Considering Moving to New Domain and SEO
-
Hello,
One of our sites has been using a domain since 2005 and is shown below. The domain is terrible for multiple reasons, hyphens and doesn't even reflect our actual company name. Not to mention its embarrassing when telling a customer to email us at support @ pro "dash, yes the hyphen" gift.... I wanted to change it long ago but feared it would hurt my SEO rankings. After taking Bruce Clay's training class back in 2004, we managed to rank top 10 for most targeted keywords. My ranking have slowly dropped over time due to neglect and decaying IBL's. We still rank for a few targeted keywords but it was just August of 2017 we were still top 10 but something happened and we dropped out of the top 100 right before our holiday season. We had to run Adwords and BingAds to supplement traffic this holiday season. So I am wondering before I restart my SEO efforts should I move the domain now before trying to build new content, IBL's, etc?
I was always under the impression Google used domain trust a major factor which wasnt only IBL but also domain age. Our preferred domain I purchased from another owner and it has ZERO links to it. It was basically a parked domain with the "domain for sale" stuff. I am a little nervous about moving it over because Google didnt even have it in its index. I put up a coming soon page and hosted it on my server, same C Block, and requested a crawl from my webmaster console. I added some text to the new domain index page and it appears Google is showing results for our old domain! At first I thought it was duplicate content but its not Google obviously has deciphered current site is my old domain and is displaying the title and meta data from the old domain. I have never seen this before. Google cache shows the current domain the new domain url.
A few questions:
Will my site get sandboxed after 301 redirecting and going webmaster console move features etc?
Does this reset the trust factors? I have read examples in my research where some people say it only took a few weeks and everything was back to normal and others that have said it took years.
Any experience or insight is greatly appreciated. I am currently relearning SEO and going over the SEO tutorial articles provided on moz. Thanks again!
New Domain - matches our company name, no hyphens, better branding
http://www.giftbasketpros.com/
Google index
https://www.google.com/search?q=site%3Awww.giftbasketpros.com
Current Domain, since 2005, has ranked well for years until this summer
-
Isn't done yet. It takes much time to get you back to the old ranking but not sure to be said. It will return 100%. Its same thing I did try on Branches You can check also.
-
I think the miscommunication was from my original post where I posted "Does domain trust reset" I can see how someone would read that as trying to circumvent a penalty. I meant on a new domain with no history and no index. My current domain whether its penalized or not has ranked for years so I am very confident this issue can be resolved.
My first step is learning about the disavow tool. I have never used it but did notice a big quantity of links which according aHrefs was discovered in August. 691 to be exact on August 17th by some spam blog. I did not buy or ask for those links. I am assuming the disavow tool was made for this type of spam. I will review my Google backlinks first and disavow any garbage then update my content and try to build good links to it.
There are many things I need to do, years behind. My site isnt even mobile ready yet. That project is slated to be finished by March.
-
Hi,
I am so sorry that a general advice was offensive for you.
You know best what caused what.
I apologize too, on regard a quote I did not translate properly for you. -
Thanks for the response.
I was not saying I wanted to move the domain to somehow circumvent some penalty. When I asked about trust I was referring to the new domain with zero history not some bad link scheme on my current site.
My drop in rankings has been a slow and gradual drop from #1 to #18ish over the last 8 years. The recent blackhole drop could be anything but I think I would remember some shady link scheme you are insinuating. No, I didnt participate in link schemes in the past nor in the current. I havent kept up to date with the current SEO stuff but I highly doubt sites with such bad link schemes would have survived penguin years ago. This drop is just a couple months ago well beyond the big algo changes so I highly doubt its some bad stuff coming home to roost as you suggest.
Also I am not sure what you are talking about with regards to water under the bridge and the whole flood???
If anything my IBL have decayed over time by the apparent Ahrefs chart. The sudden drop, I will figure out what it is but its not what you are suggesting.
-
Hi,
As you already noticed on regard SEO, it is not water which passed under the bridge, since 2004, it was a whole flood!
Said that, I strongly recommend that you update the SEO of your old domain before consider a migration or a redirect.
Nowadays, Google knows a lot about the owner of any domain. That is a factor too.All succesfull migrations bring almost all the SEO rank, whether is a good or a bad one. If your website is now having a penalization due to old back links, link schemes from the past that you might have forgotten or you do not know about, lack of h1: the best option is to fix up all the SEO issues, accordingly to SEO 2018 best practices, before the migration or redirect.
Sadly, Google has long term excelent memory and great data bank. Good luck and Happy New Year!
Mª Verónica
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
-
Getting Traffic to a New Website - Looking for Ideas
I am working with a company that is launching a brand new website (for a new business they are creating). I am wondering what things people have done to try to start building traffic and/or awareness for the site.
Branding | | TopFloor0 -
What is the best way to market/raise awareness about new clothing products?
We are an Outdoor Clothing Company that designs our own range. We primarily sell through Retailers & distribution networks, but around 2 years ago went online. We update our collections twice a year, and we really struggle to get attention and awareness of our new designs. Can anyone recommend the best practice for getting newly launched products successfully "marketed"?
Branding | | Target-Dry0 -
What would you do before starting a new online business in the financial field?
Hi, What would do before you starting a new online business in the financial field for preventing reputation issues and start to branding your new company name? Which services / tools would you choose to use? Thanks in advance.
Branding | | JonsonSwartz0 -
'The Guardian' Is Moving to a New Domain
'The Guardian' Is Moving to a New Domain according to this article on Mashable - http://mashable.com/2013/05/24/the-guardian-dot-com/ Interested to see all the thoughts from SEOs to see how you would suggest they could implement this correctly, without dropping traffic / rankings etc...
Branding | | Webrevolve0 -
Can anyone advice us on how we can improve on our SEO ranking?
Hi, We are the leading home cleaning and maintenance company in Singapore. We are trying our best to go online to expand our business. The thing is we are weak in internet marketing and we need to get some traffic to our website. Can expert advice us on how we can improve on our Google ranking? Our site:
Branding | | chanel27
http://www.absolutesolutions.com.sg0 -
How do can I compete with 60-80 Domain Authority?
As the title says, how can I compete with competitors that have a domain authority of 60-80? (Only around 2-3 major competitors) However I would like to compete with them. Is anyone else in this situation? What did you do? I've read a lot about building backlinks etc etc but surely theres more to it. I've got to rank 1500+ subcategories for my niche and it's nearly impossible to do so. Thanks to all who reply!
Branding | | Superinks0 -
What do search engines consider brand signals?
After being hit by the Penguin stick, like good content marketers we are trying to focus on improving brand signals for our site. But I keep coming up against what exactly brand signals are. I can understand that if you are called 'Ziggle' and someone links to you with that in anchor text or mentions that name, that would be a brand signal. But we're on a generic domain (descriptive of the produt type), so what would constitute brand signals in our case?
Branding | | RogerElliott1 -
.us domain extension for US locales
I have a large US travel site and am looking to make targeted pages for specific locations, attractions etc around the United States. With many of the TLD's already purchased for these niches, I thought about using the .us extension as it seemed relevant to the topics. Does this hurt seo possibilities or does the .us extension come across as spammy?
Branding | | Millibit2