Creating two websites from one and building up traffic to the new domain quickly
-
A client has an existing successful website that sells niche products - they are well known in their marketplace. They have two sets of key customers, let's call them (a) and (b), that need addressing in different ways to maximise sales. (a) is the more specialist end of the market, where people have complex needs - there are fewer of them but repeat business is likely, and we can talk to them in more technical language. (b) is the layman's end of the market - there is a vast pool of potential customers but they'll be more casual buyers and need to be addressed more in layman's terms.
So what they want to do is to take their existing website, and essentially split it into two different websites, one for each market. The one that will use the existing domain, with all the links that have built up over the years pointing to it, will be the site for the more specialist end of the market (a). The domain name suits it better, which is why he wants to use the existing domain with that site and not the other.
(b) will be a brand new domain. The client will write new product descriptions across the board so that the two sets of product information are not duplicate.
I'd rather he didn't do this at all, because of the risk involved, and the difficulty of building up the traffic to the new site, which is after all the one with the best chance of mass market sales. But given that the client has decided that this is definitely what he wants, does anyone have any thoughts on what the action plan should be?
-
Again, the thing is that the client has made the decision and he definitely wants to do this. I'm not planning to fight it any further as I've already explained to him the difficulties and he appreciates them and has made the decision to do it anyway.
The new site won't be exactly the same, but it will have broadly the same set of products, albeit described in a very different way.
The situation is undoubtedly difficult and undesirable, that's for sure. But the client has made a business decision and now we have to find the best way through it.
-
Sorry where you said 'splitting' the site in two, I assumed part of the site would move out to the new domain and therefore would no longer reside on the old domain
If it's going to be exactly the same site on both domains, then it truly is un-wise as there's no value-add for the web or end users (why go to the new site, when users can get all the same stuff on the old site?)
If it's going to be basically the same then it probably won't perform very well (also as the goal-posts for a good, linkable site have probably shifted since the old one was made!)
Different wording will help a bit but I wouldn't expect to see much performance on the new site, if it's not bringing a value proposition to the table (wording will only take you so far)
This is a good video from Google: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6AmRg3p79pM
You only really need to listen to point #1. If you start working on the SEO before you work on the unique value proposition of the new brand (or at least, new site - if it will be branded the same) then it's pretty much pointless to continue
-
I appreciate the time you've put in to such a detailed reply, however I'm not questioning the client's business decision and I don't plan to. My question was not whether it is a good idea or not - that really doesn't matter as the decision is already made - but more to start a discussion around the best action plan from this point forward.
There won't actually be any redirecting involved, because what the plan is essentially is to make a new website with all the same products on as the original site, but worded completely differently for the wider market. The existing website will stay in place as-is, with the original domain and all the original content.
-
Yes there is risk involved. But the greater risk is when you never diversify and build out, you get left behind. What's worse, a high probability of a small to medium dip in results (short term, 2-3 months) or the certainty of site death via refusing to evolve over time (probably in 5 years)?
What he is doing, is making a business decision. You can't make or unmake, or take responsibility for his business decision (that burden is his and his alone). What you can do is help to inform his decision
Even when redirect mapping is done perfectly, you can experience dips in traffic. This is especially true when new domains come into play!
Things that can affect the 301 redirects ability to transfer maximum (100%) SEO authority:
-
- If the redirects end up looping (super unlikely, between two different domains. Happens more when architecture changes on the same domain and someone super smart isn't doing the redirects!)
-
- Wrong redirect type used (e.g: JS redirects, Meta refreshes, 302 redirects etc)
-
- If the redirects begin to chain (301 to a 301, 301 to a 302, 302 to a 301 etc.)
-
- If the content Google saw on its last 'active' cache of the old URL (which is now redirecting), is vastly different from the content of the redirect destination URL. Do not think in human terms, think in machine terms. Think about stuff like Boolean string similarity. If you take all the content from the old URL and put it in a single string, and do the same for the new page - if the Boolean string similarity is only (example) 25% (rather than 75%, or 90%) - then don't expect most of the SEO authority to go across (it won't). If the new page is significantly different, it's Google's view that the backlinks which webmasters created previously (to the old URL) shouldn't necessarily be applied (in terms of PageRank) to the new URL. They might not have decided to link to the new URL, if it's very different (fair play I guess)
So as you can see, even if you do everything perfectly, there's still a risk that some performance could be lost and could have to be re-built. So why do anything or ever split / build sites out?
Well, the human population grows every day right? So does the population of the internet. That means that keywords which are long-tail today, could be heavy-hitters in 2-5 years time. That will draw the attention of larger SEO agencies and companies with more resources (people, money, expertise) than you can hope to match. Those keywords will get sucked up into the sky
So what will you replace them with? Happily, keywords with 0 search volume today (or which aren't even recorded) will exist and become fruitful as the human (and web) population grows and the diversity of applied language (for searches and queries) increases in complexity over time
So if you never build out and split out, never divide and offer a more long-tail experience - you will die and be forgotten. All your keywords now, will be taken from you - with nothing to replace them with, your site will die out
So you **HAVE **to grow and divide and scale. It's not optional, it's a survival requirement on a Darwinistic web
But you are right there is risk, especially in the short to medium term. There will be some pain and a loss of results. But if that stops the site from completely dying out, it's something you have to do
Judging when that moment has come can only be the business owners decision
Think of a lion on the African savanna. Is it risky to go out there, take down an antelope or a bison? You bet your ass it is, as a predator the lion could lose an eye. But does the lion just say "fudge it then I'll just stay in"? No, because if he takes that line of thought he's sure to starve. I mean, in reality the lionesses do all the hunting anyway >_> but you get what I mean right?
