Moz Q&A is closed.
After more than 13 years, and tens of thousands of questions, Moz Q&A closed on 12th December 2024. Whilst we’re not completely removing the content - many posts will still be possible to view - we have locked both new posts and new replies. More details here.
Switching from a .org to .io (301 domain redirect)
-
I'm considering switching my main site from a .org to .io address; the .org is an exact match domain which helped to kickstart it a few years ago and now has about 50% repeat visitors, but was thrown off the Apple affiliation program for trademark infringement.
I've found and purchased a nice (non-infringing) .io domain, and I've read the advice here on how to properly 301 the old domain; but my question is - does it matter that it's .io? Is this going to significantly hurt my rankings, even when everything has been 301'd properly?
Another thought I had is that I may actually come out better off in the long run, what with Google penalties being applied to exact match domains.
Is this a ranking suicide? If so, I'm tempted to leave it as is; even without the affiliation, it's making a good amount every month in ad fees that I don't want to disrupt.
Thanks all!
-
It may well be used mainly by tech start-ups but it is a country specific domain. It is specific to the British Indian Ocean Territory.
For example, the .tv extension is used mainly by sites with video content but it is in fact a country specific domain for Tuvalu.
-
.io isn't country specific though; it's being used by tech start-ups mostly.
-
That's an excellent idea; I'm in no hurry to move, so this will be a great way to test. Thanks!
-
James, after reading all the responses you have at the time of writing this answer, I strongly suggest trying to find another .com / .org and do the 301 redirect. That way you "might" have a minor short term loss, but you can regain the affiliation and be better off long term. I agree with Crimson and others, I would not go with the .io domain name. If you are targeting global, why not use a global domain. I hope this helps.
-
I haven't seen a .io in the English SERPs as well, why not register a .io and see if you can get it to rank. The test should take less than a month and if it ranks then you can consider redirecting it to your .io domain.
-
If you focus on brand building, then yes, you'll offset any losses. The EMD will pick out poor quality EMDs without the requisite quality content.
Also, the loss from the 301 is not a short term loss, it's a permanent loss.
-
In that case, I would probably just stay with the .org. Is being a part of the Apple affiliation program essential to your business? If so then I would consider trying to find a different domain.
You will probably struggle to rank in the main English language territories with a .io domain. I can't recall ever seeing one in the serps and hadn't even heard of it before this question was asked!
Don't be mistaken into thinking that 301 redirecting your old domain to the new one will instantly get the new domain to the same rank as the previous. It doesn't quite work like that. Of course, this will depend on many factors.
-
Thanks; I'm ok with a short term minor loss. I'm quite worried about the long term implications of exact match domains too though; any losses I do could be offset, surely?
-
Purely because I couldnt find a suitable .com - thats partly why I had a .org in the first place. Targeting is not geographic specific; anywhere English speaking.
-
I would recommend leaving it as it is because despite the general consensus about 301 redirects transferring all link equity and traffic, the truth of the matter is that you will experience a small permanent loss in traffic every time a 301 redirect is utilized.
I would simply not take that risk as there are many things that can go wrong.
-
Can I ask, why are you looking at the .io domain extension? Why not a .com? Also what geographic region is your site targeting?
Personally, I would be looking at a .com rather than .io, unless you're business/site is targeting the British Indian Ocean Territory
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
-
301 Redirect for multiple links
I just relaunched my website and changed a permalink structure for several pages where only a subdirectory name changed. What 301 Redirect code do I use to redirect the following? I have dozens of these where I need to change just the directory name from "urban-living" to "urban", and want it to catch the following all in one redirect command. Here is an example of the structure that needs to change. Old
Technical SEO | | shawnbeaird
domain.com/urban-living (single page w/ content)
domain.com/urban-living/tempe (single page w/ content)
domain.com/urban-living/tempe/the-vale (single page w/ content) New
domain.com/urban
domain.com/urban/tempe
domain.com/urban/tempe/the-vale0 -
301 redirect adding trailing slash to url
I am looking into a .htacess file for a site I look after and have noticed that the urls are all 301 redirecting from a none slash directory to a trailing slashed directory/folders. e.g. www.domain.com/folder gets 301 redirected to www.domain.com/folder/ Will this do much harm and reduce the effect on the page and any links pointing to the site be lessened? Secondly I am not sure what part of my htaccess is causing the redirect. RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} !^www.domain.co.uk [NC] RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} !^$
Technical SEO | | TimHolmes
RewriteRule ^(.*) http://www.domain.co.uk/$1 [L,R,NE] RewriteCond %{THE_REQUEST} ^./index.php
RewriteRule ^(.)index.php$ /$1 [R=301,L] or could a wordpress ifmodule be causing the problem? Any info would be apreciated.0 -
Redirect typo domains
Hi, What's the "correct" way of redirecting typo domains? DNS A record goes to the same ip address as the correct domain name Then 301 redirects for each typo domain in the .htaccess Subdomains on typo urls still redirect to www or should they redirect to the subdomain on the correct url in case the subdomain exists?
