How would I be able to move content from one domain to another?
-
I have a client that wants to migrate some of his site's content to a new domain, not all of the content, just some of it. This is not an address change. He wants to continue actively using the domain name where all this content currently resides, so it's not a matter of notifying search engines of an address change.
The first thing that comes to mind is the use of the canonical tag, but it's not making sense. Any recommendations?
Thanks in advance.
-
Hello Chris, you're absolutely right. It took me a while to conceptualize the process, but referring to projects where I've used 301's to redirect one URL to another helped me realize that I perform the task almost on a daily bases. The one twist that's a first for me is that of redirecting URL's from an active domain to another.
A note to readers that may have a similar question - the 301 redirect is implemented on the donor domain and not on the receiving domain (where content is being move to) explaining why the URL can no longer exist on the donor domain.
With much appreciation, thank you.
-
If a page of content is being moved from a URL on domain A to a URL on domain B and will no longer exist on domain A, then the 301 redirect from the first URL to the second would be used to indicate that. A 301 redirect doesn't have to redirect the whole site, it can be used on a per URL basis. Here, read through this info on redirects:
-
Wow, I think I experiencing an episode of "deer in the headlights". Whok
Thanks for the link, Chris, I'm still baffled. I also think, and please pardon if I'm mistaken, that there's an important factor that's being overlooked (my bad). The original domain (domain A) is going to remain in use curating some of the original content, and a new domain (domain B) is going to be established to curate some of the content migrated from domain A where the content was originally created. Implementing a 301 from one domain to another is not applicable since domain A is going to still be public facing with its own content.
l hope this is starting to make sense.
-
Completely agree with Chris!
In your question you mentioned that your client wants to migrate some of his content from one location to another and in order to successfully do that you should use 301redirection so that Google can transfer the juice to new location and visitors can also move to the new location without any hassle.
Canonicals comes in when you need one content on both locations but want to prefer one over other!
-
Emmanuel, it sounds like you're just talking about setting up 301 redirects from the URLs of the old locations to the URLs of the new location. . This can be done when changing content location within a domain or when changing it to another domain. The rel=canonical tag wouldn't be the right solution if you don't actually want the content to exist in both locations.
This Google webmaster tools info might be useful to you:
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
-
Duplicate content, the distrubutors are copying the content of the manufacturer
Hi everybody! While I was checking all points of the Technical Site Audit Checklist 2015 (great checklist!), I found that the distrubutors of my client are copying part of the content to add it in their websites. When I take a content snippet, and put it in quotes and search for it I get four or five sites that have copied the content. They are distributors of my client. The first result is still my client (the manufacturer), but... should I recommend any action to this situation. We don't want to bother the distributors with obstacles. This situation could be a problem or is it a common situation and Google knows perfectly where the content is comming from? Any recommendation? Thank you!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | teconsite0 -
Need help with duplicate content. Same content; different locations.
We have 2 sites that will have duplicate content (e.g., one company that sells the same products under two different brand names for legal reasons). The two companies are in different geographical areas, but the client will put the same content on each page because they're the same product. What is the best way to handle this? Thanks a lot.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Rocket.Fuel0 -
Blog content - what to do, and what to avoid in terms of links, when you're paying for blog content
Hi, I've just been looking at a restaurant site which is paying food writers to put food news and blogs on their website. I checked the backlink profile of the site and the various bloggers in question usually link from their blogs / company websites to the said restaurant to help promote any new blogs that appear on the restaurant site. That got me wondering about whether this might cause problems with Google. I guess they've been putting about one blog live per month for 2 years, from 12/13 bloggers who have been linking to their website. What would you advise?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | McTaggart0 -
Root domain or sub domain? WWW. or NOT WWW......
I am a little confused! I use vidahost whom I have to say I find very helpful. I currently have the domains www.fentonit.co.uk and www.fentonit.com, now the websites was set up using the www.fentonit.com and I have www.fentonit.co.uk as a parked domain pointed to the www.fentonit.com. Confused yet? Now because I wanted the website to show www.fentonit.co.uk I added some code I was given by the guys to the .hta access file and viola up it comes as the .co.uk which is what I wanted. So if your still here and havent A: Killed yourself yet or B: Went to the Pub Then my questions are: 1. Is there going to be an issue from an SEO point of view having my site set up this way and if so how do I resolve it? 2. Would I be better using the root domain fentonit.co.uk (I think this is the root domain, although it iscurrently parked and pointed) as opposed to the sub www domain?.......and finally.......? 3. If it is set up as I stated what exactly would be my root domain, would it be the .co.uk or the .com? Sorry and I completely understand if your not interested in answering it but if you do.....Thanks in advance and I'll take you to the pub...lol Craig www.fentonit.co.uk ( i think)
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | craigyboy1 -
Hit by Penguin, Can I move the content from the old site to a new domain and start again with the same content which is high quality
I need some advice please. My website got the unnatural links detected message and was hit by penguin.. hard. Can I move the content from the current domain to a new domain and start again or does the content need to be redone also. I will obviously turn of the old domain once its moved. The other option is to try and identify the bad links and change my anchor profile which is a hit and miss task in my opinion. Would it not be easier just to identify the good links pointing to the old domain and get those changed to point to the new domain with better anchors. thanks Warren
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | warren0071 -
Multiple domains expiring that have 301 redirects to my primary domain. Am I in trouble?
I recently took on the SEO of a large website with http://example.com. My predecessor bought 40 plus domains for specific cities like Jacksonvilleexample.com, Miamiexample.com, etc. ZERO of the additional domains linked to our main website. The domains that were bought basically had our exact same website in terms of content, links etc that mirrored our main http://example.com. I added 301 redirects to help problems that may be a result of this type of structure. Some of the additional domains were indexed and some were not but all have 301's and as far as traffic is concerned I'm not worried about loosing short term traffic. My question: All the domains are set to expire in June and I don't want to continue to have them 301 redirected to my main domain (example.com). I'm not trying to avoid the additional cost of all the domains but I don't see an advantage to having them so CAN letting all these domains expire hurt me from a long term SEO position if I don't renew them?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | ballanrk0 -
Expired Content
Hi We have a listing website that has a huge amount of listings.These listings are changing all time, they become passive or deleted. We would like to choose the response code for the passive for deleted pages. Which response type must we use ? Redirect to last category with 301 Give 410 Gone response code Give 404 Response code which option would we choose ? and any ideas ?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | SEMTurkey0 -
If we add noindex to a subdomain, will the traffic to that subdomain still generate domain authority for the primary domain?
We are trying to decide whether a password protected site, that we will noindex, should be set up as a subdomain or if it should be its own domain. The determining factor here is whether or not having that noindexed subdomain will increase domain authority since its noindexed. Any ideas???
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | grayloon0