Domain Transition: Moving over paid traffic campaigns first
-
We're planning a domain name (rebrand) transition, and considering our options.
We rely heavily on paid traffic. To reduce risk, we’re considering moving AdWords and Bing Ads over campaign-by-campaign to the new domain first, while organic traffic continues to direct to the old domain. Each of our ad groups has a custom, noindex’d landing page. In order to serve paid traffic, we’d at minimum need a front page, and likely a privacy policy page in addition. Here’s a rough outline of what I think a transition like this might look like:
- Launch new domain with a simple front page, and privacy policy.
- Move over ppc landing pages on the new domain (noindex'd, robots.txt)
- Create new ads in existing ad groups directing to the new domain.
- Monitor ad groups for some time period to verify sustainability.
- Once we're satisfied with ppc performance, and planned the rest of the organic page migrations, 301 redirect everything to the new domain.
Is there any problems or things we should be concerned about with this approach? I'd think it should be fine, but I've been bitten enough from large-scale redirects in the past, that I know I should be nervous.
-
Hey,
I'm thinking about the basic things. First of all - Google won't take you seriously if you just have a couple of pages, which are new to his eyes, and with no links. More content (dofollow) will immediately mean that it sees you're trying to make an impact. + better chances of backlinks, shares. + better traffic since you have more pages. All of these would show Google that you're the real deal.
-
Thanks for the response. What exactly makes you think this strategy would affect the speed at which google indexes the new domain?
-
Hi,
well I think the answer quite shortly put is yes, it would affect the speed at which google would boost the new site as long as you're not uploading the content. If all of these are noindex the impact wouldn't probably be as big. Think of uploading the dofollow doindex content at least. That should be a good start.
-
Thanks. That video is definitely useful. Mostly stuff I already am aware of, but definitely a good refresher
I'm more concerned if a slow/partial transition of indexed pages to the new domain will have any aggregate negative affect over transitioning everything all at once.
Side note: our ppc landing pages are noindex'd because they're hyper customized for the keyword, and hyper optimized for conversion. They're basically include just a request form... only supporting content is to improve conversion rates. Which is often at odds with a page optimized for organic rankings.
-
Hey there,
I already posted this a few minutes ago but heck...it's just as helpful I guess. Rand just did a whiteboard Friday video about rel=canonical & redirect 3XX links which is right up your alley here.
I obviously can't explain it better than Rand, so have a look for yourself: https://moz.com/blog/rel-canonical
Cheers
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
-
Is it feasible to try to compete with an established site with a fresh domain any time soon?
Currently I'm looking at a competitor who owns a site with the following metrics: Domain Authority - 39 /100
Branding | | chrisjimallen
Page Authority - 49 /100
Spam Score: 1 /17
93 Root Domains
2,199 Total Links
Page Social Metrics
Facebook - 431 Shares, 17 Likes I'm thinking it would take 12 months+ to become a viable competitor, but thats a complete guess. What are peoples thoughts on undertaking something like this?0 -
Wikipedia and Domain Authority?
Hi there, my company is an online publisher of Theater news and reviews. We also sell theater tickets. We presently don't have a Wikipedia page. Would creating one generally help our search rankings?
Branding | | TheaterMania0 -
Separate experience on the same domain?
So my company is interested in creating a scholarship for medical students as a way to create more brand awareness and earn some quality links from universities and colleges. The problem is, we are a little stuck on where to place the scholarship within the structure of our site. First of all, our idea is to make the scholarship application process interactive and social. Candidates will create a short video where they answer one of the scholarship questions. Those videos will be displayed in a Reddit-style feed (sort of like Inbound.org) allowing people to vote for the ones they like. Videos with more links will rise to the top. The popularity of the videos will factor into the decision of whom to award the scholarship, but it will not be the sole determining factor. To do this properly, the scholarship should be its own experience independent from our main site. There will be several pages (profile, application, about the scholarship, the Reddit-style feed, etc.) so it wouldn’t really fit within our existing site. BUT if we put the scholarship on a subdomain we miss out on the link juice. Could we keep the scholarship pages under the main domain (mainsite.com/scholarship), but have it be its own experience with its own navigation? Will that look bad in the eyes of the search engines? We’d essentially have two sites on the same domain. Any help would be much appreciated.
