(Australia) Changing .net.au to .com.au - web dev is refusing to do a 301 redirect and wants to run two sites?
-
After years using a .net.au site, my client has purchased the .com.au version of the same domain. I've now set up a new, responsive website using a wordpress template with new content, but used a similar page structure.
I've asked their web developer to now do a 301 permanent redirect on each old page from .net.au site to it's new .com.au page, but he has refused, saying it would be bad for long term SEO. Instead, he says they should run both sites (which I thought would cause duplicate content issues).
Both domains are hosted with the same company.
I thought as long as the 301 redirects were done on a page by page basis, there were no issues? I'm no SEO expert, (which he claims to be), so I just wanted to get another opinion on what best practice would be in this instance.
-
I am sure you won't get into any issues by keeping them both separate - but it doesn’t make any sense in doing that. You should definitely 301 redirect the old one .. page by page to the new site.
It doesn’t make sense to keep them both and you will lose since Google might start to rank one page from the com.au and for another query one from net.au. They should for sure consolidate everything into one single side.
Keeping them separately there migt also be some branding issues - as users might get confused. "oh, last time I was on the other Screento - let's look for those guys again"
So, you won't get into issues from Google with Duplicate content or anything else but you might shoot yourself in the foot by not 301 redirecting the old pages to the new ones since you will compete with each other and it just doesn’t make sense to keep them both.
So to make the long story short: Consolidate with 301 and you will be in good shape. Don't do it and you will be safe but you will lose on branding and rankings.
Hope it helps.
-
Wow - thanks for your quick response.
The new domain is www.screenco.com.au and the old one is www.screenco.net.au
Just for reference - these are the "SEO expert's" actual words: "leave it there and run both sites, putting a 301 redirect will harm the site in the long run. 301 redirects from other domains are now believed to be bad links – from the same domain they are considered ok, as they are redirecting pages that are now not working or temporary created by php or similar".
So do I take it he either a) is confused between a temporary and permanent redirection, or b)just doesn't want to spend half an hour doing the actual redirections?
-
Hi,
You said the new domain has new content ? Then it should be ok to have them separate - and no need for a 301 redirect. There are no issues with duplicate content if there is no duplicate content (as you said - the new domain has new content). Structure is not an issue if it's the same.
Can you post the two domain names so we can have a look ?
Cheers.
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
-
301 Redirect from unused domain
Hi All First question here so go easy.. I have a property site which is working well so far considering it;s early days, unfortunately some of my earlier efforts did not go so well and one in particular I pretty much destroyed in my attempts to improve the site SEO. Lucky enough my SEO skills have improved quite a bit lately, largely thanks to the great tools, tutorials and experts here at Moz 🙂 My question is whether I can use a 301 redirect to pass the domain authority and any link equity from an unused site to the one that ive done a better job on? it would seem a little sketchy to me and I would prefer not to get slapped and penalized "again" for doing something dodgy... Thanks everyone and thanks for all the help over the last 6 months or so.. Wes Dunn
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | wesdunn19771 -
301 redirect or Link back from old to new pages
Hi all, We run a ticket agent, and have multiple events that occur year after year, for example a festival. The festival has a main page with each event having a different page for each year like the below: Main page
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | gigantictickets
http://www.gigantic.com/leefest-tickets (main page) Event pages:
http://www.gigantic.com/leefest-2010-tickets/hawksbrook-lane-beckenham/2009-08-15-13-00-gce/11246a
http://www.gigantic.com/leefest-2010-tickets/highhams-hill-farm-warlingham/2010-08-14-13-00-gce/19044a
http://www.gigantic.com/leefest-2011-tickets/highhams-hill-farm-warlingham/2011-08-13-13-00-gce/26204a
http://www.gigantic.com/leefest-2012-tickets/highhams-hill-farm-warlingham/2012-06-29-12-00-gce/32168a
http://www.gigantic.com/leefest-2013/highhams-hill-farm/2013-07-12-12-00 my question is: Is it better to leave the old event pages active and link them back to the main page, or 301 redirect these pages once they're out of date? (leave them there until there is a new event page to replace it for this year) If the best answer is to leave the page there, should i use a canonical tag back to the main page? and what would be the best way to link back? there is a breadcrumb there now, but it doesn't seem to obvious for users to click this. Keywords we're aming for on this example are 'Leefest Tickets', which has good ranking now, the main page and 2012 page is listed. Thanks in advance for your help.0 -
301 redirects.
