Moz Q&A is closed.
After more than 13 years, and tens of thousands of questions, Moz Q&A closed on 12th December 2024. Whilst we’re not completely removing the content - many posts will still be possible to view - we have locked both new posts and new replies. More details here.
Rebranding & Minimizing SEO impact
-
Hello everyone,
One of my clients is undergoing a major rebrand, which will require some substantial changes to their domain / URL structure. Primarily, we're going to:
- Move from a high-ish DA site to a low DA site
- Change the subdomain URL structure (more on that below)
- Update the content (copy, design, structure) on www. site to match the new brand
- The content on the subdomains should remain the same
- 301 redirect all pages from old site to new site where applicable
The current site architecture makes great use of subdomains, which are also going to be changing in terms of name. So, we're moving from oldsubdomain.olddomain.com to newsubdomain.newdomain.com (and not oldsubdomian.olddomain.com to oldsubdomain.olddomain.com). The content / structure of these pages is going to change minimally.
We understand that we're going to take an SEO hit overall, but are there things we can do to minimize this hit? Anyway we can 'estimate' the hit? Anyway we can educate our client to as to what to expect beyond (it is going to be bad…).
Please let me know.
Thanks!
-
I can understand your situation Josh..!!
But, as per my opinion, You should show the clear picture to your client. Be frank with your client. Tell him statistics that If we do this kind of things then it will be resulted in this.
Make your client aware about how big changes you are going to do. OR You can give recent example of Moz.com. They have done something similar things. They have made 301 redirects for all seomoz.com URLs on Moz.com. You can see its current PR and DA and all kind of things. So, Collect such data and show your client the realistic view.
-
Hi Josh,
I'm doing a similar thing - not exactly the same as we are merging 2 websites into one and then just for the fun of it putting the whole lot onto a new domain...
We've not done this yet as our new site is being built. Anyway, I found this webinar really useful: http://moz.com/webinars/domain-migrations-lessons-from-the-moz-transition and this blog post: http://moz.com/blog/domain-migration-lessons
I hope they help!
All the best,
Amelia
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
-
Changed the trailing slashes - how it effect SEO?
Hi, I'm doing a project called https://www.machinerygate.com/ Due to trailing slashes issues, our developer requests to remove the trailing slashes from the URLs. However, the homepage with and without trailing slashes the same effect right. How about the inner pages affect SEO. Because we just started to do SEO and not even one single link of Inner pages done with the process. However, for example, the URL for https://www.machinerygate.com/machinery/cranes/ is before with trailing slashes and it is on google indexed with trailing slashes. Due to some bug, google inspection tool has been not functioning nowadays and I'm finding hard to index the new URL without trailing slashes https://www.machinerygate.com/machinery/cranes to index on Google. If this gets indexed, how the URL with trailing slashes will be, does it automatically redirect to URL without trailing slashes or not? Please share your thought about this concern.
Branding | Oct 20, 2020, 5:16 AM | Navya1241 -
How does the background on my product photos impact SEO - step and repeat vs. plain background
I have a new e-commerce site and I'm focused on optimizing it for SEO. If I am taking product photos, will having a step-and-repeat (background with our logo repeated) in the background of the product impact how the images are scanned by Google? In other words, would I benefit from having a plain background behind my item shots vs. a backdrop with our logos all across it? I don't want Google to think I'm spamming my logo across all our items, but also want our photos to be recognized as ours. I want to gain SEO from my effort and definitely not hurt it! Thanks!
