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.
How long should an old site redirecting to a new site remain activated on a server?
-
Once I switch a site to a new domain (with links to corresponding/relative pages), will I have to keep the old site live forever for those links to work, or how long should I wait before I inactivate the old site on our server?
-
301 redirects are called permanent, but that's not really the case. They are permanent only as long as they are in place. If you want to see this, do everything as Andy said and then remove the redirect. You'll notice your traffic drop and when you put the redirects back the traffic will recover. Go ahead and do this every year and you'll see that each time it drops. We've dealt with drops that happened from domains that haven't been active in over 5 years, so as EGOL alluded to, keep them forever.
-
Google has an extremely long memory for old URL's being live and linking. It is anoying realy.
Links from websites to your old domain are still there, you want to hold on to that value. Thus you will keep the old domain redirected. You do not need a server for that, just the domain pointing to the server and redirecting it on your server. Your web hosting support can help you with that (if not, switch to wp engine)
-
Mine will still be there when I attend my funeral.
-
Not at all - on the new site, setup a list of pages to be redirected (301) to corresponding pages on the new domain and make sure you advise Google through Webmaster Tools that the site has moved.
However, don't turn everything off on the old server until you have confirmed all is working on the new one.
-Andy
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
-
I am Using <noscript>in All Webpage and google not Crawl my site automatically any solution</noscript>
| |
Web Design | | ahtisham2018
| | <noscript></span></td> </tr> <tr> <td class="line-number"> </td> <td class="line-content"><meta http-equiv="refresh" content="0;url=errorPages/content-blocked.jsp?reason=js"></td> </tr> <tr> <td class="line-number"> </td> <td class="line-content"><span class="html-tag"></noscript> | and Please tell me effect on seo or not1 -
How to find out that none of the images on my site violates copyrights? Is there any tool that can do this without having to check manually image by image?
We plan to add several thousand images to our site and we outsourced the image search to some freelancers who had instructions to just use royalty free pictures. Is there any easy and quick way to check that in fact none of these images violates copyrights without having to check image by image? In case there are violations we are unaware of, do you think we need to be concerned about a risk of receiving Takedown Notices (DMCA) before owner giving us notification for giving us opportunity to remove the photo?
Web Design | | lcourse1 -
Should I Redirect Pagination?
Working on a redirect map for a client moving platforms and they have all of their category pagination indexed - no canonical link and no rel next/prev's on any of them. Should I redirect the pagination pages to the main category page on the new platform? Or Should I allow the pagination to de-index itself type of thing? Thoughts and experience?
Web Design | | paul-bold0 -
Website Redesign - What to do with old 301 URLs?
My current site is on wordpress. We are currently designing a new wordpress site, with the same URLs. Our current approach is to go into the server, delete the current website files and ad the new website files. My current site has old urls which are 301 redirected to current urls. Here is my question. In the current redesign process, do i need to create pages for old the 301 redirected urls so that we do not lose them in the launch of the new site? or is the 301 command currently existing outside of our server so this does not matter? Thank you in advance.
Web Design | | CamiloSC0 -
Help with error: Not Found The requested URL /java/backlinker.php was not found on this server.
Hi all, We got this error for almost a month now. Until now we were outsourcing the webdesign and optimization, and now we are doing it in house, and the previous company did not gave us all the information we should know. And we've been trying to find this error and fix it with no result. Have you encounter this issue before? Did anyone found or knows a solution? Also would this affect our website in terms of SEO and in general. Would be very grateful to hear from you. Many thanks. Here is what appears on the bottom of the site( www.manvanlondon.co.uk) Not Found The requested URL /java/backlinker.php was not found on this server. <address>Apache/2.4.7 (Ubuntu) Server at 01adserver.com Port 80</address> <address> </address> <address> </address>
Web Design | | monicapopa0 -
Learning Center on Subdomain or New Domain
Hello, With so much emphasis for SEO to develop unique, information content I am working to build out a "Learning Center' for one of my clients in the finance industry. As you can guess, this is quite a competitive space and their rankings have become somewhat stagnant so we are looking for new ways to develop original, share-worthy content for the site. So my question is, in order for them to retain the most SEO value should we develop this on a subdomain such as learning.website.com or a new domain altogether. Note: We do not want to develop this under the current site domain as it we want o only post informational content & courses and keep these pieces outside of the "sales" side of their website. Therefore, I thought the subdomain would be the best bet so that we would retain the most value for SEO... however, some of my colleagues disagree. Some vote it should be within a directory under website.com. Some say a new site & domain altogether. My vote is to place this under a subdomain such as http://learning.website.com with the idea that the site's authority will influence the root http://website.com. The argument I was provided against the subdomain was: "essentially adding a subdomain would mean you're sort of starting over again in terms of building authority. adding a folder will ride the coattails off the already established authority." Lastly, for clarification, the current domain is set up as http://website.com so the subdomain would be http://learning.website.com, the directory would be set up as http://website.com/learning/ and a whole new domain would be http://newwebsite.com. This is for a Wordpress site. Thoughts? All feedback is much appreciated!
Web Design | | TinaMumm0 -
Is it possible to redirect the main www. domain - but keep a subdomain active?
Hi Mozzers, Quick question, which I hope one of you can answer... Let's say I have a website (i) www.example.com and on that a subdomain exists, (ii) subdomain.example.com. Let's say I want to change my main domain from www.example.com to www.newwebsite.com. I'd 301 all content, use GWT to notify Google of a change of address etc etc. Having done that, is it still possible to keep the original subdomain active? So, even though www.example.com has been redirected / transferred to www.newwebsite.com, subdomain.example.com would still exist. If that is possible, what is the implication for Domain Authority? On the one hand, I have transferred the main site (so DA from that will transfer to the new site); but part of that root domain is still active. Make sense? Any answers? Thanks everyone...
Web Design | | edlondon0 -
SEO and Server Connectivity....
Good Morning/Evening Mozzers, I arrive at work this morning with 5 emails from GWT for my separate domains reading, **"Googlebot can't access your site - **Over the last 24 hours, Googlebot encountered 39 errors while attempting to connect to your site. Your site's overall connection failure rate is 15.1%." I have passed this on to the Web Dev team to resolve ASAP. My Question, will server connectivity issues harm my rankings? Is there a danger if this continues that URL's could be de-indexed? Input would be greatly appreciated.
Web Design | | RobertChapman0