Hi everyone, I am having some issues with an a few dynamic URLs that are not redirecting; Example: http://www.example.com/shop-online?page=shop.product_details&flypage=flypage_images.tpl&product_id=69164&category_id=303 I first tried to carry out a standard 301 which looked like this; Redirect 301 /longurlwith&category_id=303 http://www.example.com/new-url Which didn't work. After a little bit of research I added the following into the htaccess file; RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^www.example.com$ [NC]RewriteRule ^/shop-online$(.*)$ http://www.example.com/shop-online$ [NE,L,R=301] Which caused the website to error 500 (Not cool). So now I am stumped. Any help would be really appreciated as I'm sure it's an easy fix but I can't quite my finger on it. Thanks in advance :).
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | AduroLabs0 -
Google Re-Index or multiple 301 Redirects on the server?
Over a year ago we moved a site from Blogspot that was adding dates in the URL's (i.e.. blog/2012/08/10/) Additionally we've removed category folders (/category, /tag, etc). Overall if I add all these redirects (from the multiple date options, etc) I'm concerned it might be an overload on the server? After talking with the server team they had suggested using something like 'BWP Google Sitemaps' on our Wordpress site, which would allow Google some time to re-index our site. What do you suggest we do?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | seointern0 -
Questions about 301 Redirects
I have about 10 - 15 URLs that are redirecting to http://www.domainname.comwww.domainname.com/. (which is an invalid URL)The website is on a Joomla platform. Does anyone know how I can fix this? I can't figure out where the problem is coming from.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | JohnParker27920 -
Probelms w/ 301 Redirects
I am trying to 301 redirect my old site to the new site (under the same domain. Most of the 404 urls are 301 redirects from 404 pages but they are still able to redirect. I need help understanding why I cannot redirect half of my list. <colgroup><col width="636"> <col width="342"> <col width="64"></colgroup>
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Melia
| OLD URL | 301 To: | Status |
| http://www.meliacaribetropical.com/en/groups.html | http://www.meliacaribetropical.com/en/groups.html | done |
| http://www.meliacaribetropical.com/entertainment/ | http://www.meliacaribetropical.com/en/services.html | done |
| http://www.meliacaribetropical.com/es/all_inclusive.html | http://www.meliacaribetropical.com/es/index.html | done |
| http://www.meliacaribetropical.com/es/galeria/ | http://www.meliacaribetropical.com/es/visor.html | done |
| http://www.meliacaribetropical.com/es/los-picapiedra/ | http://www.meliacaribetropical.com/es/index.html | done |
| http://www.meliacaribetropical.com/es/outside-us-telephone-listing.php | http://www.meliacaribetropical.com/en/index.html | done |
| http://www.meliacaribetropical.com/es/restaurantes/ | http://www.meliacaribetropical.com/es/gastronomia.html | done |
| http://www.meliacaribetropical.com/es/reuniones-eventos/ | http://www.meliacaribetropical.com/es/grupos.html | done |
| http://www.meliacaribetropical.com/es/spa/ | http://www.meliacaribetropical.com/es/servicios.html | done |
| http://www.meliacaribetropical.com/es/terms-condition.php | http://www.meliacaribetropical.com/es/index.html | done |
| http://www.meliacaribetropical.com/gallery/beach.html | http://www.meliacaribetropical.com/en/index.html | done |
| http://www.meliacaribetropical.com/gallery/dining.html | http://www.meliacaribetropical.com/en/gastronomy.html | done |
| http://www.meliacaribetropical.com/gallery/pools.html | http://www.meliacaribetropical.com/en/index.html | done |
| http://www.meliacaribetropical.com/lowest-rate.php | http://www.meliacaribetropical.com/en/index.html | done |
| http://www.meliacaribetropical.com/press/ | http://www.meliacaribetropical.com/en/index.html | done |
| http://www.meliacaribetropical.com/spanish/ | http://www.meliacaribetropical.com/es/index.html | done |
| http://www.meliacaribetropical.com/spanish/services/ | http://www.meliacaribetropical.com/en/services.html | done |
| http://www.meliacaribetropical.com/spanish/services/ | http://www.meliacaribetropical.com/es/servicios.html | done |