Technical SEO | | kuchenchef0 -
Soft 404's on a 301 Redirect...Why?
So we launched a site about a month ago. Our old site had an extensive library of health content that went away with the relaunch. We redirected this entire section of the site to the new education materials, but we've yet to see this reflected in the index or in GWT. In fact, we're getting close to 500 soft 404's in GWT. Our development team confirmed for me that the 301 redirect is configured correctly. Is it just a waiting game at this point or is there something I might be missing? Any help is appreciated. Thanks!
Technical SEO | | MJTrevens0 -
301 Redirects Relating to Your XML Sitemap
Lets say you've got a website and it had quite a few pages that for lack of a better term were like an infomercial, 6-8 pages of slightly different topics all essentially saying the same thing. You could all but call it spam. www.site.com/page-1 www.site.com/page-2 www.site.com/page-3 www.site.com/page-4 www.site.com/page-5 www.site.com/page-6 Now you decided to consolidate all of that information into one well written page, and while the previous pages may have been a bit spammy they did indeed have SOME juice to pass through. Your new page is: www.site.com/not-spammy-page You then 301 redirect the previous 'spammy' pages to the new page. Now the question, do I immediately re-submit an updated xml sitemap to Google, which would NOT contain all of the old URL's, thus making me assume Google would miss the 301 redirect/seo juice. Or do I wait a week or two, allow Google to re-crawl the site and see the existing 301's and once they've taken notice of the changes submit an updated sitemap? Probably a stupid question I understand, but I want to ensure I'm following the best practices given the situation, thanks guys and girls!
Technical SEO | | Emory_Peterson0 -
Best Practice on 301 Redirect - Images
We have two sites that sell the same products. We have decided to retire one of the sites as we'd like to focus on one property. I know best practice is to redirect apples to apples, which in our case is easily done since the sites sold the same thing. www.SiteABC.com/ProductA can be redirected to www.SiteXYZ.com/ProductA. My question is how far does that thinking go regarding images? Each product has a main product page, of course, and then up to 6 images in some cases. Is it necessary to redirect www.SiteABC.com/ProductA-Image1.jpg to www.SiteXYZ.com/ProductA-Image1.jpg? Or can they all be redirected to just the product page?
Technical SEO | | Natitude0 -
Where does Wordpress store the 301 redirects?
Hi, I've just created a campaign for my new wordpress blog and found 11 301 redirects which I was not aware of. It looks like wordpress has created them automatically. Does any one know how wordpress handles this issues or where are they stored so I can delete them? They are of no use for me. 9 of these redirects point to the same url with an added '/' and are in pages 1 is on a post. I've been changing the permalink and some urls several times and maybe one of these times the Wordpress has automatically created the 301 redirect. But why? I do not want to keep the old url. the last redirect is very strange it goes from http://www.mydomain.com/folder to http://www.mydomain.com where folder is the folder where I installed wordpress. But again, I want no one to type the url with the folder name or even know this folder exists. Any comment on this would be greatly appreciated. Thanks a lot, David
Technical SEO | | dballari0 -
How much authority does a 301 pass to a different domain?
Hi, A client of mine is selling his business to a brand new company. The brand new company will be using a brand new domain (no way to avoid that unfortunately) and the current domain (which has tons of authority, links, shares, tweets, etc.) will not be used. Added to that, the new company will be taking over all the current content with just a few minor changes. (I know, I wish we could use the old domain but we can't.) Obviously, I am redirecting all pages on the current domain to the new domain via 301 redirects on a page by page basis. So, current.com/product-page-x.html redirects to new.com/product-page-x.html. My client and the new company both are asking me how much link juice (and other factors) are passed along to the new domain from the old domain. All I can find is "not the full value" or variants thereof.My experience with 301 redirects in the past has been within a single domain and I've seen some of those pages have decent authority and decent rankings as a result of the 301 (no other optimization work was done or links were added). Are there any studies out there that I'm missing that show how much authority/juice gets passed and/or lost via a 301 redirect? Anybody with a similar issue see any trends in page/domain authority and/or rankings? Thanks for any insights and opinions you have.
Technical SEO | | Matthew_Edgar0