Should I redirect off topic blog posts?
-
We launched a store on top of a popular blog. The blog had nothing to do with the store. The blog has a lot of backlinks and traffic, but our store is now our primary business. I am concerned that the off topic blog content may be affecting or ability to rank better for the core store business. Should we delete or redirect the old blog content to another website to improve the SEO for our store?
-
Thanks for the addition thoughts Mike. I'll check out that article and continue with the plan to see if these initial "test" redirects affect the site overall. I'll share my findings down the road...
-
The question of relevance vs authority in what makes links valuable is an interesting one and has recently been covered on Search Engine Land here: http://searchengineland.com/relevance-vs-authority-link-value-part-two-274417 (part two)
I tend to agree with those who value authority over relevance, as I've not seen any real proof that "relevant" links drive more power, but I have seen that links from off-topic sites improve rankings and traffic many times.
Obviously there's a great deal of context I don't have about how related the two sites appear to be to users that could be adding to the mess, and it does sound like the authority you have isn't quite driving the business you want, so no big pushback on the 301s - I'd keep an eye on your rankings and organic traffic though, it could cut authority to the point where you see a drop.
Best of Luck,
Mike -
Thanks Mike. I agree that this might not improve our SEO. But my hope is that it will at least clean up the site and make it more clear what we are about. So as we continue to acquire more links to the on-topic content, it will build a better SEO foundation for our long term success.
The other benefit is to get better clarity with our Analytics.
Right now, 75% of our business comes from non-Google sources (e.g. Pinterest, word of mouth). So I think the risk-reward scenario makes it worth a try. And I agree that we should start with a test and monitor. If no impact, then we'll redirect more of the content until it's all gone. And if there is an impact, then we can remove the redirects and just live with it, like we have been doing.
-
Hi Doug,
I'd be dubious about associating the old posts with the lack of traffic/rankings for the new store pages.
If you were to redirect those old posts to another domain, at best I'd expect no impact, at worst the loss of PageRank will cause the store to lose some the traffic/rankings it has now.
You could potentially test this (redirect those old posts somewhere else, see what happens, then remove the redirects if you're unhappy with the result, or if there's no/positive impact, leave them in place).
Ultimately, the need to acquire new links (and traffic sources other than Google) will remain either way, which is probably where I'd be investing focus/capital.
Best,
Mike -
The blog is on the same domain as the store. The store has been running on this domain for a few years and is well-branded, so moving it to a new domain isn't an option. Over the past 1 1/2 years we have been writing on-topic blog posts. But we still get a ton of traffic into the older off-topic posts. Not only does this muck up our Google Analytics (because of all of the irrelevant traffic), I am also concerned that it is confusing Google as to what type of site were are. We don't get much value from the traffic to these off topic blog posts, so my thought is to move these pages to a new domain (with 301 redirects), or simply redirect them to another site that has similar content. Thoughts?
-
Is the blog on the same domain as the store? If it is and there is no match between the topics of the blog and the store, I'd consider to move the store to a separate domain as far as it is still new. Otherwise try to write some topical articles with internal linking to relevant products of the store. But definitely don't delete the blog because there's a lot of potential for spreading the link juice to the store. I'd be also very careful with 301 because its purpose is to navigate user to a page with similar content, which won't be the case.
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
-
Redirect old image that has backlinks
Hi Moz Community! I'm doing an audit of a website and did a backlink analysis. In the backlink analysis, there is an image that has 66 backlinks but the image doesn't exist on the website anymore (it was on a website that was created in 2011 - 2 web launches ago). I don't believe a 301 redirect will work for an image that doesn't exist anymore. How would I redirect the image URL (it's WordPress so we have a specific URL that other websites are linking to but get 404 errors) without going to each individual website and requesting they change the URL link? Any advice or recommendations would be great. Thanks!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | BradChandler1 -
Do you outreach to blogs with no recent activity?
I have been doing outreach to blogs with some good success. My question (problem) is that many blogs do not update regularly and they may not have a new post within the past year or so. Is it best to pass on sending them an email or is it worth the time to do it? What is your cutoff point? Thanks!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | TimShank0 -
Should I redirect my HTTP to my HTTPS ?
I am about to make a domain name change for my online shop. I have heard that redirecting my HTTP to my https is a good SEO Practice. I have www, non-www, as well as https-www and https-non-www declared in Search console. Both have non-www set as preferred domain. Is the redirect rule from HTTP to https really usefull ? Thanks
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Kepass0 -
Fetch as Google - Redirected
Hi I have swaped from HTTP to HTTPS and put a redirect on for HTTP to redirect to HTTPS. I also put www.xyz.co.uk/index.html to redirect to www.xyz.co.uk When I fetch as Google it shows up redirect! Does this mean that I have too many 301 looping? Do I need the redirect on index.html to root domain if I have a rel conanical in place for index.html htaccess (Linix) - RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^xyz.co.uk
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Cocoonfxmedia
RewriteRule (.*) https://www.xyz.co.uk/$1 [R=301,L] RewriteRule ^$ index.html [R=301,L]0 -
Why is this url redirecting to our site?
I was doing an audit on our site and searching for duplicate content using some different terms from each of our pages. I came across the following result: www.sswug.org/url/32639 redirects to our website. Is that normal? There are hundreds of these url's in google all with the exact same description. I thought it was odd. Any ideas and what is the consequence of this?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Sika220 -
Penalty after 301 redirect?
We run a training center. We had 1 main website and 2 dedicated websites to certain themes. The 2 dedicated websites are older and the main website is about 6 months old. The 2 dedicated websites had a top 5 ranking for their most important keywords. 2 weeks ago we imported all the content from the dedicated websites into the main website. Then immediately after we did a perfect 301 redirect of these websites to the main website. 2 SEO companies checked it for us and so I'm very sure this is done right. Google immediately caught this up and gave the main website a boost. We where in the top 10 for many important keywords for 1 week. The next week all our rankings dropped. We only have a top 50 ranking for 10 keywords. Before it was 75 keywords in the top 20. Do you know what could have caused this? Any suggestion, thought, ... is welcome!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | wellnesswooz0 -
Subdomain blog vs. subfolder blog in 2013
So I've read the posts here: http://moz.com/community/q/subdomain-blog-vs-subfolder-blog-in-2013 and many others, Matt Cutts video, etc. Does anyone have direct experience that its still best practice to use the sub folder? (hopefully a moz employee can chime in?) I have a client looking to use hubspot. They are preaching with the Matt Cutts video. I'm in charge of SEO / marketing and am at odds with them now. I'd like to present the client with more info than "in my experience in the past I've seen subdirectories work." Any help? Articles? etc?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | no6thgear0 -
301 Redirect shenanigans.
So our website (www.FrontlineMobility.com) Has a canonical link redirect to the non www. version. However when I put in website.com it comes up with a small list of links and says this site links to www.website.com. So I'm curious if I used to wrong canonical linking method( that is the method I tried and I placed it in the Head Tags.) I greatly appreciate any assistance in this matter ^.^
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | FrontlineMobility0