Branding | | ba_seomoz0 -
Should we use one domain with product-specific sub-domains or separate domains per product?
We are resellers of 4 separate products. Currently we have numerous different websites promoting each product, not all of them use a URL which has any real link to our business - it's only when you land on the page that it contains brand images, etc. We are in the process of redesigning and rebranding, and want to know what would be the best course of action to take in terms of domain registration. This is what we have currently, for example: - www.accounts-solutions.co.uk - This site deals with the resale and support of a branded accounts package. www.software-accounts-systems.co.uk - This site deals with the resale and support of a second branded accounts product. In terms of moving forward with new domains, which are going to contain our business name, our options are as follows: - OPTION 1 - www.our-business-name.co.uk/product1/etc, www.our-business-name.co.uk/product2/etc, www.our-business-name/product3/etc where all products are given separate sub-domains within our main business page. OPTION 2 - www.our-business-name-product1.co.uk/etc, www.our-business-name-product2.co.uk/etc, www.our-business-name-product3.co.uk/etc where each product we resell is given it's own separate domain entirely. Does anyone think one direction over another would give any benefits in terms of SEO, or would it not matter as long as each site was well optimised with a solid content and social strategy? My initial preference is for the first option, if only because of the continuity in terms of having one main company website with each product listed in sub-domains. Each landing page would obviously be optimised for each specific product/keyword, etc. so, from a user point of view, there shouldn't be any confusion between separate products. Also, would it be recommended to install 301 redirects from our existing www.accounts-solutions.co.uk, etc pages to the relevant new sites? Thanks, John
Branding | | HBPGroup0 -
Which domain would you choose?
This is more of a survey than anything. If your name was Jeremy Parker, and you were to start a personal blog/site. Assuming jeremyparker.com was not available, which domain would you go with? 1. jeremyparker.net 2. jeremy-parker.com 3. jerpark.com 4. Other. From an SEO standpoint it would be unlikely to make a difference. But from a branding standpoint. Which one would you perceive to be best? Thanks.
Branding | | scotennis0 -
How to increase page authority and domain authority? [Ecommerce]
How can I increase my Ecommerces Domain and Homepage Authority? My competition have 60-70 page Authority and it's time I try to compete.
Branding | | InkCartridgesFast0 -
Is it a bad idea to have a catchy brand name url redirect to an exact match domain
A friend wanted to setup a website where people would share and vote on "widget" ideas where the winning idea got build for free. They bought cute the domain name widg.et and branded their site as widg.et. However, for SEO, they are having widg.et forward to www.sharewidgets.com. Then, to complicate things further, they changed their business model to remove the voting feature and now the site is just set to show off the widgets they've made and let people order new custom widgets. They might add the voting feature back later. "Widget" and "widgets" in this case has an SEOmoz difficulty of 72% and 71%, so quite high and none of the two word or long tail phrases have much traffic. What do you think they should do: Remove all domain forwarding and use widg.et as their only domain as it's less confusing and better for branding Get another domain that includes their keyword widget for the SEO exact match benefit Keep it as is, even though "sharewidgets" is no longer quite as applicable Many Thanks!
Branding | | skincareseo0 -
About domain names
Hello all. I am a new member of SEOmoz and liking it so far. This is my first post to you all (my new family). I have a client who is starting a new company. We know for sure that he needs a new domain name. The question is two part: Part One Should he buy (is it worth the money) a parked domain that has some age to it. For example, a 9 or 10 year old domain that is getting "0" traffic and has no PR? Or Should he just put that same say $1000 price tag back in his wallet and spend the money on a link building campaign to his new $9.95 domain name? Part Two We found a domain he really likes but only the ".co" ".net" and ".biz" are available. The .com belongs to a big company that has made a simple landing page from the .com domain name (that we really want) and will probably never let it go to us. So we will always be stuck without the .com portion of the domain registrations for this domain name if we go for it. Question: a. Will we have difficulty competing for our own name recognition since the "big company" owns the landing page (even though it is a "0" PR page? b. Can we live on only the .co extension or would we live to regret not getting all the extensions related to our domain name? thanks everyone! I look forward to contributing here as well.
Branding | | webindustry0