| http://www.meliacaribetropical.com/terms-condition.php | http://www.meliacaribetropical.com/en/index.html | done |
| http://www.meliacaribetropical.com/es/galeria/piscinas.html | http://www.meliacaribetropical.com/es/index.html |
|
| http://www.meliacaribetropical.com/es/galeria/playa.html | http://www.meliacaribetropical.com/es/index.html |
|
| http://www.meliacaribetropical.com/es/galeria/restaurantes.html | http://www.meliacaribetropical.com/es/gastronomia.html |
|
| http://www.meliacaribetropical.com/es/prensa/ | http://www.meliacaribetropical.com/es/index.html |
|
| http://www.meliacaribetropical.com/es/prensa/family-facilities-amenities.html | http://www.meliacaribetropical.com/es/index.html |
|
| http://www.meliacaribetropical.com/es/prensa/melia-caribe-tropical-announces-fall-promotion.html | http://www.meliacaribetropical.com/es/index.html |
|
| http://www.meliacaribetropical.com/es/prensa/melia-international-brand-overhaul.html | http://www.meliacaribetropical.com/es/index.html |
|
| http://www.meliacaribetropical.com/press/family-facilities-amenities.html | http://www.meliacaribetropical.com/en/index.html |
|
| http://www.meliacaribetropical.com/press/melia-caribe-tropical-announces-fall-promotion.html | http://www.meliacaribetropical.com/en/index.html |
|
| http://www.meliacaribetropical.com/press/melia-international-brand-overhaul.html | http://www.meliacaribetropical.com/en/index.html |
|
| http://www.meliacaribetropical.com/spanish/accommodations/ | http://www.meliacaribetropical.com/es/habitaciones.html |
|
| http://www.meliacaribetropical.com/spanish/dining/ | http://www.meliacaribetropical.com/es/gastronomia.html |
|
| http://www.meliacaribetropical.com/spanish/entertainment/ | http://www.meliacaribetropical.com/es/servicios.html |
|
| http://www.meliacaribetropical.com/spanish/events/ | http://www.meliacaribetropical.com/es/index.html |
|
| http://www.meliacaribetropical.com/spanish/flintstones/ | http://www.meliacaribetropical.com/es/index.html |
|
| http://www.meliacaribetropical.com/spanish/gallery/ | http://www.meliacaribetropical.com/es/visor.html |
|
| http://www.meliacaribetropical.com/spanish/gallery/beach.html | http://www.meliacaribetropical.com/es/index.html |
|
| http://www.meliacaribetropical.com/spanish/gallery/dining.html | http://www.meliacaribetropical.com/es/gastronomia.html |
|
| http://www.meliacaribetropical.com/spanish/gallery/pools.html | http://www.meliacaribetropical.com/es/index.html |
|
| http://www.meliacaribetropical.com/spanish/press/ | http://www.meliacaribetropical.com/es/index.html |
|
| http://www.meliacaribetropical.com/spanish/press/melia-caribe-tropical-announces-fall-promotion.html | http://www.meliacaribetropical.com/es/index.html |
|
| http://www.meliacaribetropical.com/spanish/press/melia-international-brand-overhaul.html | http://www.meliacaribetropical.com/es/index.html |
|
| http://www.meliacaribetropical.com/spanish/royal/ | http://www.meliacaribetropical.com/es/servicio-real.html |
|
| http://www.meliacaribetropical.com/spanish/sitemap.html | http://www.meliacaribetropical.com/es/index.html |
|
| http://www.meliacaribetropical.com/spanish/spa/ | http://www.meliacaribetropical.com/es/servicios.html |
| gastronomia.html0 -
How to use modrewrite to redirect certain portions of a site
Hello! My question is as follows: Suppose there is SiteA which is a blog that has a url structure of http://www.siteA.com/blog/category/article Now suppose I'd like to redirect those articles to a new domain (which has the same url structure) BUT excluding a certain category, say, 'blah/' so in other words, some examples: http://www.siteA.com/blog/shoes/best-shoes-to-buy ->redirects-> http://www.siteB.com/blog/shoes/best-shoes-to-buy/ (there is a trailing slash here for some reason) BUT http://www.siteA.com/blog/blah/foo-bar -NO REDIRECT- (because it's in the /blah/ category). Any and all feedback & help would be much appreciated 🙂 Thanks!~
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | apo11o1770 -
Don't want to lose page rank, what's the best way to restructure a url other than a 301 redirect?
Currently in the process of redesigning a site. What i want to know, is what is the best way for me to restructure the url w/out it losing its value (page rank) other than a 301 redirect?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | marig0