Redirecting Entire Microsite Content to Main Site Internal Pages?
-
I am currently working on improving site authority for a client site. The main site has significant authority, but I have learned that the company owns several other resource-focused microsites which are stagnant, but which have accrued significant page authority of their own (thought still less than the main site).
Realizing the fault in housing good content on a microsite rather than the main site, my thought is that I can redirect the content of the microsites to internal pages on the main site as a "Resources" section.
I am wondering a: if this is a good idea and b: the best way to transfer site authority from these microsites. I am also wondering how to organize the content and if, for example, an entire microsite domain (e.g. microsite.com) should in fact be redirected to internal resource pages (e.g. mainsite.com/resources).
Any input would be greatly appreciated!
-
Thank you for the tips and encouragement!
I feel a lot more confident about this project now, but if you could address one final question, I am still a little concerned about transfer of domain authority since one of the microsites gets top listings and nearly rivals the main site.
I realize domain authorities will by no means be combined, but I'm hoping the new inside pages don't lose so much page authority that they drop in the serps and, more importantly, that a significant impact can be made to the domain authority of the main site.
Basically, the main site is optimized and listing for our most valuable keywords and I'm hoping that the transfer of the microsite pages can provide a boost at the domain level.
Any insight would be much appreciated!
-
Sounds like you've got a good handle on your strategy, which to me seems sound.
Couple points of advice:
1. Make sure the microsites have a clean backlink profile. Use OSE or another tool to check for paid links, spammy article submissions, etc. You want to make sure not to transfer any bad links to your main site.
2. Do your best to 301 redirect individual URLs to specific URLs on your new site, keeping care to maintain the subject matter, content, structure, title tags etc. If these change too much, Google will interpret this as a change of subject, and you may lose any transferred authority.
3. Follow best practices for migrating domains.
Hope this helps. Sounds like your on the right track. Best of luck with your SEO!
-
If it is relevant to Sofas, you might be able to put it directly on that page. But yeah, having relevant content for each category makes sense for the user.
You can move the content over and the do 301 page-to-page redirects to the main site.
i.e
Sofas.com to furniture.com/sofas
contemporary sofas to furniture.com/contemporary-sofas
Good luck!
-
Thanks, what you've mentioned is basically my end goal. To answer your first question: the content on the microsites is mostly articles and informational content.
To build upon your furniture.com example: The main site is currently broken into relevant subfolders, but the informational content that should be there is living on the respective microsites. My goal is to move the microsite resource content such that content on sofas.com would be accessible from the main site via **furniture.com/sofas/resources **(for example).
An alternative could be to build an independent furniture.com/resources page and then build out subcategories from there. However, I think it is better UX to have the resources delivered relative to each category.
-
Thank you for the quick response. Each microsite is pretty comprehensive, so I think they would fit well as a single resources section or as independent resource sections within each main site product category.
However, each site is also branded differently, would there be any risks to avoid when changing design elements surrounding the text, titles, meta, etc?
*I should also note that some of the microsites do draw some rankings because of direct URL matches for some of our valuable keywords. That said, they contain good content that should be used to build authority for the main site. I am hoping redirecting won't hurt current listings too much, or that the authority boost gained from redirection will be more valuable than keyword listings for microsites.
-
BTW, have you thought about doing a 301 redirect to a relevant subfolder of the main site?
For example, the main site is furniture.com, microsite is sofas.com, you redirect sofas.com to furniture.com/sofas.html.
-
By content, are you talking about category and product descriptions? or articles, guides, etc.? Both?
-
I would definitely bring the content onto the main domain.
As far as how to structure the folders - it depends on the content. If it sits quite naturally as a stand alone section then a resources folder would make 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
-
How to Choose destination page for a 301 redirect?
