Tips to Merge Two Domains?
-
Hi all, my client assigned me to merge both their two domains.
To cut the long story, at the moment they have, for example, domain1.com and domain2.com. Practically, they sell quite the same products but with different content and layout. This has been happening for several years: domain1.com came first then domain2.com a couple of months after.
They noticed that domain2.com has now more traffic than domain1.com. Another reason is they want to use one placeholder to avoid brand confusion (as expected because the products are actually the same).
So, they are planning to merge the brand into domain2.com.
I think this is just the same as moving domain, isn't it?
I have been preparing all things as per SEOmoz SEO Guide: How to Properly Move Domains and Google's moving your site .
Do you have any other tips to include?
I want to make sure that the domain moving will be successful and the link juice on domain1.com can be transferred to domain2.com .
Many thanks for your help!
-
Ah, thanks about it. Withdrawing a change of address is what I looked for.
Just in case if there is a need to revert.
-
yep, here is a reference source for the change of address.
-
Thanks, Luis. I feel the same way, too. That is one of the reasons my client finally decided to merge the brand.
-
Hi SEO5,
Thanks for your input. Yes, I am working on this, just to make sure that the mapping will be as relevant as possible.
By the way, have you had experience for "change of address" on Google Webmasters to set domain1 back to domain1 again?
This is just in case.
Many thanks,
Christian
-
think the best thing you can do is do a 301 redirect, maintain two websites can be complicated in your case it seems unnecessary.
-
Hi Christian,
You highlighted excellent sources for reference. You can apply the 301 redirect to move the domain. Ideally 301 the specific pages to domain 2 that relate to the same product info as domain 1. This way when someone clicks on a product page for domain 1 that is still ranking , they see a similar page on domain 2 when they are redirected.
-
Hi Exequiel, I am a bit confused now. Your reply seemed to contradict your first one; which I thought you were in support to migrate the domain.
You, however, raised a valid point here. Nevertheless, sometimes it is a risk due to business decision and to avoid brand confusion.
We will be still keeping the domain1 after migration, so we can have mitigation plan if this doesn't work.
I also want to seek everyone's opinion on this matter.
-
Hi Christian, In my opinion I wouldnt do it. I tell you why... Imagine that now you redirect your site to the one that is ranking better, and in a few months you receive a penalization on this site... you are going to loose everything. I think the best option is conserve your second site. Actually you can use it to test new seo strategies
-
Hi Exequiel,
Thanks for your inputs, these are also in the links above.
Just wondering if there is anything else I need to be aware of
-
Hi Christian,
The appropiate way to do it is with a 301 redirection, and you have to put it on Webmaster Tools too.
Good luck!
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
-
Any Tips for Reviving Old Websites?
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.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | CopBlaster.com1 -
Should we use a separate domain for franchise recruitment?
I represent a franchisor and we have two marketing campaigns: attracting customers to purchase our service; and attracting potential franchisees to purchase our business. We're torn between simply putting franchise-related content on our existing consumer website, or building a completely separate website for franchise recruitment. Building a completely separate site would involve a separate SEO strategy to build domain authority and backlinks... so we're thinking the better strategy would be to simply piggyback off of our already existing consumer website. Any advice?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | kimberleymeloserpa0 -
Reverting back to old domain name.
