Skip to content
    Moz logo Menu open Menu close
    • Products
      • Moz Pro
      • Moz Pro Home
      • Moz Local
      • Moz Local Home
      • STAT
      • Moz API
      • Moz API Home
      • Compare SEO Products
      • Moz Data
    • Free SEO Tools
      • Domain Analysis
      • Keyword Explorer
      • Link Explorer
      • Competitive Research
      • MozBar
      • More Free SEO Tools
    • Learn SEO
      • Beginner's Guide to SEO
      • SEO Learning Center
      • Moz Academy
      • MozCon
      • Webinars, Whitepapers, & Guides
    • Blog
    • Why Moz
      • Digital Marketers
      • Agency Solutions
      • Enterprise Solutions
      • Small Business Solutions
      • The Moz Story
      • New Releases
    • Log in
    • Log out
    • Products
      • Moz Pro

        Your all-in-one suite of SEO essentials.

      • Moz Local

        Raise your local SEO visibility with complete local SEO management.

      • STAT

        SERP tracking and analytics for enterprise SEO experts.

      • Moz API

        Power your SEO with our index of over 44 trillion links.

      • Compare SEO Products

        See which Moz SEO solution best meets your business needs.

      • Moz Data

        Power your SEO strategy & AI models with custom data solutions.

      Track AI Overviews in Keyword Research
      Moz Pro

      Track AI Overviews in Keyword Research

      Try it free!
    • Free SEO Tools
      • Domain Analysis

        Get top competitive SEO metrics like DA, top pages and more.

      • Keyword Explorer

        Find traffic-driving keywords with our 1.25 billion+ keyword index.

      • Link Explorer

        Explore over 40 trillion links for powerful backlink data.

      • Competitive Research

        Uncover valuable insights on your organic search competitors.

      • MozBar

        See top SEO metrics for free as you browse the web.

      • More Free SEO Tools

        Explore all the free SEO tools Moz has to offer.

      NEW Keyword Suggestions by Topic
      Moz Pro

      NEW Keyword Suggestions by Topic

      Learn more
    • Learn SEO
      • Beginner's Guide to SEO

        The #1 most popular introduction to SEO, trusted by millions.

      • SEO Learning Center

        Broaden your knowledge with SEO resources for all skill levels.

      • On-Demand Webinars

        Learn modern SEO best practices from industry experts.

      • How-To Guides

        Step-by-step guides to search success from the authority on SEO.

      • Moz Academy

        Upskill and get certified with on-demand courses & certifications.

      • MozCon

        Save on Early Bird tickets and join us in London or New York City

      Unlock flexible pricing & new endpoints
      Moz API

      Unlock flexible pricing & new endpoints

      Find your plan
    • Blog
    • Why Moz
      • Digital Marketers

        Simplify SEO tasks to save time and grow your traffic.

      • Small Business Solutions

        Uncover insights to make smarter marketing decisions in less time.

      • Agency Solutions

        Earn & keep valuable clients with unparalleled data & insights.

      • Enterprise Solutions

        Gain a competitive edge in the ever-changing world of search.

      • The Moz Story

        Moz was the first & remains the most trusted SEO company.

      • New Releases

        Get the scoop on the latest and greatest from Moz.

      Surface actionable competitive intel
      New Feature

      Surface actionable competitive intel

      Learn More
    • Log in
      • Moz Pro
      • Moz Local
      • Moz Local Dashboard
      • Moz API
      • Moz API Dashboard
      • Moz Academy
    • Avatar
      • Moz Home
      • Notifications
      • Account & Billing
      • Manage Users
      • Community Profile
      • My Q&A
      • My Videos
      • Log Out

    The Moz Q&A Forum

    • Forum
    • Questions
    • Users
    • Ask the Community

    Welcome to the Q&A Forum

    Browse the forum for helpful insights and fresh discussions about all things SEO.

    1. Home
    2. SEO Tactics
    3. Intermediate & Advanced SEO
    4. Splitting and moving site to two domains - How to redirect

    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.

