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.
Two companies merging into a new website. How to merge two existing websites into a brand new website and preserve search rankings.
-
Brand A and Brand B are merging to form Brand C. Brand A has a great search presence (prominent rankings, answer boxes, and impressive organic traffic). Brand B has a good reputation in real life but their web presence was extremely weak (we've been helping with that over the past few months and it is improving).
What are the steps we need to take? The previous domains from Brand A and Brand B are going away and we need to promote the newly minted Brand C website.
This Q/A summarizes what we want to do but with one exception: They only discuss merging Brand A into BRand B and there is no Brand C.
-
Roy, this is definitely a complex task--which should take careful planning and organization. The steps that are outlined in the link that you provided is a good start, but that's only a small part of what needs to be done .There are a lot of sub-tasks that need to be taken care of in between those larger tasks.
When it comes to moving site A to B, there is no site C involved--so just think about it as if you're moving site A to C and then B to C. Or, you could also first think about combining both sites and rather than moving site A to B you can choose the best content on each and then just move them to site C.
What's important, though, is to figure out which content and pages are duplicated on both sites and then choose the best page(s) and move those to site C. There will be content that's essentially not on both sites, so those can just be moved. The key is to spend plenty of time organizing the content and deciding which content can go away, which needs to be moved, which needs to be combined, and soforth.
There is one major step that's missing in that other list, which is to use verify all sites (http and https, as well as http://www and https://www) in Google Search Console, set up those 301 redirects, and use the Google Change of Address tool to tell Google that the site's moved.
There is also a mention of rel canonical, and since the sites are moving entirely, canonical tags won't be appropriate to use. You'll need to use 301 Permanend Redirects to move the content from one site to another, especially since site A and B won't exist anymore (they'll be redirected).
-
well I think you highlighted all the steps you had to take, and moving to a brand which has more trust seems the right move. But if you're moving now to brand C I think you should jsut follow the same process using BRand A stronger structure on brand C and replicate it for brand B, am I missing something?
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
-
Copy/pasting the article from another website and referencing correctly not to get penalized
Hi all I am looking at copy/pasting an article from another website which is very relevant to my business, is there a standard practise/best practise for SEO to do this and ensure Google doesn't think i am plagerizing content etc.. Link to source down the bottom? Using Quotations... making a page noindex or no follow etc?
Branding | | IsaCleanse0 -
Avoid Keyword in New Domain Name?
We are looking to rebrand our domain name. Our existing domain is www.nyc-officespace-leader.com. We own www.metro-manhattan.com and were hoping to use this domain. The company name is Metro Manhattan Office Space, Inc. Is the fact that the new domain contains "Manhattan" a negative? I know that the fact that it has a hyphen is weak. Manhattan is part of such keywords as "Manhattan office space". Regarding the company name, is the fact that it contains the target phrase "Manhattan office space" bad? Our company name may sound like exact match anchor text and I am not sure what to do about this if anything. I would really prefer to keep our name but it is necessary to change it to improve SEO we will do so. Would it be better to change to a new name like "Integrity Real Estate" which does not contain target phrases or keywords ("real estate" is not a major target phrase as it is to generic) ? Or how something like www.mmos.com for the domain and leave the company name alone? How would I go about finding a company that would assist is in creating an SEO friendly domain name and perhaps a new corporate name if necessary? Thanks, Alan
Branding | | Kingalan10 -
In the Google search results, the company name (with the drop down arrow) next to the result URL is incorrect. The company being displayed here is a company we acquired many years back. How do I adjust/fix this?
When I search any term for my organization, we are getting good results BUT the company name, next to the results URL is of an orgnization we acquired many years back and not the name of our company. The URL is correct page JUST the company name next to this URL is incorrect on the Google search results page. How do I go about changing so the company name next to the URL ?
Branding | | DigitalNTT0 -
Spam in search engine results for company brand name
Hi, I'm having a strange problem with a certain comapny. When you Google their brand name the first 8 results or so are related - their site, Google+ page, Twitter etc. The rest of the results are completely unrelated to the site and much of it is in another language and looks really spammy. According to the site owner until recently the first 50-60 results were related - mostly local results, press releases, and franchise companies listing his business. They don't have a great link profile but that shouldn't have them dropping out of the results, especially since they're still ranking in the top 1-8 positions. Here's the strangest part: the company name is Libertana. All the spammy results are not so much spammy, they're related to the syllable "na". Examples: Ivanyukite-Na Mineral Data įt$koka!na's sounds on SoundCloud - Hear the world's sounds Bosiniya na Herizegovina - Wikipedia What on earth is going on? Why would they rank for the last syllable of their name?
Branding | | storemachine0 -
Drop In Branded Traffic
Hi, We took on a new client in March. Over the last few months I have noticed that their Branded Organic Traffic has dropped off considerably, around 20%. On further investigation I discovered that the drop off occurred between Jan & Feb this year (prior to us taking over). In Jan they launched a new site, the drop off seems to coincide with the launch of their new website. I also found out that their Page Rank had disappeared before the launch of the new website, and is still a PR/na. My first thought was that they have been penalised. How likely is this on a very well known site which gets roughly 170K visits per month? Could the drop in Branded Traffic be due to a decrease in advertising budget elsewhere (to compensate for the cost of the new website, leading to less brand exposure)? Could it be that there are just fewer people searching for their Brand? I guess the questions I am trying to find out are: 1. What are the reasons for massive drops in Branded organic traffic? 2. As an seo I am tasked mainly for optimising for non-branded organic traffic, is there anything I can suggest to the client to help get this traffic back? 3. If it is an algorithmic penalty (Panda, Penguin), how do I know which one? I have started with their links and disavowed known toxic links, fixed crawl errors, optimised their top pages etc etc. If it was a penalty and I mange to fix it, will their branded traffic return? Any help with the above would be greatly appreciated. Jon
Branding | | JonRaubenheimer0 -
Long term risks of using .org for commercial websites
Hi everybody, I'm having a 'heated' discussion with a collegae about .org domains. Originally .org domains were created for non-profit organizations and it was fairly difficult to get a .org domain ( like .gov and .edu still are). Nowadays it's easy to register a .org domain and i see plenty of commercial .org emd's ranking well. We are planning on launching a new white label in the Netherlands (.nl) and have several domains in our portfolio that we can us for this. I recommend using an exact match .org domain (.nl and .com are already taken) for the new white label www.exactkeyword.org. **My collegae says don't use www.exactkeyword.org, because we aren't a non-profit organizaton and we can't garantuee we won't lose our rankings over the next 3 to 4 years. He would recommend going with the available www.exact-keyword.info. ** Who right and who's wrong and why? Can i garantuee no risk with .org for a commercial organization?
Branding | | PrizeWize0 -
Dental Office With Two Locations And Same Practice Name
Dentists buy other practices all the time. Sometimes they change the name of the practice and other times they keep the name. I am working with a dentist on a new website because their old one is riddled with flash (and is ugly too) She has two practices but they have the same practice name. One of them caters to half English speaking and half Spanish speaking patients. I'm thinking I should create a separate website for each practice mainly because we may want to design the graphics and text for the appropriate patient language probably with a English/Spanish translation button on the website? For localization, wouldn't it be better to have a url for each physical site? Suggestions?
Branding | | Czubmeister0