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. Any Tips for Reviving Old Websites?

    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.

    Any Tips for Reviving Old Websites?

    Intermediate & Advanced SEO
    7
    10
    1846
    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.
    • CopBlaster.com
      CopBlaster.com last edited by

      Hi,

      I have a series of websites that have been offline for seven years. Do you guys have any tips that might help restore them to their former SERPs glory?

      Nothing about the sites themselves has changes since they went offline. Same domains, same content, and only a different server. What has changed is the SERPs landscape. I've noticed competitive terms that these sites used to rank on the first page for with far more results now. I have also noticed some terms result in what seems like a thesaurus similar language results from traditionally more authoritative websites instead of the exact phrase searched for. This concerns me because I could see a less relevant page outranking me just because it is on a .gov domain with similar vocabulary even though the result is not what people searching for the term are most likely searching for.

      The sites have also lost numerous backlinks but still have some really good ones.

      1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
      • sarahwalsh
        sarahwalsh last edited by

        We would highly recommend writing very high-quality evergreen content marketing.

        We would also recommend building very high quality do follow no follow backlinks.

        You must also make sure that your web design company designs a website, which offers a good user experience, so it's simple for shoppers to use the website.

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

          Content Refresh: Update outdated content, add new information, and improve formatting to make it more engaging and relevant to current trends.

          SEO Audit: Conduct a thorough SEO audit to identify and fix issues such as broken links, outdated keywords, and poor site structure.

          Mobile Optimization: Ensure your website is mobile-friendly, as more users are accessing the internet through mobile devices.

          Speed Optimization: Improve page loading speed by optimizing images, minifying CSS and JavaScript files, and using caching techniques.

          Backlink Analysis: Review and disavow low-quality or spammy backlinks while seeking opportunities to acquire high-quality backlinks from reputable sources.

          User Experience Enhancement: Enhance user experience by improving navigation, implementing clear calls-to-action, and optimizing for readability.

          Social Media Integration: Promote your website through social media channels to increase visibility and attract more traffic.

          Update Design: Modernize the website design to reflect current design trends and improve overall aesthetics.

          Regular Updates: Commit to regularly updating the website with fresh content, news, or blog posts to keep visitors engaged and encourage return visits.

          Analytics Monitoring: Use website analytics tools to monitor traffic, user behavior, and conversion rates, and make data-driven decisions to optimize performance.

          By implementing these strategies, you can breathe new life into your old website and improve its visibility, usability, and overall effectiveness.

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

            Improving the Organic SEO for on an old company website, is the same SEO, as you would apply to a brand new company website; that is white hat seo.

            you do need high-quality content marketing and good-quality backlinks. We own a summerhouse company, and this is how we got the business on the first page of Google.

            1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
            • Kelly-Anne
              Kelly-Anne last edited by

              If you are reviving an old website make sure it is mobile friendly. Then you will need to refresh the content and update page titles and meta descriptions. Also make sure you add new content regularly.

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

                That's a good question and I'd agree - I imagine that references to your website in published books online could be treated similarly to mentions across the web. Whether Google gives it any extra weight or not is unclear, but I'd agree that the implication is that a mention in a published book could carry some weight.

                1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                • CopBlaster.com
                  CopBlaster.com last edited by

                  Thank you for the replies. They give me more hope because I was thinking along similar lines.

                  I certainly plan on reaching out to the authors of old articles that lost link, but I am not so sure sometimes. One of the old websites specifically got its coverage from being controversial so I am not sure if they unlinked due to it being down or due to complaints from people pointing out how they were helping it by linking to it. I have been noticing articles like https://moz.com/learn/seo/backlinks and I would hate to risk losing mentions on high quality sites by drawing attention to new editors that might just delete the articles entirely.

                  Another question I have related to mentions is mentions in books. I have noticed a site of mine showing up in Google Books from a couple of published books discussing it. Does that help SEO like a brand mention on a high quality site?

                  I would think that Google would consider sites mentioned in published books to be more authoritative than ones just mentioned in blogs or news stories.

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

                    Hi there,

                    I'd suggest a few things:

                    1. If you have old analytics data or log file data to show you which content performed best when the site was last live, take a look at that and prioritise restoring and updating the content which worked well previously.

                    2. Go through the content and update with fresh information, data, images, links etc to give everything a freshen up. Don't worry if content is still relevant and evergreen, but just do some checks to make sure.

                    3. Once you've updated the content and you're happy with it, generate some new XML sitemaps and submit to Google Search Console to prompt Google to crawl the pages again and get them into the index.

                    4. In addition, perhaps submit the homepage and a few key pages to Google Search Console for crawling and indexing.

                    5. Once the pages are indexed, keep an eye on Search Console to see how pages are performing and use this data to update the most popular pages.

                    6. In terms of links, if you can restore any valuable lost ones by reaching back out to the websites, letting them know that the site has relaunched and seeing if they can restore the links, that may give it a nudge too.

                    I hope that helps!

                    Paddy

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

                      Hi,

                      As previously stated by seotoolshelp5 with addition of

                      1. Check for any issues with dead links leading to this websites

                      2. Check crawling errors

                      3. check website speed and improve it if necessary

                      4. Prioritize mobile version (if you don't have one, create it)

                      That's all for now what I can think of.

                      1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
                      • seotoolshelp5
                        seotoolshelp5 last edited by

                        Hi, There are two tips

                        1: update your old articles

                        2: Upload new articles

                        [Signature link removed by forum moderator]

                        1 Reply 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

                        • WhoseNo

                          My website is penalized from google with no message in GWT.