    Splitting and moving site to two domains - How to redirect

    Intermediate & Advanced SEO
    4
    13
    1579
    Loading More Posts
    • Oldest to Newest
    • Newest to Oldest
    • Most Votes
    Reply
    • Reply as question
    Log in to reply
    This topic has been deleted. Only users with question management privileges can see it.
    • rich.owings
      rich.owings last edited by

      I have a client who is going to split their retail and wholesale business and rebrand the retail biz. So let’s say they are going to move everything from currentdomain.com to either retaildomain.com or wholesaledomain.com. The most important business for them is the retail site, so they want to pass on as much ranking power as they can from currentdomain.com to retaildomain.com. I see two choices here:

      We can 301 redirect all of currentdomain.com to retaildomain.com, and then redirect any wholesale pages to wholesaledomain.com. The advantage is that we can use GSC’s change of address tool to report the change to Google. The downside is that there is a redirect chain (2 hops) to wholesaledomain.com. Would this confuse Google?

      Or we can 301 redirect page by page from currentdomain.com to the appropriate page on either new site. This means no redirect chains but it also means that we can’t use GSC’s change of address tool.

      Which would you do and why? And is there another option that I'm missing? I appreciate any insights you can share.

      1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
      • EGOL
        EGOL @rich.owings last edited by

        You can do that.  No problem.  It will be best for wholesale customers.

        My comments are designed to be best for retail rankings.  If my connections to wholesale customers are poor then I would use your method.  If my connections to wholesale customers are strong them I would do what's best for retail rankings.  It is simply a matter of choice.

        1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
        • rich.owings
          rich.owings @EGOL last edited by

          Your points about communicating as much as possible offline and by email, etc, are well taken.

          I would still like to redirect existing wholesale pages to newwholesaledomain.com, primarily due to a desire to make everything as easy as we can for both types of customers. They want to emphasize the retail side but don't want to make it a pain for wholesale customers in the process.

          So I'm inclined to redirect retail pages to newretaildomain.com and wholesale pages to newwholesaledomain.com. All page by page of course. Since the currentdomain.com home page will redirect to newretaildomain.com, we would put a notice on the new home page for our wholesale customers, pointing them to newwholesaledomain.com.

          How does that sound? I think you are all correct that I should avoid redirect chains and meta refreshes.

          EGOL 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
          • EGOL
            EGOL @EGOL last edited by

            I might also send out some... "Tell a Friend" email messages to past clients.  They can then forward these to friends who may or may not have purchased in the past, but it will get them nice savings on their first purchase from your new domain.

            I would make these offers so good that I don't make much money on them.  This is just to get new people to the new domain.  I would send them out in batches so my employees filling orders will not be so swamped that they will have trouble giving their normal fast service.

            rich.owings 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
            • EGOL
              EGOL @EGOL last edited by

              It would also be a good idea to plan and announce the move. This can be done by:

              1. email and mail to important retail and wholesale clients.

              2. before redirecting pages the old domain could include obvious messages to retail and wholesale clients, thanking them for their support,  letting them know about the schedule of the move, and asking them to bookmark the new site.

              3. inserts in retail shipments

              4. special advertising before the move

              5. special advertising and email after the move that gives old customers a nice discount when they make their first purchase on the new website.

              EGOL 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
              • EGOL
                EGOL @rich.owings last edited by

                Personally.  I would not use metarefresh.  I don't know how Google will treat it.

                If I wanted to keep as much power as possible on the retail site I would have a plain page with my full internal navigation on it.  It would also have a very clear message for wholesale visitors, that gives them as much time as they need to read, change their directories, and leave by their own action.

                EGOL 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                • rich.owings
                  rich.owings @EGOL last edited by

                  Interesting. At first I thought that it isn't a great experience for wholesale customers, but what if we added a meta refresh so that page has a message like... "The content you are looking for has moved. You will be redirected to the new location automatically in 5 seconds. Please bookmark the correct page at newwholesaledomain.com"

                  EGOL 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                  • donford
                    donford last edited by

                    My first thought was exactly what EGOL suggested. However given the decission that they are dead set on rebranding I would suggest the following.

                    Split the wholesale site off first, leaving the current domain in place for a transitional period. After a pre-dertmined period of time (however long they feel it necessary for wholesale buyers to get used to the new website), then change the retail side to the new brand, and take full advatange of 301 and change of address.

                    My thoughts hope it helps,

                    Don

                    1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                    • EGOL
                      EGOL @rich.owings last edited by

                      OK... thanks for the details.

                      In that case. I would build newretaildomain.com.   Any pages that have equivalent or near-equivalent content on currentdomain.com would 301 direct page-by-page to newretaildomain.com.

                      All existing wholesale pages on currentdomain.com would 301 redirect to a new page on newretaildomain.com that explains your new wholesale website and has one outlink to newwholesaledomain.com.   This page will keep all of the power of the wholesale pages on your new retail site, which must be competitive in the SERPs.