Branding | Oct 29, 2024, 2:43 PM | A_Wo1 -
Negative Keywords for SEO
Hi Mozzers, I have a client that has a totally legit retail business and they are getting lots of traffic organically that is adult in nature and totally off subject. The reason for this is their domain name contains keywords which while work well for their brand, when reordered and couple with a another keyword (such as picture or image) they get traffic for searches that have nothing to do with them and are pretty awful in nature. If this was Adwords I'd add a negative in of course but how can I stop bad traffic coming to the site organically? Any ideas? Cheers B 🙂
Branding | May 5, 2016, 2:16 PM | Bush_JSM0 -
Ecommerce & Outreach
Hey, Does anyone have any advice on how to approach outreach for an ecommerce site? We're in the process of doing user guides, for niche products. I wondered if this was a good angle to approach relevant communities/sites. Or is this too time consuming for little value at the end? Is it PR outreach we should look to focus on? Thank you 🙂
Branding | Mar 11, 2016, 5:57 AM | BeckyKey0 -
Rebranding/Url Structure Change
Hi Everyone, First off thanks for taking the time to looking at my question. I was wondering about rebranding and URL structure changes. Right now my company is planning on changing their domain and doing a massive change to their site which includes a url structure change. The idea is in September they will be changing the site to be a combination of wordpress and ruby on rails (currently the site is ruby on rails). The homepage and design on the site will be completely different and parts of the site will be in php and other parts will be in ruby. The URL structure will also be changing completely at the same time. Each page will be completely different in structure, including the homepage (currently now it redirects you to a subfolder page that is your local page [i.e. nyc if you are in new york]). Then, the following month, they will be changing their domain name to a different domain. I have asked them to do this in stages. First the domain, second the rebrand, and third the URL restructuring or we could lose SEO traffic but they asked a freelancer his opinion and the freelancer said that you could do the rebrand change with the URL restructure and then domain later and while you're SEO may disappear, it'll definitely return in 3 to 4 months. Could you tell me who is right and what the correct method is to make this change?
Branding | Aug 24, 2014, 6:31 AM | MattJD0 -
Guest blogging & duplicate content
This feels like a question I should know the answer to and I'm a tad embarrassed to ask, but the part of my brain that gets tripped up by somewhat simple things sometimes, is begging to ask just to confirm my understanding. I want to make sure I have it right it prior to giving advice. When one guest blogs I assume that it is critical to create content that is original and unique to that one instance of the guest blog. That means, do not also put that post on your own blog and do not submit it to any other blogs for inclusion. This is both for duplicate content issues and also to respect and not put in jeopardy for duplicated content, the blog owner you are guesting for. Is this correct? Are there any scenarios in which there might be a deviation of this "rule"? Like some use of canonicals or anything else?
Branding | Apr 22, 2013, 3:27 PM | gfiedel0 -
Ideas for formal (prom) suit & dress giveaway contest
Hi fellow Mozzers, I'm hoping to do a bit of brainstorming if you don't mind helping out. We've never done a contest for our clients before, so want some ideas on how to get the most out of it. In Australia it is coming up to formal (Prom) time, and our client sells boys suits and girls formal dresses, so I figured it was a great time for a contest. It's a brand new SEO client, so it's quite late notice...the competition can only go for about 3 weeks because most of the school formals are around late November, early December. (Not ideal I know) The client is willing to give away one free suit, and one free dress, and I want to brainstorm some ideas on the format of the contest, e.g. what should people have to do to enter the draw? Avenues we plan to promote are: Facebook (they have 600 likers), Twitter (currently not many followers), I'm thinking Australian mummy bloggers, free contest listing websites, email database. Any other ideas for promotion? The goal for the contest is to increase brand exposure, and to attract lots of links. Looking forward to hearing your suggestions. Thanks, Karl
Branding | Nov 3, 2012, 4:45 AM | Static_Shift0 -
Law Practice SEO with Multiple Lawyers
I am working with a friend of mine who is a lawyer. He has one partner and a couple of other lawyers at the firm. The attorneys each have their own Twitter, Facebook, Linkedin ,Youtube and other social media accounts. I am trying to create one brand, which is the name of the law firm. Question 1: It would make sense to me to create all social media accounts under the law firm name. Would you agree on this? I'm worried that users wouldn't use the company facebook page if they are used to communicating to the attorney through their personal accounts. Maybe I should put the social media links for the firm on the home page only and then put the individual social media links next to the attorney profile page? Question 2: The firm has been posting Youtube videos but under one of the attorney's names. I have 16 new videos they want posted and they asked me if they should be posted to a new company name channel (yet to be created) or post them under one of the attorneys accounts? I think that most attorneys might look out for themselves ahead of the Firm. If they ever change jobs, they don't have a built up social profile if everything is listed under the firm name. Maybe the way to go would be to help optimize both the attorneys personal profiles and then the firm? Thoughts?
Branding | Mar 9, 2012, 11:27 AM | Czubmeister0