Hot to move 3 websites into 1 SEO wise and recover from penaltys in the process?
-
I decided to migrate 3 EMDs and all of its content into 1 big new website.
1.) I will manually move each page/post to the new website, on new hosting.
2.) Redirect each old url to new via htaccess (how long do I have to wait before I simply change DNS records on my old domains, and just point it to the new domain - want to drop one hosting plan in the process)
3.) Tell Google via Webmaster tools, that my site has moved to the new domain.
Website A suffered from Penguin update, Website B suffered from EMD update and Website C is OK. I removed most of "bad" and "exect anchor text" links from websites.
Could I just move the content, change DNS records and tell Google that my website moved.
Any thoughts, advices and pointers are appreciated.
Tnx
Marko Strbac
-
Thanks Marko, and I am so with you on the impatience part. I have two sites I manage still being outranked by a competitor using black hat tachniques. I know, not only because their backlink profile makes it obvious, but also because I used to work for them.
I have been tempted, and even mildly pressured by my current CEO to do what they are doing. I keep saying "Stay the course. Do what's right. Time will take care of this problem."
But in the business world, one only has so much time (and patience). I mean, if your competitor can hold on with the black hat tachniques long enough, and still enough of your traffic to adversely effect your business...to the point of not having a business...what would you do?
So yousee, I totally understand your impatience. I think you are doing the right thing now. Consolidating those sites is probably your best shot at getting back on track.
While the blog post might be very interesting, I sincerely hope you don't have to write it!
Cheers,
Dana
-
Hi Dana,
Tnx for your kind words Dana, I really appreciated your opinions,.
I admit, this was more of a test project when it started, but soon some passion and love developed. I used only white hat SEO techniques at the beginning, even got a mention on imdb related articles, Over 400 visitors in a day from 1 natural referral, etc... Got a little bit of taste of a small snow ball effect.
Even with the great thing going on, somewhere along the way a "black hat" competitor, made me frustrated and impatient - I know... Rookie mistake
He copied some of my article ideas, targeted same keywords, and outranked me with obvious BS "black hat" SEO (a couple hundred profile backlinks, 10-20 high PR spammy comments, some .edu and .gov in there, etc...).
Watching his website top the SERPs and mine struggling on the bottom of 1 and top of 2 page, made me loose my focus.
I admit, I went "Grey Hat", I pushed the limits with some manual backlinks from his shady backlink profile(IMO around 10% of his backlinks), and it fired back on me. Great lesson learned
The best way to describe my situation:
If you had 4 seo related websites, would it make sense to join them?
example sites: seoreviews.com, seoaudiobooks.com, seobooks.org, seovideos.com
I know my decision to merge them and create 1 "brandable" website is the right one for users and SEO.
I hope that the quality of the new site will outrank the possible transfer of penalties from the old sites.
Hope it works, of not I have a great resource for a quality blog post: "What not to do...!"
Regards,.
Marko
-
Hi Marko,
I want to start by saying I realize how frustrated you must be to have your sites suffering due to one of several algorithms updates. Everything I am about to say is strictly my opinion and is based, of course, on not knowing all the specifics about these three websites.
This move you are suggesting, to me, doesn't address the real root of the problem. I think the EMD algorithm change was intended to effect EMDs that weren't providing great value to users/visitors. If you've already decided that this is absolutely the best course, I would encourage to continue to ask yourself: "How is consolidating these three domains into one providing improved value, content and experience for my users?"
IMHO, if you consolidate all your content into one domain, it may not necessarily have the panacea effect that you desire.Also, even if it does work, I would be prepared to ride out a big dip in rankings and traffic until Google gets it all sorted out. The domain to which you are moving everything to may suffer because it will immediately be getting a big change in its link profile. I know from experience that this can cause Google to sandbox a site (not de-indexed or even a manual penalty - just suffering from a bit in the algorithm that looks at link profile and history).
It just seems that you are making a pretty bold drastic move in order to get bold and drastic (better) results. I just want to be the voice of caution in that this move, and all of the work involved in moving content and writing redirects may not produce any positive results at all.
I'm sure you've probably already considered that possibility and most likely you've decided that the potential rewards outweigh the risks. I certainly hope it goes well and that your sites recover and flourish going forward.
Best of luck to you Marko,
Dana
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
-
We're planning a major website redevelopment - SEO Considerations?