I am doing some SEO for a wedding chapel in Vegas. There are some old packages that no longer exist and the bounce rate for the page is high so I am planning to 301 the page. How to best determine the best 301 destination? I have a few options. As an example the page was optimized for garden weddings. The page itself does not place well in the SERPS for garden weddings in Las Vegas, but our outdoor wedding packages in Las Vegas page places in the top 10. So that page is in an option. However, there is a different location that has a garden setting. Is that a better choice? Some content might match better than others, but any page I choose would be relevant content. Thank you so much 🙂
Technical SEO | | leslieevarts0 -
Ok to internally link to pages with NOINDEX?
I manage a directory site with hundreds of thousands of indexed pages. I want to remove a significant number of these pages from the index using NOINDEX and have 2 questions about this: 1. Is NOINDEX the most effective way to remove large numbers of pages from Google's index? 2. The IA of our site means that we will have thousands of internal links pointing to these noindexed pages if we make this change. Is it a problem to link to pages with a noindex directive on them? Thanks in advance for all responses.
Technical SEO | | OMGPyrmont0 -
What is the best way to find missing alt tags on my site (site wide - not page by page)?
I am looking to find all the missing alt tags on my site at once. I have a FF extension that use to do it page by page, but my site is huge and that will take forever. Thanks!!
Technical SEO | | franchisesolutions1 -
When Is It Good To Redirect Pages on Your Site to Another Page?
Suppose you have a page on your site that discusses a topic that is similar to another page but targets a different keyword phrase. The page has medium quality content, no inbound links, and the attracts little traffic. Should you 301 redirect the page to a stronger page?
Technical SEO | | ProjectLabs1 -
Microsite & Ducplicate Content Concern
I have a client that wants to put up a micro-site. It's not really even a niche micro-site, it's his whole site less a category and a few other pages. He is a plastic surgeon that offers cosmetic surgery services for the Face, Breast, and Body at his private practice in City A. He has partnered with another surgeon in City B who's surgical services are limited to only the Face. City B is nearby, but not so close that they consider themselves competitors for Facial surgery. The doctors agreement is that my client will perform only Breast and Body surgery at the City B location. He can market himself in City B (which he currently is not doing on his main site) but only for Breast and Body procedures and is not to compete for Facial surgery. Therefore, he needs this second site to not include content about Facial surgery. My concern is duplicate content. His request plan: the micro-site will be on different domain and C-block, the content, location keywords and meta data will be completely re-written and target City B. However, he wants to use the same theme of his main site - same source code, html/css, same top level navigation, same sub-navigation less the Face section, same images/graphics, same forms, etc. Is it okay to have the same exact site build on a different domain with rewritten copy (less a few pages) to target the same base keywords with only a different location? The site is intended for a different user group in City B, but I'm concerned the search engines won't like this and trigger the filters. I've read a bunch of duplicate content articles including this post panda by Dr. Pete. Great post, but doesn't really answer this particular issue of duplicating code for a related site. Can anyone make a case for or against this? Thanks in advance!
Technical SEO | | cmosnod0 -
Redirecting internal pages to another domain
Hi, I recently redirected the domain www.organic7thheaven.com to http://www.7thheavennaturals.com/ However, the internal pages of www.organic7thheaven.com such as http://www.7thheavennaturals.com/products/sensitivesouls/ are now displaying a 404 Not Found Message How can I have it so that pages such as the above automatically also redirect to http://www.7thheavennaturals.com/ Thanks!
Technical SEO | | MJMarketing0 -
How many pages should my site have?
Right now I think I only have 36. What is a good amount of pages to have? Any ideas on ways to add relevant pages to my site? I was thinking about starting a message board. Also, I have a free tech support chat room, and was thinking about posting the logs somewhere on the site. Does that sound like a good idea? Thanks.
Technical SEO | | eugenecomputergeeks0 -
My home page 301 redirects - is this an SEO problem
When ever a browser calls my site canineconcepts.co.uk, it is automatically 301 redirected to canineconcepts.co.uk/en I am not sure if I should be concerned about this from an SEO perspective or not. Any thoughts?
Technical SEO | | CanineConcepts0