: ecommerce websites should have their own product descriptions if they can manage it (it will be beneficial for their SERPs rankings) but the ones who cannot won't be penalized by having the same product descriptions (or part of the same descriptions) IF it is only a "small" part of their content (user reviews, similar products, etc). What I mean is that among the signals that Google uses to guess which sites should be penalized or not, there is the ratio "quantity of duplicate content VS quantity of content in the page" : having 5-10 % of a page text corresponding to duplicate content might not be harmed while a page which has 50-75 % of a content page duplicated from an other site... what do you think? Can the "internal" duplicated content (for example 3 pages about the same product which is having 3 diferent colors -> 1 page per product color) be considered as "bad" as the "external" duplicated content (same product description on diferent sites) ? Thanks in advance for your opinions!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Kuantokusta0 -
Product pages content
Hi! I'm doing some SEO work for a new client. I've been tasked with boosting some of their products, such as http://www.lawnmowersdirect.co.uk/product/self-propelled-rear-roller-rotary-petrol-lawnmowers/honda-hrx426qx. It's currently #48 for the term Honda Izy HRG465SD, while http://www.justlawnmowers.co.uk/lawnmowers/honda-izy-hrg-465-sd.htm is #2, behind Amazon. Regarding links, there's no great shakes between the pages or even the domains. However, there's major difference in content. I'm happy to completely revamp it, I just wanted to check I'm not missing anything out before starting to rewrite it altogether! Thanks
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | neooptic0 -
Production and Priority Issue for SEO and Website Usability
I am a NOVICE .........My website is about 4 months old. My developer/programmer only has 4-6 hours of work a week so it is going to take 4 months to finish two weeks of work. So I have to prioritize the things that are best for SEO (Our architecture is PHP,Apache and Zend) .** If you are interested I would be curious to how you would prioritize some or all of these. Or at least as many as you can until you get bored.** 1. Optimizing Cart/Conversion - 7 hrs - (Extremely low conversion rates)
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Boodreaux
2. Optimizing Speed for usability -10+ hrs (Very slow on initial load time) 10-14 sec
3. Filling in all Titles and Metadata - 2 hrs
4. Contact persistence with cookie...enter data only once. - 2 hrs
5. Social panels for sharing content - 3 hrs
6. Custom notifications for those who opt in. for updates - 5 hrs
7. Shorten 12 key URL's and optimize with key words - 3 hrs (I rank this very high)
8. Install Wordpress Blog - 5-10 hrs
9. RSS Feed - 5 hrs ( Run a feed real time on side of page)
10. Create Content Management System for me - 20 hrs (So I can make changes)
11. Keywords for H-1 Tags - 1 hr
12. At tag for images - 1 hr
13. Use of bold /italics - 2 hrs
14. Canonical tag in head - 3 hrs Any expert advice will be greatly appreciated. Boodreaux PS After studying SEO for 1 month I think the priorities should be #7,#3, #2, #1, #5 (on landing pages) #11, #12,#6, #4, #13, #14, #8, #9, #100 -
Duplicate block of text on category listings
Fellows, We are deciding whether we should include our category description on all pages of the category listing - for example; page 1, page 2, page 3... The category description is currently a few paragraphs of text that sits on page 1 of the category only at present. It also includes an image (linked to a large version of it) with appropriate ALT text. Would we benefit from including this introductory text on the rest of the pages in the category? Or should we leave it on the first page only? Would it flag up duplicate signals? Ideas please! Thanks.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Peter2640