                      This maximizes power of newretaildomain.com and directs anyone who follows links to old pages on currentdomain.com to your new wholesale website.

                      This would be accompanied by multiple email and snail mail announcements to all wholesale clients.  Sales agents would be trained how to transition.

                      rich.owings 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                      • rjonesx. 0
                        rjonesx. 0 @EGOL last edited by

                        I like this idea too 🙂

                        1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                        • rich.owings
                          rich.owings @EGOL last edited by

                          Thanks EGOL. Unfortunately they are committed to a full rebranding and want a new domain.

                          EGOL 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                          • rjonesx. 0
                            rjonesx. 0 last edited by

                            This is a great question and not easy. I would love to hear some others chime in. My guess is that splitting the pages immediately would be the best. Yes, you would lose the ability to do the change of address, but that really isn't essential. At the beginning, I would keep the content as similar as possible if not identical after the transfer (of course with different internal links).

                            1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                            • EGOL
                              EGOL last edited by

                              If this was my biz and currentdomain.com is an appropriate domain for selling retail then I would start a brand new wholesale website and give it one link from the "about us" page on currentdomain.com.  Any wholesale pages on current domain would redirect internally to the "about us" page.  This keeps all of the power of currentdomain.com intact and does not divide it up.

                              rich.owings rjonesx. 0 2 Replies Last reply Reply Quote 1
                              • 1 / 1
                              • First post
                                Last post

                              Got a burning SEO question?

                              Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.


                              Start my free trial


                              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.

                              • See all categories

                              Related Questions

                              • cuarto715

                                Google Is Indexing my 301 Redirects to Other sites

                                Long story but now i have a few links from my site 301 redirecting to youtube videos or eCommerce stores. They carry a considerable amount of traffic that i benefit from so i can't take them down, and that traffic is people from other websites, so basically i have backlinks from places that i don't own, to my redirect urls (Ex. http://example.com/redirect) My problem is that google is indexing them and doesn't let them go, i have tried blocking that url from robots.txt but google is still indexing it uncrawled, i have also tried allowing google to crawl it and adding noindex from robots.txt, i have tried removing it from GWT but it pops back again after a few days. Any ideas? Thanks!

                                Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | cuarto715
                                0
                              • gozmoz

                                Moving html site to wordpress and 301 redirect from index.htm to index.php or just www.example.com

                                I found page duplicate content when using Moz crawl tool, see below. http://www.example.com
                                Page Authority 40
                                Linking Root Domains 31
                                External Link Count 138
                                Internal Link Count 18
                                Status Code 200
                                1 duplicate http://www.example.com/index.htm
                                Page Authority 19
                                Linking Root Domains 1
                                External Link Count 0
                                Internal Link Count 15
                                Status Code 200
                                1 duplicate I have recently transfered my old html site to wordpress.
                                To keep the urls the same I am using a plugin which appends .htm at the end of each page. My old site home page was index.htm. I have created index.htm in wordpress as well but now there is a conflict of duplicate content. I am using latest post as my home page which is index.php Question 1.
                                Should I also use redirect 301 im htaccess file to transfer index.htm page authority (19) to www.example.com If yes, do I use
                                Redirect 301 /index.htm http://www.example.com/index.php
                                or
                                Redirect 301 /index.htm http://www.example.com Question 2
                                Should I change my "Home" menu link to http://www.example.com instead of http://www.example.com/index.htm that would fix the duplicate content, as indx.htm does not exist anymore. Is there a better option? Thanks

                                Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | gozmoz
                                0
                              • Angelos_Savvaidis

                                Multilingual Site and 301 redirection

                                Hey there awesome people of Moz I have this site that has many languages in it. The main language is English and my developer did the following www.example.com ( is the main site ) which redirects with a 301 to www.example.com/en if your geo location is supported by our languages then you will automatically be redirected to whatever language you have in your country but does the first language with is english have to 301 redirect to www.example.com/en ? I thought that the right way is to just leave /en at the root file. Thanks in advance

                                Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Angelos_Savvaidis
                                0
                              • imran2078

                                Should I redirect my Google Update Effected Domain to brand new Domain?

                                Hey Moz experts, I had a domain which was really doing better but after the Humming Bird update my traffic was decreased up to 90%. There are plenty of posts on my existing blog, Now what should I do? I mean should I redirect it to a brand new domain or Copy all the posts to a brand new domain and delete my existing domain? Note that the Old domain has PR1, DA 19 and PA 30.

                                Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | imran2078
                                0
                              • co.mc

                                When should you redirect a domain completely?

