Moz Q&A is closed.
After more than 13 years, and tens of thousands of questions, Moz Q&A closed on 12th December 2024. Whilst we’re not completely removing the content - many posts will still be possible to view - we have locked both new posts and new replies. More details here.
How long should an old site redirecting to a new site remain activated on a server?
-
Once I switch a site to a new domain (with links to corresponding/relative pages), will I have to keep the old site live forever for those links to work, or how long should I wait before I inactivate the old site on our server?
-
301 redirects are called permanent, but that's not really the case. They are permanent only as long as they are in place. If you want to see this, do everything as Andy said and then remove the redirect. You'll notice your traffic drop and when you put the redirects back the traffic will recover. Go ahead and do this every year and you'll see that each time it drops. We've dealt with drops that happened from domains that haven't been active in over 5 years, so as EGOL alluded to, keep them forever.
-
Google has an extremely long memory for old URL's being live and linking. It is anoying realy.
Links from websites to your old domain are still there, you want to hold on to that value. Thus you will keep the old domain redirected. You do not need a server for that, just the domain pointing to the server and redirecting it on your server. Your web hosting support can help you with that (if not, switch to wp engine)
-
Mine will still be there when I attend my funeral.
-
Not at all - on the new site, setup a list of pages to be redirected (301) to corresponding pages on the new domain and make sure you advise Google through Webmaster Tools that the site has moved.
However, don't turn everything off on the old server until you have confirmed all is working on the new one.
-Andy
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
-
Moving pages to new domain
Hello, Our product pages are ranked #1 on google for our target keywords using our domain e.g. www.olddomain.com/cases/productxyz and sell about 20 products all ranked #1. We have a new company called www.newco.com/case/product1, 2, 3 etc. We use woocommerce e-commerce for both old and new sites. What is the best way to list our old co-products on our new site and move over the #1 rankings? Do we create new products (using our new nice design) in the newco.com woo commerce and then redirect old co links? do we copy and paste all that old content into the newco.com? Totally confused. Thank you!
Web Design | | Jamesmcd031 -
WordPress redirects are taking too long to navigate: Anyone ever faced this?
Hi community, We are using wordpress website. We have redirected hundreds of URLs from wordpress redirect manager for last 10 years around. Suddenly from last one week, the redirects are taking too long to navigate to the pages; like around 1 minute. Could you anybody face the same issue? Please help me on this. Thanks
Web Design | | vtmoz0 -
Site Migration due to Corporate Acquisition
Hey everyone, Wanted to check-in on something that I've been thinking way too much about lately. I'll do my best to provide background, but due to some poor planning, it is rather confusing to wrap your head around. There are currently three companies involved, Holding Corp (H Corp) and two operating companies, both in the same vertical but one B2B and the other is B2C. B2C corp has been pushed down the line and we're focusing primarily on H Corp and B2B brand. Due to an acquisition of H Corp and all of it's holdings, things are getting shuffled and Ive been brought in to ensure things are done correctly. What's bizarre is H Corp and it's web property are the dominant authority in SERPs for the B2B brand. As in B2B brand loses on brand searches to H Corp, let alone any product/service related terms. As such, they want to effectively migrate all related content from H Corp site to B2B brand site and handover authority as effectively as possible. Summary: Domain Migration from H Corp site to B2B Brand site. Ive done a few migrations in my past and been brought in to recover a few post-launch so I have decent experience and a trusted process. One of my primary objectives initially is change as little as possible with content, url structure (outside the root) etc so 301s are easy but also so it doesn't look like we're trying to play any games. Here's the thing, the URL structure for H Corp is downright bad from both a UX perspective and a general organizational perspective. So Im feeling conflicted and wanted to get a few other opinions. Here are my two paths as I see and Id love opinions on both: stick with a similar URL structure to H Corp through the migration (my normal process) but deviate from pretty much every best practice for structuring URLs with keywords, common sense and logic. Pro: follow my process (which has always worked in the past) Con: don't implement SEO/On-page best practices at this stage and wait for the site redesign to implement best practices (more work) Implement new URL structure now and deviate from my trusted process. Do you see a third option? Am I overthinking it? Other important details: B2B brand is under-going a site redesign, mostly aesthetic but their a big corporation and will likely take 6-9 months to get up. Any input greatly appreciated. Cheers, Brent
Web Design | | pastcatch1 -
Anyone using CloudFlare on multiple sites?