This split out will probably negatively impact results, and these kinds of maneuvers need to be kept in check. Once move like this every 2-3 years should not be exceeded. But if you never do these things, you lose everything in the long run!
Hope that makes sense
-
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
-
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 -
How stupid is it to launch a new URL structure when our traffic is climbing?
We decided to redesign our site to make it responsive as Google is ranking sites based on mobile friendliness. Along with this we have changed our URL structure, meta tags, page content, site navigation, internal interlinking. How stupid is it to launch this site right in the middle of record traffic? Our traffic is climbing 10,000 more visitors every day with the current site. Visitors have increased 34% over the last 30 days compared to the previous 30 days.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | CFSSEO0 -
Should we show(to google) different city pages on our website which look like home page as one page or different? If yes then how?
On our website, we show events from different cities. We have made different URL's for each city like www.townscript.com/mumbai, www.townscript.com/delhi. But the page of all the cities looks similar, only the events change on those different city pages. Even our home URL www.townscript.com, shows the visitor the city which he visited last time on our website(initially we show everyone Mumbai, visitor needs to choose his city then) For every page visit, we save the last visited page of a particular IP address and next time when he visits our website www.townscript.com, we show him that city only which he visited last time. Now, we feel as the content of home page, and city pages is similar. Should we show these pages as one page i.e. Townscript.com to Google? Can we do that by rel="canonical" ? Please help me! As I think all of these pages are competing with each other.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | sanchitmalik0 -
Two websites to merge into one - one has already been migrated - what about the second?
Hiya Mozzers, I have just been checking a website for duplication issues (this is a new website - they have just migrated across from old website to this new "main website"), and I found a wordpress blog on a different URL, duplicating the "main website"'s blog. Should I just close down this wordpress blog, 301 redirecting from the wordpress blog to the "main website"'s blog (equivalent blog posts to equivalent blog posts, with other indexed non-specific pages 301 redirected to "main website"'s blog homepage)? Thanks in advance for your help.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | McTaggart0 -
Content Marketing: Should we build a separate website or built in site within the Website itself?
Hi Mozzers, Client: Big carpet cleaner player in the carpet cleaning industry Main Goal: Creating good content to Get more organic traffic to our main site Structure of the extra content: It will act like a blog but will be differentiated from the regular site by not selling anything but just creating good content. The look and design will be different from the client's site. SEO question: In terms of SEO, what would be the most beneficial for us to do, should we built in this new section/site outside or inside the client's site? I personally think that it should be separated from the main site because of the main reasons: A followed link to the main site Anchor texts implementation linking back to our service pages If we would to choose to build in this content, it would be highly beneficial for getting organic traffic within the main site but I am afraid this will not provide us any link juice since anchor texts won't be accounted the same since all of those would be located in the Nav bar of the main site. Can someone tell me what would be the best in terms of SEO? P.S: My boss doesn't agree with me and would rather go the second option (build in within the main site) that's why i am asking you guys what would be the most beneficial? Thank you Guys
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Ideas-Money-Art0 -
Splitting one Website into 2 Different New Websites with 301 redirects, help?
Here's the deal. My website stbands.com does fairly well. The only issue it is facing a long term branding crisis. It sells custom products and sporting goods. We decided that we want to make a sporting goods website for the retail stuff and then a custom site only focusing on the custom stuff. One website transformed and broken into 2 new ones, with two new brand names. The way we are thinking about doing this is doing a lot of 301 redirects, but what do we do with the homepage (stbands.com) and what is the best practice to make sure we don't lose traffic to the categories, etc.? Which new website do we 301 the homepage to? It's rough because for some keywords we rank 3 or 4 times on the first page. Scary times, but something must be done for the long term. Any advise is greatly appreciated. Thank you in advance. We are set for a busy next few months 🙂
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Hyrule0 -
Hit by Penguin, Can I move the content from the old site to a new domain and start again with the same content which is high quality
I need some advice please. My website got the unnatural links detected message and was hit by penguin.. hard. Can I move the content from the current domain to a new domain and start again or does the content need to be redone also. I will obviously turn of the old domain once its moved. The other option is to try and identify the bad links and change my anchor profile which is a hit and miss task in my opinion. Would it not be easier just to identify the good links pointing to the old domain and get those changed to point to the new domain with better anchors. thanks Warren
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | warren0071 -
Brand new domain with a lot of old links.
So I just bought http://penny-auctions.co/ a couple of days ago, ignore the fact it's not set up yet and generally just a mess, and something kept bugging me about why the domain authority kept showing as 25 in the SEOmoz toolbar. Now initially I'd set it up as www. and with the trailing slash so the PA was 1, however after a bit of exploration it seems that someone has been building links to the non-www version of the domain for at least a year! The site has never been owned before so I've now made the non-www version the default and have a 5 day old site with PA 35 and DA 25! SEOmoz shows PA - 45 links, 20 domains and DA - 341 links, 113 domains. Majestic Historic - 8598 links, 236 domains and Fresh - 160 links, 62 domains. Brilliant! Except they're all spamtastic. What do you think this will do for my future attempts at ranking? Should I create pages that have links to them or just 301 them?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | StalkerB0