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
-
Would You Redirect a Page if the Parent Page was Redirected?
Hi everyone! Let's use this as an example URL: https://www.example.com/marvel/avengers/hulk/ We have done a 301 redirect for the "Avengers" page to another page on the site. Sibling pages of the "Hulk" page live off "marvel" now (ex: /marvel/thor/ and /marvel/iron-man/). Is there any benefit in doing a 301 for the "Hulk" page to live at /marvel/hulk/ like it's sibling pages? Is there any harm long-term in leaving the "Hulk" page under a permanently redirected page? Thank you! Matt
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | amag0 -
Need advice on redirects
Hi, I have new web addresses for my subpages. None if them have external links. Should I do redirects to the new pages or just leave the old pages in 404 and let google crawl and rank the new page. I am asking because my current pages don’t have a good ranking and I am thinking starting with a clean url is better. Thank you,
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | seoanalytics1 -
Best practice to redirect all 404s?
Hey is it best practice to redirect all 404 pages. For example if the 404 pages had 0 traffic and no links why would you need to redirect that page? Isn't it best practice just to leave as a 404? Cheers.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | kayl870 -
Adventurous 301 redirection chain
Picture this - if you have a spirit for adventure! Client builds Alpha****Domain.com Then builds a number of backlinks to Alpha****Domain.com Client also creates a number of 301 redirects from several older domains to AlphaDomain.com Client then changes Alpha****Domain.com to Beta****Domain.com They create 301 redirects from Alpha****Domain.com to Beta****Domain.com But then... they 'park' Alpha****Domain.com (ie. no longer accessible)! About one year later, client changes a whole bunch of URLs on Beta****Domain.com without keeping track of changes. Thankfully, the hosting service (Shopify) automatically creates some redirects, but it's more by accident than design! Questions: After step 6 above, are the 301 redirects created in steps 3 and 5 now totally redundant and broken? If AlphaDomain.com no longer exists, surely all redirects to and from this domain are broken? Or can they be recovered? What happens to all the backlinks originally created in step 2? Finally, can anything be done to recover lost URLs in step 7? Yes. What a mess!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | muzzmoz0 -
301 redirect impact on ranking
If Website A is ranking 19th position in Google for a specific keyword, and Website B is ranking 30th position for the same keyword, What would be impact after 301 redirect? Will Website A drop to 30th position because of 301 or existing position would improve because of link juice?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | riyaaaz0 -
How to get rid of two 301 redirects?
I have two 301s from http://www. to https://non-www version of my site. I wonder how can get rid of one so it will look like this: 301-200 instead of 301-301-200 All other combinations work fine and give me 301-200 status codes. Thank you very much!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | lovemozforever0 -
Should i redirect this page?
Hi I have the following 2 pages: http://www.over50choices.co.uk/Funeral-Planning.aspx http://www.over50choices.co.uk/Funeral-Planning/Funeral-Plans.aspx My dilema is that google sees the words "funeral planning" & "funeral plans" as the same thing, which might explain why the "funeral plan" page is not ranked v well. My issue is that the "funeral planning" page is at category level and introduces the wider subject of funeral planning, which isnt just funeral plans, so if i 301 my "funeral plan" page i will have no where to talk about funeral plans. My question is, Is the "funeral plan" page not ranked v well because of this or do i just need better optimisation of the funeral plan page so google is clear which is the key focus for each page? Thanks Ash
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | AshShep10 -
Best way to geo redirect
Hi I have a couple of ecommerce websites which have both a UK and USA store. At the moment I have both the UK and the USA domains sending me traffic from UK and USA search engines which means that a number of users are clicking a Google page for the store not in their location, ie UK people are clicking on a .com listing and ending up on the USA website. What is the best way to automatically redirect people to the correct store for their region? If I use an IP based auto redirect system would Google see some of the pages are doorway pages? Thanks
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Grumpy_Carl0