We're currently planning a website rehaul, with a new site to be designed and implemented on our existing Drupal 7 platform. I've outlined the following areas to consider: Listing out top content by traffic, conversions, ranking and bounce rates to ensure top content continues to get relevant links throughout site (in particular high internal PA links!). Maintaining a specific KW target for each page Ensuring on-page SEO guidelines remain (i.e. img alt tags, headings and page titles) Having a low page load speed Ensuring architecture of site is built around our keyword methodology What else I need to be aware of? I'm predicting a drop in traffic as this tends to follow redesigns but looking to make this as minimal as possible. Sam
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Sam.at.Moz0 -
SEO question
Hi there! I'm the SEO manager for 5 Star Loans. I have 2 city pages running. We are running our business in 2 locations: Berkeley, CA & San Jose, CA. For those offices we've created 2 google listings with separate gmail accounts. Berkeley (http://5starloans.com/berkeley/) ranks well in Berkeley in Gmaps and it shows on first page in organic results. However the second city page San Jose (http://5starloans.com/san-jose/) doesn't show in the Gmaps local pack results and also doesn't rank well in organic results. Both of them have authentic backlinks and reviews. It has been a year already and it's high time we knew the problem 🙂 any comment would be helpful. thanks a lot
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | moonalev0 -
SEO issues? New functionality added to website and now hash (in URL) - fragments
Hi All! We have new nice functionality on website, but now i doubt if we will have SEO issues. Duplicate content and if google is able to spider our website. See: http://www.allesvoorbbq.nl/boretti-da-vinci-nero.html#608=1370
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | RetailClicks
With the new functionality we can switch between colors of the models (black / white / red / yellow).
When you switch with Ajax the content of other models is fetched without refreshing the page. (so the url initial part of url stays the same (for initial model) only part behind # changes. The other models are also accessible by there own url, like the red one: http://www.allesvoorbbq.nl/boretti-da-vinci-rosso.html#608=1372 So far so good. But now the questions: 1. We use to have url like /boretti-da-vinci-nero.html - also our canonical is that way But now if we access that url our system is adding automatically the #123-123 to the url to indicate which model(color) is shown. Is this hurting SEO or confusing google? Because it seems that the clean url is not accessible anymore? (it adds now #123-123) 2. Should we add some tags around the different types (colors) to prevent google from indexing that part of website? Every info would be very helpfull! We do not want to lose our nice rankings thanks to MOZ! Thanks all!
Jeroen0 -
Website Migration and SEO
Recently I migrated three websites from www.product.com to www.brandname.com/product. Two of these site are performing as normal when it comes to SEO but one of them lost half of its traffic and dropped in rankings significantly. All pages have been properly redirected, onsite SEO is intact and optimized, and all pages are indexed by Search engines. Has anyone had experience with this type of migration that could give some input on what a possible solution could be? Any help would be greatly appreciated!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | AlexVelazquez0 -
Domain Forwarding for SEO
Hey guys, I recently created a new website for a client who was ranking #1 for the term "jupiter obgyn" but they have now dropped down to #4. This happened because their old home page was at www. instead of just jupiterobgyn.com. When you type in the www. version, it does take you to the root domain but it's not carrying the old PA! The www. version of the page had a 22 PA and the new root domain hosted page is a 1. How can I fix it so that "link juice" carries over? Is this something i need to do in 1and1 (their web host) or within Wordpress? Thanks!!!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | RickyShockley0 -
Can anyone tell me if this website was built with Frontpage or another cookie cutter drag and drop website creator by looking at the source code?
Can anyone tell me if this website was built with Frontpage or another cookie cutter drag and drop website creator by looking at the source code? http://naturespremiumpestdefense.com/ Thanks, Russell
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | ULTRASEM0 -
HTML5 one page website on-site SEO
Hey guys, If for example, I'm faced with a client who has a website similar to: http://www.symphonyonline.co.uk/ How should I proceed with the on-site optimization? Should I create new pages on the website? Should I create a blog for the site to increase my reach? Please give me your tips on how to proceed with this kind of website. Thanks.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | BruLee0 -
What is the best route SEO wise for implementing a Wordpress blog that has a domain under go daddy and hosting under a third party like Kalio Commerce?
I am currently trying to implement a Blog on a Ecommerce site that has its domain set up under Go Daddy, but it is hosted under a platform called Kalio Commerce. I am trying to implement a Wordpress blog because I am most familiar with it and believe it offers more strength SEO wise but the Ecommmerce platform by Kalio does not offer the ability to install Wordpress or any CMS platform other than its own. I am stuck wondering if I could find a way to either implement a blog through a sub-folder (mydomain.com/blog) while using wordpress on hosting added to the go daddy server under their domain. If Kalio Commerce doesn't have any way of adding a blog to its own hosting is this hindering my clients ability to be fully optimized for fresh content? Now I am not too familiar with adding sub-domains with hosting under a different platform. I am more in tune with building a wordpress ecommerce site and implementing blogs under the wordpress structure. This is a leap for me and it is getting to be a little overwhelming so if any one has prior experience with this please let me know if I can find a way through this without putting my SEO consulting at risk. So far I have gotten to the conclusion that I can set up hosting for the companies site under Go Daddy even though they have their hosting under Kalio. If I am to set up hosting under Go Daddy would this cause the DNS routing to be compromised. If this is so must I set up hosting under a separate domain (myotherdomian.com) and have Kalio set up a Sub-Folder like so (mydomain.com/blog) and just have the DNS of the blog installed on (myotherdomain.com) point to the folder in Kalio hosting for mydomain.com? So now that I explained my situation, what is the best route SEO wise for implementing a Wordpress blog that has a domain under go daddy and hosting under a third party like Kalio Commerce?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | cscoville0