                          On 26 of October 2018 My website have around 1 million pages indexed on google. but after hour when I checked my website was banned from google and all pages were removed. I checked my GWT and I did not receive any message. Can any one tell me what are the possible reasons and how can I recover my website? My website link is https://www.whoseno.com

                          Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | WhoseNo
                          0
                        • seoninj

                          How to Target Country Specific Website Traffic?

                          I have a website with .com domain but I need to generate traffic from UK? I have already set my GEO Targeting location as UK in Google Webmasters & set country location as UK in Google Analytics as well but still, i get traffic only from India. I have also set Geo-targeting code at the backend of the website. But nothing seems works. Can anyone help me how can is do this? I am unable to understand what else can be done.

                          Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | seoninj
                          0
                        • phogan

                          Redirected Old Pages Still Indexed

                          Hello, we migrated a domain onto a new Wordpress site over a year ago.  We redirected (with plugin: simple 301 redirects) all the old urls (.asp) to the corresponding new wordpress urls (non-.asp).  The old pages are still indexed by Google, even though when you click on them you are redirected to the new page. Can someone tell me reasons they would still be indexed? Do you think it is hurting my rankings?

                          Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | phogan
                          0
                        • kirbyf

                          Website Redesign, 301 Redirects, and Link Juice

                          I want to change my client’s ecommerce site to Shopify. The only problem is that Shopify doesn’t let you customize domains. I plan to: keep each page’s content exactly the same keep the same domain name 301 redirect all of the pages to their new url The ONLY thing that will change is each page’s url. Again, each page will have the exact same content. The only source of traffic to this site is via Google organic search and sales depend on the traffic. There are about 10 pages that have excellent link juice, 20 pages that have medium link juice, and the rest is small link juice. Many of our links that have significant link juice are on message boards written by people that like our product. I plan to change these urls and 301 redirect them to their new urls. I’ve read tons of pages online about this topic. Some people that say it won’t effect link juice at all, some say it will might effect link juice temporarily, and others are uncertain. Most answers tend to be “You should be good. You might lose some traffic temporarily. You might want to switch some of your urls to the new structure to see how it affects it first.” Here’s my question: 1) Has anyone ever done changed a url structure for an existing website with link juice? What were your results and do you have a definitive answer on the topic? 2) How much link juice (if any) will be lost if I keep all of the exact content the same but only change each page’s url? 3) If link juice is temporarily lost and then regained, how long will it be temporarily lost? 1 week? 1 month? 6 months? Thanks.

                          Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | kirbyf
                          0
                        • Chemometec

                          How to de-index old URLs after redesigning the website?

                          Thank you for reading. After redesigning my website (5 months ago) in my crawl reports (Moz, Search Console) I still get tons of 404 pages which all seems to be the URLs from my previous website (same root domain). It would be nonsense to 301 redirect them as there are to many URLs. (or would it be nonsense?) What is the best way to deal with this issue?

                          Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Chemometec
                          0
                        • sandeep.clickdesk

                          My website is not ranking for primary keywords in Google

                          I need help regarding some SEO strategy that need to be implemented to my website http://goo.gl/AiOgu1 . My website is a leading live chat product, daily it receives around 2000 unique visitors. Initially the website was impacted by manual link penalty, I cleaned up lot of backlinks, the website revoked from the penalty some where around June'14. Most of the secondary and longtail Keywords started ranking in Google, but unfortunately, it do not rank well for the primary keywords like (live chat, live chat software, helpdesk etc). Since I have done lot of onsite changes and even revamped the content but till now I dont find any improvement. I am unable to understand where I have got structed.
                          can anyone help me out?

                          Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | sandeep.clickdesk
                          0
                        • Mark_Ch

                          How to structure articles on a website.

                          Hi All, Key to a successful website is quality content - so the Gods of Google tell me. Embrace your audience with quality feature rich articles on your products or services, hints and tips, how to, etc. So you build your article page with all the correct criteria; Long Tail Keyword or phrases hitting the URL, heading, 1st sentance, etc. My question is this
                          Let's say you have 30 articles, where would you place the 30 articles for SEO purposes and user experiences. My thought are:
                          1] on the home page create a column with a clear heading "Useful articles" and populate the column with links to all 30 articles.
                          or
                          2] throughout your website create link references to the articles as part of natural information flow.
                          or
                          3] Create a banner or impact logo on the all pages to entice your audience to click and land on dedicated "articles page" Thanks Mark

                          Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Mark_Ch
                          0
                        • Jury

                          SeoMoz Crawler Shuts Down The Website Completely

                          Recently I have switched servers and was very happy about the outcome. However, every friday my site shuts down (not very cool if you are getting 700 unique visitors per day). Naturally I was very worried and digged deep to see what is causing it. Unfortunately, the direct answer was that is was coming from "rogerbot". (see sample below) Today (aug 5) Same thing happened but this time it was off for about 7 hours which did a lot of damage in terms of seo. I am inclined to shut down the seomoz service if I can't resolve this immediately. I guess my question is would there be a possibility to make sure this doesn't happen or time out like that because of roger bot. Please let me know if anyone has answer for this. I use your service a lot and I really need it. Here is what caused it from these error lines: 216.244.72.12 - - [29/Jul/2011:09:10:39 -0700] "GET /pregnancy/14-weeks-pregnant/ HTTP/1.1" 200 354 "-" "Mozilla/5.0 (compatible; rogerBot/1.0; UrlCrawler; http://www.seomoz.org/dp/rogerbot)" 216.244.72.11 - - [29/Jul/2011:09:10:37 -0700] "GET /pregnancy/17-weeks-pregnant/ HTTP/1.1" 200 51582 "-" "Mozilla/5.0 (compatible; rogerBot/1.0; UrlCrawler; http://www.seomoz.org/dp/rogerbot)"

                          Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Jury
                          0

                        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.