SEO and page redirects from a high ranking site quandary
-
We are launching a site on a new domain that is taking the place of a group (subset) of pages in an existing domain. BUT The pages on the existing domain have really good SEO rankings in a very competitive category and we want to leverage the traffic it gets today in the best way, so....
Which of the following would be the best practice in this case (in regards to SEO)?
Modify the existing pages' content so that there are prominent calls to action that lead the users to the new domain.
Create permanent redirects for the existing pages for their counterparts on the new domain. This is more direct for the user but we don't know how it will affect the current ranking.
Something other than the above.
Many thanks for you help
Gary
-
I agree do 301 to each page and get people to the new site.
Overtime they will learn the new site domain and you will gain new links to the new site.
I just did the same thing and merged an older well ranking site into a new site a year ago, & did a bunch of 301 redirects from good high ranked pages and then I also did full global 301 from several smaller sites to the new site.
-
It depends on what you're trying to accomplish. I'd go with option #2 if you're looking to transfer your rankings from the old site to the new. Once Google reindexes everything, you should have most of your ranks back.
If you're keeping the same content on the new site and the old, then option #1 isn't really an option, unless you canonicalize the old pages, which will have the same effect on ranks as the 301s.
So then it comes down to what's better for users? Do you think they would rather clickthrough the old site and its calls to action, or would they prefer to be automatically redirected to the new property?
I would think that you would want the new website to rank instead of the old, since having the old site continue to rank would just create an extra step for users.
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
-
Source page showsI have 2 h1 tags on my page. I can only find one.
When I grade my page it says I have more than one h1 tag. I view the source page and it shows there are two h1 headings with the same wording. If I delete the one h1 heading I can find, the page source shows I have deleted both of them. I don't know how to get to the other heading to delete it. And I'm off page one of google! Can anybody help? Clay Stephens
Moz Pro | | Coot0 -
Whether or not to remove a link from a website with high spam score on Open Site Explorer
Hello Moz! I just subscribed for your Moz Pro program. Amazing stuff! On open site explorer, I found a number of links to my site from a page called with a very high page authority and high domain authority, but also a high spam score (8 or 9, one with a 10). I say multiple spam scores, because it's strange, there are what appears variations of the same url, and each one is considered a link. For instance, there's an abc.linkstomysite.com and xyz.linktomysite.com, and 123.linktomysite.com... there are about 15 of these (all with the spam scores mentioned above)! This must have been some old SEO work done I payed for back in the prehistoric SEO days. However, my fear is the following: Removing these links, and then losing some potentially strong link juice. I don't have many high DA or PA links to my site, and these are some major ones. The domain in question "linktomysite.com", when entered into OSE, only has a spam score of 4, and it has a domain authority of 45 and page authority of 37. My site has a spam score of 2 and no messages from google regarding a penalty, but an overall reduction in google traffic over the years (just keeps slowly dropping... as if a weight is pulling me down?) What do you think, should I leave, or remove? The linkstomysite page is just a LONG page full of links, with short descriptions, nothing of value, but with a an old domain age (relatively). Most important for me is keeping at least some ranking/visibility, while I personally work on building quality links and helpful content. thanks!
Moz Pro | | DavidC.0 -
Duplicate Pages
Hello, we have an issue which I'm hoping someone can help with. Our Moz system is saying that this page http://www.indigolittle.com/fees/ Is a duplicate page. We use this page purely for mobiles and we have added code to say This has been on for over a month now however Moz is still picking the page us as a High Priority Issue.
Moz Pro | | popcreativeltd0 -
Aren't domain.com/page and domain.com/page/ the same thing?
Hi All, A recent Moz scan has turned up quite a few duplicate content notifications, all of which have the same issue. For instance: domain.com/page and domain.com/page/ are listed as duplicates, but I was under the impression that these pages would, in fact, be the same page. Is this even something to bother fixing or a fluke scan? If I should fix it does anyone know of an .htaccess modification that might be used? Thanks!
Moz Pro | | G2W0 -
Rankings go up and down, up and down, up and down
Almost every week we have more than a two dozen keywords that will all suddenly increase in rank only to then decrease in rank right back to where they were the previous week. This happens constantly despite the fact that we are doing very little SEO-wise on a week-to-week basis. What might be causing these constant shifts?
Moz Pro | | BlueLinkERP0 -
Local Rankings Drop?
G'morning! I got a disturbing report this morning that showed seven of our big keywords drop from high on the first page to not in the top 50. After further research I have found that we are now in Google's local cluster, but no longer on the traditional organic results. My question is this, has Google changed something that doesn't allow results in the local cluster AND in the traditional organic listings? I'm assuming that this is the case because we're doing smart SEO and have built these rankings up nicely over time, but then just fell off the face of the earth. I have attached a snapshot of Moz's Ranking History for a few of the keywords, as I assume this will help explain the story. (We're in green). Any insight would be much appreciated. Thanks! euxQb kwAqh pUxkC
Moz Pro | | jpretz0 -
How to Optimize a Home Page?
Can anyone advise on what is the best way to optimise the home page? Many websites I see include the target(focus) keywords from other pages on the home page. Is this self competition? "Avoid Keyword Self-Cannibalization- It's a best practice in SEO to target each keyword with a single page on your site" If an e-commerce website has 4 levels in the SEO architecture. Home Page, Brand Pages(Category), Range pages(sub-category) and individual product pages. It would seem that the main keywords would be within the category(brands) level of a website. However many websites I see include these on the home page as well. Could someone please clarify this? I do not recall seeing the report card saying Self-Cannibalization when these keywords(category level) are listed on the home page. However I could be wrong, Please could someone advise on what SEO MOZs recommendations are for best practise on optimizing a home page so that it does not compete with category pages, or other pages on the website. Thanks
Moz Pro | | WMA0 -
2 SEO questions
Hello everyone 🙂 I have two questions for all you fine seo people this morning... 1 - Is there a website that I could go to to make sure that I do not have duplicate content floating around on the web that I am not aware of? Sometimes people take information from my site and post it as their own and I want to make sure that google does not ping me for it. 2 - Does anyone know how I can report a spam site to google? I have filled out the reports many times over the past year and posted it in the webmaster discussion forum and it is still up there 🙂 I sent one email to bing and the next day they contacted me with a thank you email and indicated that I was 100% correct and they removed the site from their index. Thank you all!!!!
Moz Pro | | nazmiyal0