I've recently been asked by a client if I can foresee any issues with reverting back to their original domain name. With the original domain name they had a pretty decent DA for their sector which they have now lost. Although I do appreciate that over time this might come back, the CEO is very keen to switch back to the old domain. They do currently have 301 redirects from the old domain to the new and have implemented rel canonical. As yet they have not notified Google of the change of address using Webmaster Tools. Can anyone forsee any issues with returning back to the old domain name? They have only been using the new domain name for a couple of months which currently has a DA for 1.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Macrofireball0 -
Two websites vs. one for SEO
I recently met with a new potential client who currently has two websites for his business - one that is for the business as a whole and another that is specific to one of his particular services (his main service and what the overall business is known for). My first question was "why do you have two websites?" His response was that he has had a really hard time ranking well organically for his main service. He worked with an SEO company for two years and never was able to establish a solid organic presence for searches related to his main service - so he went ahead and had a site built to focus specifically on that service with the hope that it would help him rank organically for searches related to that service. The new site was built very recently (Dec. 2014) and it hasn't had a lot of optimization work put into it. The original site has a much higher Domain Authority, more incoming links, etc. My typical preference has always been to use one website and drive all traffic to that site, while building out specific content for any products/services on individual pages of the site. For some reason I'm torn as to what to do with this particular situation since his main concern is ranking for his core service, which hasn't happened with the original site. I'm concerned, though, that optimizing and managing two websites will be less effective than driving all of the traffic to one site, and that it could actually be detrimental overall. What are your thoughts? Suggestions? Feel free to let me know if you need any more details.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | garrettkite0 -
Old links showing on new domain
Last year we incurred a Google penalty and after months of trying the clean up the link profile with no joy we relaunched the site with a .org rather than .co.uk Now the issue is that 2 weeks after the launch GWMT is showing all the old links pointing to the new url. We didn't do a redirect of any kind, just changed the url Why is this????
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | jj34340 -
Looking to merge 2 domains to 1 - Got some questions - do you have the insight?
Hey Everyone, So the company I work for owns 2 domains. We have our main site which offers our portfolio of products and then we have a second domain, which we acquired, which focuses on one of our products (we also have this product available on our main site). So here is where things get tricky for me. This second site (the one that focuses on one of our products) has a HUGE following and a higher domain authority of 80 when our main site has an authority of 70. The higher up of the company want to merge the second popular site with our main site. There are many problems with this in my opinion since the following on this second site is very hardcore in the security space (I do not think that they will like to be sent over to a more corporate site) BUT I want to figure out the SEO value that can be gained or lost from this merge. Some questions... By 301 redirecting the pages over to our main page - I am assuming that the SEO power carries along with it so that these pages should still perform well? Will the domain authority of our main site go up with the merge since we are bringing over pages with a lot of equity? In your opinion, does it make more sense to keep the site with the higher authority since it is easier to host content that performs better? Anyone have any experience with this? SEO-wise do you think that this is a good idea or a bad idea? Thanks a lot! Pat
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | PatBausemer0 -
Setting Up Google Analytics for domains with 301
I have a client with a google analytics account that is a mess. domaina.com domainb.com 302's to domaina.com domainc.com 302's to domaina.com domaind.com 302's to domaina.com I thought the client was doing 301s on all these domains to the primary domain. I have logged into there analytics account and found data is being tracked on the other domains i.e domainb,c,d.com etc. How is it possible that google analytics is tracking data on these domains when no analytics code has been created and the urls are redirecting to domaina.com? Also there are not sites on these domains so for webmaster tools should I enable domain verification through a cname on the dns? Also I can I best setup a way to track traffic coming from say domainb.com? Whats the best step by step guide to use to set this up.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | JohnW-UK0 -
Keyword-Rich Domains - Redirect?
Hi, Mozzers- I have a client that has a bunch of pretty nice keyword-rich domain names. Their traffic and rankings are good. They provide legal services in the Chicago area. I have lots of good content that I could use to start a blog using a domain like keyword,keyword-blog.com. Good idea? Currently I have a resources area on their website but feel like this area could be getting a little bloated and some news-related stuff isn't really appropriate. 2 Questions: Should I use one of the decent domains for a blog and build up the rankings, traffic, and link to the main site? Or is this lots of work for little payout? Both sites would be hosted in the cloud. Some of the domain names are related to their name, others are keyword or geo-targeted. Would it be wise to setup 301 redirects going to their website? Pros/cons? If you need additional info, please PM me for details. Thank you, friends! LHC
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | lhc670