Domain Change Of Address & Sale
-
Hi Moz community
Let's say I have two domains
domain1 is my main website.
Domain 2 was a peripheral side project I was working on. I recently decided to shut it down. So I hooked up the proper 301s and filed a change of address request with Google Webmaster tools.
I have had an offer for someone to purchase domain2 - I have absolutely no use for it and would like to sell it. I just want first to figure out that:
-
I can do this without losing any ranking to my main site.
-
I can disassociate this domain from myself and my Company completely.
I don't want any of the work we put into it to transfer to the new owner.
How can I do this?
thanks!
-
-
Thank you so much I really appreciate the response.
-
There's no perfectly clean break with any domain for one important reason - back-links. If the side project has solid back-links and then you disconnect it (break the 301, essentially), you'll lose the positive impact of those links. There's no easy way around that.
At the same time, the new owner will potentially benefit from those links. The only way to disconnect that benefit is to individually request that the linking sites switch their links to your site. If the new site changes ownership and drastically changes content, then Google will eventually see those links as irrelevant and devalue them, but that's probably going to take a while.
I'd worry more about your loss of benefit than about the new owner getting some unearned but probably temporary benefit, honestly. The other issue would be any brand awareness around the secondary domain - since that's tied to the name/domain, you can't really cut that loose.
Since it's a side project, I suspect this isn't a big risk, but it's really tough to know without more details.
-
I would be interested in any type of feedback with this situation.
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
-
AMP Benefits
Hello, Does AMP have ranking benefits ? Should I just AMP my post or all the pages of my website, product page, homepage etc... Thank you,
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | seoanalytics0 -
Redirecting main www. subdomain to new domain. Can you then create a new subdomain on the old domain?
Hi there, The scenario is this: We have been working on a rebrand and have changed the company name So, we want to redirect www.old-name.com to www.new-name.com However, the parent company is retaining the old brand name for corporate purposes So, in an ideal world, we'd be able to keep www.old-name.com active - but clearly that would sacrifice all of the authority built up over the years, so we do have to redirect the main www. subdomain in it's entirity. However - one suggested solution is to redirect www.old-domain.com to www.new-domain.com... but then create a new corporate subdomain: for example, business.old-domain.com business.old-domain.com will not be competing with the new site on any service/product related terms; it will only need to appear in SERPs for the company name I'd appreciate some thoughts on this, as I've not done this before or found any examples of anyone that has. Is that a massive risk in terms of sending a confusing message to Google? Thanks for your help
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | edlondon0 -
Subdomains and Forwarding Domains
Will someone who has experience chime in on these two issues below: Do sub-domain links which link back to the main site count as a new link from a new site; or would they be considered more of an internal link? Basically, would a sub-domain link to the main site be like a link from a unique website, or treated like any other internal link on the main site? I am speaking in terms of link juice. Should we 301 sub-domains to the main site internally? Thank you, we really appreciate any input you have!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | DJ1230 -
Have Title Tags Changed After Hummingbird?
Now that Hummingbird is really looking at longer-tail searches and almost a Q&A style search, should the way we do our title tags change? Moz still recommends: Optimal Format Primary Keyword - Secondary Keyword | Brand Name
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | netviper
or
Brand Name | Primary Keyword and Secondary Keyword But is this really right anymore after Hummingbird? Should we be more of a Q&A type title tag, while still using our Primary Keyword? For example: If I am targeting Red Nike Shoes, should my title tag be: Red Nike Shoes, Nike Shoes | Shoes.com or now: We carry the latest Red Nike Shoes | Shoes.com or Find Red Nike Shoes on sale at shoes.com What are your thoughts?0 -
Is it safe to 301 redirect old domain to new domain after a manual unnatural links penalty?
I have recently taken on a client that has been manually penalised for spammy link building by two previous SEOs. Having just read this excellent discussion, http://www.seomoz.org/blog/lifting-a-manual-penalty-given-by-google-personal-experience I am weighing up the odds of whether it's better to cut losses and recommend moving domains. I had thought under these circumstances it was important not to 301 the old domain to the new domain but the author (Lewis Sellers) comments on 3/4/13 that he is aware of forwards having been implemented without transferring the penalty to the new domain. http://www.seomoz.org/blog/lifting-a-manual-penalty-given-by-google-personal-experience#jtc216689 Is it safe to 301? What's the latest thinking?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Ewan.Kennedy0 -
Domain and Sitemap Question
Hi - I am hoping you can help me with this issue we are currently trying to solve. We are hosting our mobile site's content on a different domain than what the URL of the site is, though owned by same company. In Google Webmasters tool we have the mobile sitemap under "sitemaps.xyz.com", however the URL of the site is "m.xyz.com". We have submitted 60MM pages in the mobile sitemap, but only 1MM pages have been indexed. Do you think this set up causes confusion with the bots? Does this affect the crawlability of the site? Any thoughts would be greatly appreciated. Thank you!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | ladylana
Eva0 -
Noindex, Nofollow to previous domain
Hi, My programmer recently did a horrible mistkae by adding noindex, nofollow to our website without me noticing for two days. At the same time he did it we bought a new domain and redirected the old domain to the new domain: The Old domain is: http://www.websitebuildersworld.com and the new one is: http://www.websiteplanet.com Now unfortunatly I didn't notice the noindex,nofollow when it was on the old domain and I redirected it to websiteplanet.com before I fixed the noindex, nofollow. I fixed the problem around 10 hours ago on the new domain (www.websiteplanet.com) but the old domain didn't get indexed back (yet), so for example if you search for WebsiteBuildersWorld in google you will not reach the homepage as google deleted it because of the noindex,nofollow. My question is:
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Ouzan
Do you think that it will be fixed and google will retrieve websitebuildersworld homepage to his search results and then redirect it to websiteplanet? Or because I redirected websitebuildersworld.com to websiteplanet.com before letting google crawling websitebuildersworld.com without the noindex,no follow it wouldn't get indexed again? I hope I explained the problem good enough. Looking forward for your valuable replies. Thanks.0 -
Does duplicate content on a sub-domain affect the rankings of root domain?
We recently moved a community website that we own to our main domain. It now lives on our website as a sub-domain. This new sub-domain has a lot of duplicate page titles. We are going to clean it up but it's huge project. (We had tried to clean it even before migrating the community website) I am wondering if this duplicate content on the new sub-domain could be hurting rankings of our root domain? How does Google treat it? From SEO best practices, I know duplicate content within site is always bad. How severe is it given the fact that it is present on a different sub-domain?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Amjath0