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.
Splitting and moving site to two domains - How to redirect
-
I have a client who is going to split their retail and wholesale business and rebrand the retail biz. So let’s say they are going to move everything from currentdomain.com to either retaildomain.com or wholesaledomain.com. The most important business for them is the retail site, so they want to pass on as much ranking power as they can from currentdomain.com to retaildomain.com. I see two choices here:
We can 301 redirect all of currentdomain.com to retaildomain.com, and then redirect any wholesale pages to wholesaledomain.com. The advantage is that we can use GSC’s change of address tool to report the change to Google. The downside is that there is a redirect chain (2 hops) to wholesaledomain.com. Would this confuse Google?
Or we can 301 redirect page by page from currentdomain.com to the appropriate page on either new site. This means no redirect chains but it also means that we can’t use GSC’s change of address tool.
Which would you do and why? And is there another option that I'm missing? I appreciate any insights you can share.
-
You can do that. No problem. It will be best for wholesale customers.
My comments are designed to be best for retail rankings. If my connections to wholesale customers are poor then I would use your method. If my connections to wholesale customers are strong them I would do what's best for retail rankings. It is simply a matter of choice.
-
Your points about communicating as much as possible offline and by email, etc, are well taken.
I would still like to redirect existing wholesale pages to newwholesaledomain.com, primarily due to a desire to make everything as easy as we can for both types of customers. They want to emphasize the retail side but don't want to make it a pain for wholesale customers in the process.
So I'm inclined to redirect retail pages to newretaildomain.com and wholesale pages to newwholesaledomain.com. All page by page of course. Since the currentdomain.com home page will redirect to newretaildomain.com, we would put a notice on the new home page for our wholesale customers, pointing them to newwholesaledomain.com.
How does that sound? I think you are all correct that I should avoid redirect chains and meta refreshes.
-
I might also send out some... "Tell a Friend" email messages to past clients. They can then forward these to friends who may or may not have purchased in the past, but it will get them nice savings on their first purchase from your new domain.
I would make these offers so good that I don't make much money on them. This is just to get new people to the new domain. I would send them out in batches so my employees filling orders will not be so swamped that they will have trouble giving their normal fast service.
-
It would also be a good idea to plan and announce the move. This can be done by:
-
email and mail to important retail and wholesale clients.
-
before redirecting pages the old domain could include obvious messages to retail and wholesale clients, thanking them for their support, letting them know about the schedule of the move, and asking them to bookmark the new site.
-
inserts in retail shipments
-
special advertising before the move
-
special advertising and email after the move that gives old customers a nice discount when they make their first purchase on the new website.
-
-
Personally. I would not use metarefresh. I don't know how Google will treat it.
If I wanted to keep as much power as possible on the retail site I would have a plain page with my full internal navigation on it. It would also have a very clear message for wholesale visitors, that gives them as much time as they need to read, change their directories, and leave by their own action.
-
Interesting. At first I thought that it isn't a great experience for wholesale customers, but what if we added a meta refresh so that page has a message like... "The content you are looking for has moved. You will be redirected to the new location automatically in 5 seconds. Please bookmark the correct page at newwholesaledomain.com"
-
My first thought was exactly what EGOL suggested. However given the decission that they are dead set on rebranding I would suggest the following.
Split the wholesale site off first, leaving the current domain in place for a transitional period. After a pre-dertmined period of time (however long they feel it necessary for wholesale buyers to get used to the new website), then change the retail side to the new brand, and take full advatange of 301 and change of address.
My thoughts hope it helps,
Don
-
OK... thanks for the details.
In that case. I would build newretaildomain.com. Any pages that have equivalent or near-equivalent content on currentdomain.com would 301 direct page-by-page to newretaildomain.com.
All existing wholesale pages on currentdomain.com would 301 redirect to a new page on newretaildomain.com that explains your new wholesale website and has one outlink to newwholesaledomain.com. This page will keep all of the power of the wholesale pages on your new retail site, which must be competitive in the SERPs.
This maximizes power of newretaildomain.com and directs anyone who follows links to old pages on currentdomain.com to your new wholesale website.
This would be accompanied by multiple email and snail mail announcements to all wholesale clients. Sales agents would be trained how to transition.
-
I like this idea too
-
Thanks EGOL. Unfortunately they are committed to a full rebranding and want a new domain.
-
This is a great question and not easy. I would love to hear some others chime in. My guess is that splitting the pages immediately would be the best. Yes, you would lose the ability to do the change of address, but that really isn't essential. At the beginning, I would keep the content as similar as possible if not identical after the transfer (of course with different internal links).
-
If this was my biz and currentdomain.com is an appropriate domain for selling retail then I would start a brand new wholesale website and give it one link from the "about us" page on currentdomain.com. Any wholesale pages on current domain would redirect internally to the "about us" page. This keeps all of the power of currentdomain.com intact and does not divide it up.
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
-
When creating a sub-domain, does that sub-domain automatically start with the DA of the main domain?