We are considering using CloudFlare as a CDN for a large group of sites. The fees are $5 to $200 depending on many factors. We tried the free trial on one site and were impressed with the results. I am wondering if any of you have any longer term experience with this and performance metrics, etc.
Web Design | | RobertFisher1 -
Lots of Listing Pages with Thin Content on Real Estate Web Site-Best to Set them to No-Index?
Greetings Moz Community: As a commercial real estate broker in Manhattan I run a web site with over 600 pages. Basically the pages are organized in the following categories: 1. Neighborhoods (Example:http://www.nyc-officespace-leader.com/neighborhoods/midtown-manhattan) 25 PAGES Low bounce rate 2. Types of Space (Example:http://www.nyc-officespace-leader.com/commercial-space/loft-space)
Web Design | | Kingalan1
15 PAGES Low bounce rate. 3. Blog (Example:http://www.nyc-officespace-leader.com/blog/how-long-does-leasing-process-take
30 PAGES Medium/high bounce rate 4. Services (Example:http://www.nyc-officespace-leader.com/brokerage-services/relocate-to-new-office-space) High bounce rate
3 PAGES 5. About Us (Example:http://www.nyc-officespace-leader.com/about-us/what-we-do
4 PAGES High bounce rate 6. Listings (Example:http://www.nyc-officespace-leader.com/listings/305-fifth-avenue-office-suite-1340sf)
300 PAGES High bounce rate (65%), thin content 7. Buildings (Example:http://www.nyc-officespace-leader.com/928-broadway
300 PAGES Very high bounce rate (exceeding 75%) Most of the listing pages do not have more than 100 words. My SEO firm is advising me to set them "No-Index, Follow". They believe the thin content could be hurting me. Is this an acceptable strategy? I am concerned that when Google detects 300 pages set to "No-Follow" they could interpret this as the site seeking to hide something and penalize us. Also, the building pages have a low click thru rate. Would it make sense to set them to "No-Follow" as well? Basically, would it increase authority in Google's eyes if we set pages that have thin content and/or low click thru rates to "No-Follow"? Any harm in doing this for about half the pages on the site? I might add that while I don't suffer from any manual penalty volume has gone down substantially in the last month. We upgraded the site in early June and somehow 175 pages were submitted to Google that should not have been indexed. A removal request has been made for those pages. Prior to that we were hit by Panda in April 2012 with search volume dropping from about 7,000 per month to 3,000 per month. Volume had increased back to 4,500 by April this year only to start tanking again. It was down to 3,600 in June. About 30 toxic links were removed in late April and a disavow file was submitted with Google in late April for removal of links from 80 toxic domains. Thanks in advance for your responses!! Alan0 -
Having a second homepage for a site would affect my SEO?
Hello guys, One of our clients is planning to have a new landing page for any users hitting the site for the first time. (returning users will still see the current homepage based on cookies ... in other words, the site would technically have 2 home pages). According to this client, they are planning to do something like this: https://www.websitename.com/ (for returning visitors) https://www.websitename.com/newuser (for first time visitors) Our instinct is that is not great to have 2 home pages (that would affect the SEO campaign we are managing for this company) and we are not sure how to handle this. That's why we would appreciate your opinion regarding this topic: From an SEO perspective, do you think this is a good idea? If not, what would you guys do differentiate first-time visitors vs returning visitors without affecting SEO? Maybe just a pop-up? Thanks in advance for your help !
Web Design | | Robertnweil10 -
SEO and Server Connectivity....
Good Morning/Evening Mozzers, I arrive at work this morning with 5 emails from GWT for my separate domains reading, **"Googlebot can't access your site - **Over the last 24 hours, Googlebot encountered 39 errors while attempting to connect to your site. Your site's overall connection failure rate is 15.1%." I have passed this on to the Web Dev team to resolve ASAP. My Question, will server connectivity issues harm my rankings? Is there a danger if this continues that URL's could be de-indexed? Input would be greatly appreciated.
Web Design | | RobertChapman0 -
Display a message after 301 redirect.
I know this one is a little more technical than pure SEO, but it somewhat ties in. I'm redirecting 2 sites to one. The companies have combined, and I've imported all their content that has been created, and the url mapping is set up correctly. So it currently is set up like this: A.com --> C.com
Web Design | | WilliamBay
A.com/blogpost-1 --> C.com/blogpost-1 B.com --> C.com B.com/blogpost-20 --> C.com/blogpost-20 What i would like is some method a redirect when landing at C.com or C.com/blogpost-XX. And in turn display a message in a DIV so I can style it. And yes, I have nothing better to do on a Friday night 🙂0