Subdomain to Subcategory migration for an active news website blog
-
A very active news website has a very active blog as a sub-domain. For all good SEO reasons, they want to transfer the blog from a subdomain to a subcategory. Now, the issue is this blog is very active, updated daily and lots of people comment on it. So how should the website go about making this change while causing minimal seo loss and ensuring that the commenting process remains active and on going. A detailed answer would be much appreciated! Thanks!
I cam accross this blog post that guides on how to change a subcategory to a subdomain: http://devilsworkshop.org/moving-a-wordpress-blog-from-a-subdirectory-to-subdomain-preserving-permalinks/.
Any words on this would also be appreciated!
-
Hi Rishad - depending on the way the blog format is built and the backend technology, this might be either a bit challenging or quite simple.
If, for example, you're using Wordpress, you can simply use the same exact format, but republish the existing content at the new URLs (essentially changing where the installed version of the blog publishing software points). If, however, you've got something custom, you'll need the developers/engineers to make changes in the codebase to publish at the new URLs.
For everything old, you'll want to create what's called a "rewrite rule" - either ISAPI rewrite (if using Microsoft/ASP/.NET/IIS base) or mod_rewrite (if using Apache/LAMP). Your developers should be familiar with how to do these, but if not, there's some good, more details resources here:
http://www.seomoz.org/blog/url-rewrites-and-301-redirects-how-does-it-all-work
http://www.seomoz.org/learn-seo/redirection
The fact that it's on a subdomain won't make a huge difference - it should just make the rewriting and the pain from potential lost Google juice less harsh.
One thing I'd also suggest - sending in new XML Sitemaps via Google + Bing Webmaster Tools when you relaunch. You want them seeing those new URLs quickly (link building to the new blog location and tweeting/FB sharing those URLs can help, too).
Best of luck!
Rand -
Yes, I understand that we have to use 301s for the urls. That part is clear for us. However, how do you go about making the actual change? See, we add like 5 to 8 blogs daily and comments continue...so, how do we go about this? Do we publish the same content over onto the new category and then 301 the links? It is not possible for us to publish the entire content again. Also, if this is not the case, then what about current blogs? Like we have 5 new blogs today and we decide to activate the sub category, what should we do? I hope you get what I mean!
-
The simple way to do it is to 301 redirect it from blog.activenewswebsite.com to activenewswebsite.com/blog. Whenyou use a 301 redirect, the users will not notice anything and their commenting behavior shouldn't be affected by it.
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
-
Sitemap submission for site migration?
Hi mozzers, We're about to migrate 4 domains into 1. Is there a particular way I should generate and submit the sitemap or should I just follow the same protocol as for one domain? Should I even worry submitting a sitemap when the site has this drupal module? I have access to the webmaster tools of all domains, should I do something specific on the accounts that are migrating besides submitting a sitemap? Thanks for letting me know!
Technical SEO | | Ideas-Money-Art0 -
Reverify website
Hello, I want to disavow some really dodgy links and although the website is verifed since we see a meta tag in the source code, we no longer have the login details for the email address used to verify it so can't access the tools console. So how do I upload a disavow file (the links i got were from Ahref and Moz analysis)? Should I reverify the website using a new email address and upload a new meta tag? Is there a problem with doing this? Sorry if this is obvious!
Technical SEO | | AL123al0 -
Removed Product page on our website, what to do
We just removed an entire product category on our website, (product pages still exist, but will be removed soon as well) Should we be setting up re-directs, or can we simply delete this category and product
Technical SEO | | DutchG
pages and do nothing? We just received this in Google Webmasters tools: Google detected a significant increase in the number of URLs that return a 404 (Page Not Found) error. We have not updated the sitemap yet...Would this be enough to do or should we do more? You can view our website here: http://tinyurl.com/6la8 We removed the entire "Spring Planted Category"0 -
Transfer of website to maintain SEO
I am nearly finished building a new wordpress website to replace the old static HTML site which is currently doing very well in SERPs. My old site is currently hosted by a company who owns the site, my domain is registered with a different company and I have the nameservers pointed at Cloudflare. I have built my new site and have it hosted with a different company and I wish to keep the domain name registered with the company it is currently with.Is there an order that I should follow to move from the old site to the new site using my current domain name so that I minimize any impact on SEO. I built the new site with the same URL structure to maintain linking benefit. thanks
Technical SEO | | casper4340 -
Google Alerts News Images
I have a Google Alert setup which is pulling information from a blog. I am receiving images as part of the alert. The issue that I am having is that the images have nothing to do with the blog post. Is there a way to control what images are received in the alert. From what I have gathered, if it grabs an image it should be part of the blog post.
Technical SEO | | ricknakao0 -
Websites being hacked & duplicated, what should we do?
Hi, please help! Our website was hacked and being totally duplicated. They even injected codes to intercept our orders. Although the codes issue had been solved, still there're two mirror sites out there. When search for some of our key words, they even have good ranks. What exactly can we do to let Google ban those two sites. Thanks in advance!
Technical SEO | | Squall3150 -
Noindex, nofollow on a blog since 2009
Just reviewed a WordPress blog that was launched in 2009 but somehow the privacy setting was to not index it, so all this time there's been a noindex, nofollow meta tag in the header. The client couldn't figure out why masses of content wasn't showing up in search results. I've fixed the setting and assume Google will spider in short order; the blog is a subdirectory of their main site. My question is whether there is anything else I can or should do. Can Google recognize the age of the content, or that it once had a noindex meta tag? Will it "date" the blog as of today? Has the client lost out on untold benefits from the long history of content creation? I imagine that link juice from any backlinks to the blog will now flow back to the main site; think that's true? Just curious what others might think of this scenario and whether any other action is warranted.
Technical SEO | | vickim0 -
Subdomains at Yola, Blogger, Wordpress
If the purpose of constructing a site or blog is for SEO ie a linking microsite, is it better to keep as a subdomain or to register on its own domain. The question is how much of the Domain Authority of that site will flow through the subdomain to linked site. I note that these subdomains have PA of 1, does this answer my own question?? Thanks eg widgets.yolasite.com or widgets.wordpress.com
Technical SEO | | seanmccauley0