We have a website with a high DA and we are considering sub-folder or sub-domain. One of the great benefits of a sub-folder is that we know we get to keep the high DA, is this also the case for sub-domains? Also if you could provide any sources of information that specify this, I can't see to find anything!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Saba.Elahi.M.0 -
How Can I Redirect an Old Domain to Our New Domain in .htaccess?
There is an old version of http://chesapeakeregional.com still floating around the web here: http://www.dev3.com.php53-24.dfw1-2.websitetestlink.com/component/content/category/20-our-services. Various iterations of this domain pop up when I do certain site:searches and for some queries as well (such as "Diagnostic Center of Chesapeake"). About 3 months ago the websitetestlink site had files and a fully functional navigation but now it mostly returns 404 or 500 errors. I'd like to redirect the site to our newer site, but don't believe I can do that in chesapeakeregional.com's .htaccess file. Is that so and would I need access to the websitetestlink .htaccess to forward the domain? Note* I (nor anyone else in our organization) has the login for the old site. The new site went live about 9 months before I arrived at the organization and I've been slowly putting the pieces together since arriving.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | smpomoryCRH0 -
Community inside the domain or in a separate domain
Hi there, I work for an ecommerce company as an online marketing consultant. They make kitchenware, microware and so on. The are reviewing their overall strategy and as such they want to build up a community. Ideally, they would want to have the community in a separate domain. This domain wouldn't have the logo of the brand. This community wouldn't promote the brand itself. The brand would post content occassionally and link the store domain. The reasoning of this approach is to not interfere in the way of the community users and also the fact that the branded traffic acquired doesn't end up buying at the store I like this approach but I am concerned because the brand is not that big to have two domains separated and lose all the authority associated with one strong domain. I would definitely have everything under the same domain, store and community, otherwise we would have to acquire traffic for two domains. 1. What do you think of both scenarios, one domain versus two? Which one is better? 2. Do you know any examples of ecommerce companies with successful communities within the store domain? Thanks and regards
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | footd0 -
Merging two different domains - subdomain or subfolder?
My company has two sites on different domains. We are considering merging the sites into one and keeping only the dominant domain. The dominate site is already a sub-domain of a larger organization so the new sub-domain would be two levels deep. I realize this is a little abstract so below is an example Dominant company site: company.root-domain.com Secondary company site: other-root-domain.com When they merge, everything will be on company.root-domain.com. Should it be other.company.root-domain.com or company.root-domain.com/other Note: The other site has several hundred pages. Both sites have strong authority and link profiles. I want to maintain as much of the value on the other site as possible with the merge.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | SEI0 -
Moving Content To Another Website With No Redirect?
I've got a website that has lots of valuable content and tools but it's been hit too hard by both Panda and Penguin. I came to the conclusion that I'd be better off with a new website as this one is going to hell no matter how much time and money I put in it. Had I started a new website the first time it got hit by Penguin, I'd be profitable today. I'd like to move some of that content to this other domain but I don't want to do 301 redirects as I don't want to pass bad link juice. I know I'll lose all links and visitors to the original website but I don't care. My only concern is duplicate content. I was thinking of setting the pages to noindex on the original website and wait until they don't appear in Google's index. Then I'd move them over to the new domain to be indexed again. Do you see any problem with this? Should I rewrite everything instead? I hate spinning content...!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | sbrault741 -
Redirect old .net domain to new .com domain
I have a quick question that I think I know the answer to but I wanted to get some feedback to make sure or see if there's additional feedback. The long and short of it is that I'm working with a site that currently has a .net domain that they've been running for 6 years. They've recently bought a .com of the same name as well. So the question is: I think it's obviously preferable to keep the .net and just direct the .com to it. However, if they would prefer to have the .com domain, is 301'ing the .net to the .com going to lose a lot of the equity they've built up in the site over the past years? And are there any steps that would make such a move easier? Also, if you have any tips or insight just into a general transition of this nature it would be much appreciated. Thanks!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | BrandLabs0 -
New Site: Use Aged Domain Name or Buy New Domain Name?
Hi,
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | peterwhitewebdesign
I have the opportunity to build a new website and use a domain name that is older than 5 years or buy a new domain name. The aged domain name is a .net and includes a keyword.
The new domain would include the same keyword as well as the U.S. state abbreviation. Which one would you use and why? Thanks for your help!0 -
How long should a domain redirect take?
Hi, I know that this is a 'How long is a piece of string?' type question but at what point should the ranking value of site A pass over to site B following a domain 301 redirect? I have shifted a domain over to a new URL, same hosting server, same IP address. I haven't made any URL changes or any content changes other than to change the site logo to match the new domain name. Domain B is basically an exact clone of domain A. I have redirected Domain A to domain B using the following line at the top of the .htaccess file:- Redirect 301 / http://www.newdomain.com/ I have submitted a sitemap for the new domain via google webmaster tools. It looks like the original domain as been completely indexed by google following the redirect as all rankings have been dropped from the results and there are no results for a site:olddomain.com search. Surely the rankings should have switched over at this point? Any help would be much appreciated.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | AdeLewis
Ade.0