                                We moved a website over to a new domain name. We used 301 redirects to redirect all the pages individually (around 150 redirects). So my question is, when should we just kill the old site completely and just redirect (forward/point) the old domain over to the new one?

                                Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | co.mc
                                0
                              • SEI

                                Merging two different domains - subdomain or subfolder?

                                My company has two sites on different domains. We are considering merging the sites into one and keeping only the dominant domain. The dominate site is already a sub-domain of a larger organization so the new sub-domain would be two levels deep.  I realize this is a little abstract so below is an example Dominant company site:       company.root-domain.com Secondary company site:     other-root-domain.com When they merge, everything will be on company.root-domain.com. Should it be other.company.root-domain.com   or company.root-domain.com/other Note: The other site has several hundred pages. Both sites have strong authority and link profiles. I want to maintain as much of the value on the other site as possible with the merge.

                                Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | SEI
                                0
                              • Davenport-Tractor

                                Redirecting non www site

                                Hello Ladies and Gentlemen. I 100% agree with the redirecting of the non www domain name. After all we see so many times, especially in MOZ how the two different domains contain different links, different DA and of course different PA. So I have posed the question to our IT company, "How would we go about redirecting our non www domain to the www version?", "Where would we do that?", " we cant do the redirect on our webserver because the website is listed as an IP address, not a domain name, so would we do the redirect somewhere at GoDaddy?" who is currently maintain our DNS record So here is the response from IT:  " I would setup a CNAME record in DNS (GoDaddy), such that no matter if you go to the bare domain, or the www, you end up in the same place. As for SEO, having a 301 redirect for your bare domain isn't necessary, because both the bare domain and the www are the same domain.  301 is a redirect for "permanently moved" and is common when you change domain names.  Using the bare domain or the www are NOT DIFFERENT DOMAINS, so the 301 would not be accurate, and you'd be telling engines you've moved, when you haven't - which may negatively impact your rank. It sounds to me that IT is NOT recommending the redirect. How can this be? Or are we talking about two different things? Will the redirect cause the melt down as the IT company suggests? Or do they nut understand SEO?

                                Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Davenport-Tractor
                                0
                              • sbrault74

                                Moving Content To Another Website With No Redirect?

                                I've got a website that has lots of valuable content and tools but it's been hit too hard by both Panda and Penguin. I came to the conclusion that I'd be better off with a new website as this one is going to hell no matter how much time and money I put in it. Had I started a new website the first time it got hit by Penguin, I'd be profitable today. I'd like to move some of that content to this other domain but I don't want to do 301 redirects as I don't want to pass bad link juice. I know I'll lose all links and visitors to the original website but I don't care. My only concern is duplicate content. I was thinking of setting the pages to noindex on the original website and wait until they don't appear in Google's index. Then I'd move them over to the new domain to be indexed again. Do you see any problem with this? Should I rewrite everything instead? I hate spinning content...!

                                Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | sbrault74
                                1

                              Get started with Moz Pro!

                              Unlock the power of advanced SEO tools and data-driven insights.

                              Start my free trial
                              Products
                              • Moz Pro
                              • Moz Local
                              • Moz API
                              • Moz Data
                              • STAT
                              • Product Updates
                              Moz Solutions
                              • SMB Solutions
                              • Agency Solutions
                              • Enterprise Solutions
                              • Digital Marketers
                              Free SEO Tools
                              • Domain Authority Checker
                              • Link Explorer
                              • Keyword Explorer
                              • Competitive Research
                              • Brand Authority Checker
                              • Local Citation Checker
                              • MozBar Extension
                              • MozCast
                              Resources
                              • Blog
                              • SEO Learning Center
                              • Help Hub
                              • Beginner's Guide to SEO
                              • How-to Guides
                              • Moz Academy
                              • API Docs
                              About Moz
                              • About
                              • Team
                              • Careers
                              • Contact
                              Why Moz
                              • Case Studies
                              • Testimonials
                              Get Involved
                              • Become an Affiliate
                              • MozCon
                              • Webinars
                              • Practical Marketer Series
                              • MozPod
                              Connect with us

                              Contact the Help team

                              Join our newsletter
                              Moz logo
                              © 2021 - 2025 SEOMoz, Inc., a Ziff Davis company. All rights reserved. Moz is a registered trademark of SEOMoz, Inc.
                              • Accessibility
                              • Terms of Use
                              • Privacy

                              Looks like your connection to Moz was lost, please wait while we try to reconnect.