Root domain change - how do we best handle existing backlinks from our own content platforms on youtube, etc?
-
Hi, we have recently changed our brand name after 7 years and have changed our root domain to match (33shake.com since 2012, now 33 fuel.com)
The site is the same (no migration to a new one) as there were no other business changes apart from the name/domain.
301 redirects are looking after all former 33shake.com links, which are now being redirected to their new 33fuel.com equivalents (slugs are the same in 99% of cases).
My question is:
We have a lot of backlinks for our old domain (33shake.com) on our own content via our YouTube channel (100+ videos) and also our podcast (64 episodes in, broadcast on 10 platforms).
For maximum SEO benefit as we continue to restore domain authority, etc to 33fuel.com, are we best to leave these historical backlinks pointed at the old domain and let the redirects pick them up when people click? Or are we better off swapping all of these old historical backlinks so they point directly to the new domain?
Any advice would be greatly appreciated, this is quite a maze we are now picking our way through!
Warren
-
Thanks so much for the clear and helpful response. Amending the links is easy enough for us to do, we'll get to it.
-
You're better off amending the links if at all possible. 301 redirects are great, but they can break down for many reasons. One reason a 301 can be refused equity flow, is if the old content is too 'dissimilar' to the new content (think Boolean string similarity, not 'what humans think'). If the old content and new content are 60% similar, don't expect 100% of the authority to go through. If the old and new content are only 20% similar, barely any SEO authority (if any) will translate across
This is to combat SEO-authority sculpting through redirects. If webmasters decided they voluntarily, editorially wanted to link to one old page, but the new page is barely similar to that old resource - are the old hyperlinks still 'valid' in terms of contributing SEO authority? In many cases, no they are not (the webmasters or editors, may not have chosen to link to the new content - even though they did link to the old content). Past a certain point, content has to re-prove itself
Amending the hyperlinks circumvents that judgement, though links do also decay over time. In general, I have found link amends to be superior to 301 redirects, 90% of the time
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
-
Unsolved Duplicate Content
We have multiple collections being flagged as duplicate content - but I can't find where these duplications are coming from? The duplicate content has no introductory text, and no meta description. Please see examples:- This is the correct collection page:-
Technical SEO | | Caroline_Ardmoor
https://www.ardmoor.co.uk/collections/deerhunter This is the incorrect collection page:-
https://www.ardmoor.co.uk/collections/vendors How do I stop this incorrect page from showing?0 -
Best way to handle Breadcrumbs for Blog Posts in multiple categories?
The site in question uses Wordpress. They have a Resources section that is broken into two categories (A or B). Underneath each of these categories is 5 or 6 subcategories. The structure looks like this: /p/main-category-a/subcategory/blog-post-name /p/main-category-b/subcategory/blog-post-name All posts have a main category, but other posts often have multiple subcategories while some posts also fall into both main categories. What would be the easiest or most effective way to auto-populate the breadcrumb based on from where the person reached the blog post? So for example, a way to set Home -> Main Category -> Subcategory 1 as the breadcrumb if they reach it from the Subcategory 1 landing page. Or is this not possible and we should just set the breadcrumb manually based on where we feel it best lives? Thanks.
Technical SEO | | Alces0 -
Managing Zendesk content, specifically redirecting/retiring content?
We've been using Zendesk to manage support content, and have old/duplicate articles that we'd like to redirect. However, Zendesk doesn't seem to have a solution for this, and the suggestions we've found (some hacky JS) have not worked. I'd like for us to not just delete/hide these articles. Has anyone else successfully navigated retiring/redirecting Zendesk content in an SEO-friendly fashion?
Technical SEO | | KMStrava0 -
IP Change
Hello MOZ friends! We recently changed servers and subsequently had a change in IP. It's a better and faster server but have seen a significant drop in SERPS. Could this be a result of moving the site? Thanks!
Technical SEO | | wearehappymedia0 -
Add translated content on different domain or not?
Hello, I currently have my dutch website in the domain of my country. Quite good SEO positions are there for this language. Now, i'd like to translate my full site to english, my target group would go over the whole world because i'm delivering an online service. Therefore, I don't think it's good to have this on my country domain? I have an identic .EU domain that's never been used (currently redirecting). What's the best choice? What are the + and - ? Could this have any effect on my current positions in dutch (homecountry domain) ? Thanks!
Technical SEO | | conversal0 -
Domain hacked and redirected to another domain
2 weeks ago my home page plus some others had a 301 redirect to another cloned domain for about 1 week (due to a hack).The original pages were then de-indexed and the new bad domain was indexed and in effect stole my rankings.Then the 301 was removed/cleaned from my domain and the bad domain was fully de-indexed via a request I made in WMT (this was 1 week ago).Then my pages came back into the index but without any ranking power (as if it's just in the supplemental index).It's been like this for a week now and the algorithms have not been able to correct it. So how do I get this damage undone or corrected? Can someone at Google reverse/cancel the 301 ranking transfer since the algorithms don't seem to be able to?I have the option to do a "Change of Address" in WMT from bad domain to my domain. But I don't think this would work properly because it says I also need to place a 301 on the bad domain back to mine. Would a change of address still work without the 301?Please advise/help what to do in order to get my rankings back to where they were.
Technical SEO | | Dantek0 -
301 Redirect for 3 Domains into 1 New Domain
So I wanted a quick sanity check on the htaccess syntax for migrating 3 domains into 1 new domain. For example, we're migrating 3 sites abc.com, def.com and ghi.com, all into 1 new site on ghi.com. Here's the htaccess we're placing on the root of ghi.com: redirect 301 http://www.abc.com/wines.html http://www.ghi.com/wines redirect 301 http://www.def.com/trade.html http://www.ghi.com/trade
Technical SEO | | cmaseattle
redirect 301 http://www.ghi.com/winery-tours.html http://www.ghi.com/visit/taste On the DNS side of things, we're parking abc.com and def.com on the ghi.com server. I'm not seeing examples of htaccess files for this scenario, and none that use any domain info on the "from" side of the redirect 301 syntax. Any suggestions before we pull the trigger? Thanks!0 -
301'ing domain to an addon domain
My googlefu failed me in finding this... How to 301 a domain to an addon domain? Domain structure is as follows: http://addondomain.maindomain.com/ http://www.maindomain.com/addondomain/ http://www.addondomain.com/ <--(addon domain has its own domain as well) I want main domain to all point to the addon domain like so: http://www.maindomain.com/ --> http://www.addondomain.com/
Technical SEO | | JasonJackson0