What are the Best Practices for moving a blog from subdomain to domain/subcategory?
-
Howdy SEOmoz fans! (couldn't resist).
I'm moving a wordpress blog from blog.domain.com to domain.com/blog.
Trying to do it right the first time and cover all my bases.
Issues I'm trying to handle correctly, in varying degrees of importance:
-
External LInks
-
Internal Links
-
Google Friendly Traffic Routing in a dynamic environment (wordpress, 301, .htaccess, etc.)
Thanks so much for any and all input!
-
-
Yeah, sorry didn't know to mark it as answered. But we've redirected successfully, thanks!
-
Thanks!
-
Hi Melissa,
Did John's answer answer your question, or are you still looking for some more advice?
-
If you're going to do it in phases, I'd do it as follows:
- Set up domain.com/blog, and make sure it's serving pages correctly. So now, both blog.domain.com and domain.com/blog would be serving duplicate content for the time being.
- Set up all pages in blog.domain.com to 301 redirect to their counterparts under domain.com/blog.
- Update all links in my site pointing to blog.domain.com pages to point to their counterparts under domain.com/blog.
As long as there isn't a lot of lag between steps 1 & 2 I wouldn't worry too much about duplicate content, as there won't be links pointing to your blog under domain.com/blog, so Google likely won't even find it.
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
-
Moving content to a newer domain - 301 re-direct not possible
I had a website that was getting decent traffic. Around 2k visits a day. Owing to some issues, the domain was suspended my the domain provider and they won't be releasing it anytime soon. Now, I'm in talks with my domain provider and it might take some good time to get back the domain live (weeks if not months). So, I have decided to migrate all my content to a new domain. Also, Google has stopped displaying my earlier domain (the suspended domain) in the search results now and I have removed the property from webmaster tools/search console. And since my earlier domain is suspended, redirection is not possible. So, I had a couple query in regards to this: I'm in the process of moving the content from the older suspended domain to the newer domain. What should I do that Google does not penalise my new site on the grounds of duplicate content, etc. What other things I should do while I'm in the process of this migration.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Evaway0 -
Can a move to a new domain (with 301's) shake off a google algorithm penalty
we have done everything under the sun using the holy grail of google guidelines to get our site back onto page 1 for our domain. we have recovered (penguin and panda) algorithm filters for keywords that were page 1 going to page 7 and now page 2. its been 2 years and we cant hit page 1 again. this is our final phase we cna think of.. do you thin kit will work if we move to a new domain. and how much traffic/rankings can we expect to lose in the short-term?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Direct_Ram0 -
Mega Menu Navigation Best Practice
First off, I'm a landscape/nature/travel photographer. I mainly sell prints of my work. I'm in the process of redesigning my website, and I'm trying to decide whether to keep the navigation extremely simple or leave the drop-down menu for galleries. Currently, my navigation is something like this: Galleries
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | shannmg1
> Gallery for State or Country (example: California)
> Sub-region in State or Country (example: San Francisco)
Blog
Prints
About
Contact Selling prints is the top priority of the website, as that's what runs the business. I have lots of blog content, and I'm starting to build some good travel advice, etc. but in reality, the galleries, which then filter down to individual pages for each photo with a cart system, are the most important. What I'm struggling to decide is whether to leave the sort of "mega menu" for the galleries, or to do away with them, and have the user go to the overall galleries page to navigate further into the site. Leaving the mega menu intact, the galleries page becomes a lot less important, and takes out a step to get to the shopping cart. However, I'm wondering if the amount of galleries in the drop down menu is giving TOO many choices up front as well. I also wonder how changing this will affect search. Any thoughts on which is better or is it really just a matter of preference?0 -
Redirecting Domain / Maintaining Keyword Ranking
Right now we have two sites: "our-company.com" and "cool-widgets.com." We rank high for "cool widgets" searches due to our keyword-friendly URL, but we're merging everything into our newly-redesigned company site. Should we redirect the old "cool-widgets.com" homepage to "our-company.com" (to directly transfer the old PR and links), or would it be more prudent to redirect the old homepage to "our-company.com/cool-widgets" to keep the "cool widgets" keyword in the URL? This option seems like it would be good for maintaining organic search results, but it wouldn't pass the strong link backbone to the new site's homepage.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | versare0 -
How to move blog to new domain with different theme & categories
I have a wordpress blog hosted on a separate domain. I have a new empty blog on a subdomain of my-commerce main site. The new blog has a different wordpress theme & categories than the old blog. What is a good way to populate the new blog with content from the old? What do I do with the old blog once the move is done? Thank you for your thoughts on this Handcrafter
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | stephenfishman0 -
Should you include domain / brand in Meta Title
Hello, I am trying to come up with a strategy for creating meta title information for my eCommerce store. I have read mixed reviews on the examples below. The first includes the company / brand in the meta title and thus is included in SE results. The second does not. Probably not a 'right' answer here so I look forward to answers with rationale... also open to a completely difference strategy all together! 1MR Vortex by BPI Sports - $Company_Name OR 1MR Vortex by BPI Sports - Pre Workout Supplement Thanks!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | 6thirty0 -
Best practices with reoccurring event listings
On our client's events page there are a few reoccurring events that each have their own detail page. I'm trying to figure out what's the best practice for minimising duplicate content. For example, for the Bribie Island Markets that repeat weekly there are 2 (+more) detailed event pages: http://www.ourbribie.com/e/bribie-island-markets/1869/2013-12-07/2013-12-07
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | michaelp85
http://www.ourbribie.com/e/bribie-island-markets/1869/2013-12-14/2013-12-14 While they both contain duplicated content, they're unique in that they display the specific events date/time. My thinking is that the future events (e.g. 2013-12-14) should have a canonical link to the upcoming/next event (i.e. 2013-12-07). However this would require constantly updating/changing the canonical links. What's the best way to deal with this from a duplicate content prospective? Any better recommendations?0 -
Sub Domain or New Domain?
Hi All, We have a client that has a business with three different services. 2 of these services compliment each other in a really obvious way, but the 3rd, while related is not such a obvious complimentary service. For this reason, service 3 kind of weakens the content of the website SEO wise for the two main services. Also, internally at the business it is run by an entirely different team so it feels culturally somewhat different. So, the client wants to pull all the content about service 3 and put it on a different website. Which would you chose as a domain for this new site: service3.existingdomain.co.uk or www.service3+brandname.co.uk
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | NoisyLittleMonkey0