Backlinks Redirected Temporarily (New to Old)
-
I have a website of which we are being forced to change the domain name and soon after give the control of the domain name to the corporate office. The corporate office will eventually put a new website up on it.
We would like to build more backlinks without the threat of losing all of these backlinks to the corporate site. We were considering to start building backlinks to the new domain with temporary redirects to the old domain but have recently been advised against doing this (threat of Google looking down on this technique). Should we continue to build back links to the old domain, or should we 302 redirect the links to the old domain?
Any advice is greatly appreciated!
-
That is exactly what we decided to do, the only thought (in my mind) is we'll working on two sites now (the switch will be approx Jan 2014) which seems a little redundant.
Thanks a bunch for everyones input!
-
If I understand correctly, you want to build links to the new domain, and then possibly 302 (or 301 redirect) them to the new domain.
Without knowing all the variables of your situation, it would seem to me that the best thing you could do is what Adam suggested. That is, build up content/links to the new domain as soon as possible to build up your domain authority, trust and traffic.That way when you make the switch, you won't be starting from scratch.
Theoretically, you could 301 those links from the new domain to the old, but this could send potentially confusing signals to search engines when you stop the redirects, and it's not something I would recommend. 302 (temporary) redirects could send the same potentially confusing signals.
If the corporate office is putting a new site on the old domain, they will retain that authority and you won't have anything to fall back on. Best to start building up something now that you can rely on later.
-
I don't know how Google would view links to a 302 redirected domain. It would definitely be a bit unusual.
-
Thanks for your reply! So do you believe that Google will see the 302 redirects negatively? We were hoping to create links to specific product pages.
Your solution is viable, but we wont get the advantages of the link on the current site in the mean time? Maybe this is just something we can't do?
-
If possible, I would set up a several page site with good content on the new domain and start building links to it. I think that would look less strange than a 302 redirect.
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 handle pre-existing backlinks on new site.
Hi - We built a new site on a URL that had previously been used. We are noticing a lot of spammy backlinks pointing to our current site and ending up on a 404 page. Any recommendations on how to handle this?
Link Building | | JJKM550 -
How to analyze a backlink
My site has around 6k backlinks, which majority seem to be spammy. I understand the whole process to contact the webmaster, try to get them removed, and disavow them if you cannot get them deleted. 1. What are some main signs of spotting domains that generate negative SEO? 2. Time frame to clean up 6k links assuming 50% are bad? Currently we are looking are a service to take care of this for us, but from reading everything online it seems the only reliable way to do it would be manually. Any recommendations on this would be appreciated.
Link Building | | TITOJAX0 -
Top 20 sites for backlinking
My security jobs website was doing very well in Search engines until the penguin got hold of me. I don't profess to be at pro at SEO however seem to have a knack of getting sites to rank well. I think I made some basic mistakes with the original security jobs website, to many links to soon, so I have started again and will build up slowly the backlinks quality rather than quantity this time. My questions is what are the top 20 or so sites that are good to backlink from?
Link Building | | SecJobs0 -
How do I see competitor backlinks with SEOmoz?
I want to get a report on all the back links to some of our competitors. How can I filter out competitor back links that also back link to our site? Does SEOmoz have instruction and/or a video on how to increase back links? Where?
Link Building | | lbohen0 -
Value of Link Redirect from Google News
Some sites are linking to us with the URL from Google News instead of using a direct link. For example: "http://news.google.com/news/url?sa=t&fd=R&usg=ghjgjhggjhgkjghjg&url=http://www.oursite.com/awesome-news-010123/" Does this pass the same value as a normal link? I asked the publisher to replace the link with a normal link but they pushed back saying that the news URL is better.
Link Building | | ProjectLabs0 -
What is the Best Way to Site Structure My New Content?
I am about to start adding some serious content to my site in hopes of providing more info to my visitors and to build organic traffic. I am looking for the best structure and places to put my inbound links. My website is tradethink.com and we specialize in trading systems for the commodities markets. I am going to be adding content about the particular commodities markets we follow; gold, soybeans, crude oil, etc. From my research I see it is best to place as many inbound links as possible to the content pages. On the other hand I see that it is important for the site to be user friendly and not have to much link clutter on the home page. I have a few options. Lets use "gold trading" instance. 1. Have individual links on the home page and most other internal pages that link directly to tradethink.com/gold-trading.html (lots of link clutter, but best SEO?). Problem is that I am doing this for like thirty pages and would have an additional thirty links on all of my pages. A possible work around is to place these individual links at the bottom of my pages. 2. Have home page and other internal pages link to tradethink.com/trading/ (just 1 link to add to each page), with the individual link still going to tradethink.com/gold-trading.html. Here I am adding a folder "/trading/" to place all of the links in, but when you click on the link inside the trading folder it goes to tradethink.com/gold-trading.html and bypasses the /trading/ folder to get better SEO, shorter url? 3. Have home page and other internal pages link to /trading/, with the individual link going to /trading /gold-trading.html This seems the proper way, but am I giving up link juice by going to trading/gold-trading.html vs #2 above going direct to /gold-trading Any advise/questions appreciated.
Link Building | | trader2470 -
Keeping our old links
Hello Forum I just worked on redoing an eCommerce website and part of the revisions were to change the site's URL structure. What I'm curious about is how to maintain the external links we had prior to redoing the website so that these external links continue to point to their respective product pages on the new website. From what I understand, you need remap the old links to the new links in your CMS and set up 301 redirects. What's the easiest way to find the all the old link URLs and remap them? Or is there a different, easier way?
Link Building | | pano0 -
Are old links worth more juice?
In the last week and a half at a couple of shows in London, and including today on SEOmoz Q&A, I've heard polarised opinions on this topic, so thought I'd throw it out there to see what other people think, and what evidence/experience people have with this. Basically - some people are saying older links are worth less than new links, and others are saying old link are worth don't devalue and are possibly worth more. I have to admit, I don't have a strong opinion on this, as it is really hard to judge on live projects, and I think it is a case by case thing. Any thoughts?
Link Building | | Tom-Anthony0