SEO and page redirects from a high ranking site quandary
-
We are launching a site on a new domain that is taking the place of a group (subset) of pages in an existing domain. BUT The pages on the existing domain have really good SEO rankings in a very competitive category and we want to leverage the traffic it gets today in the best way, so....
Which of the following would be the best practice in this case (in regards to SEO)?
Modify the existing pages' content so that there are prominent calls to action that lead the users to the new domain.
Create permanent redirects for the existing pages for their counterparts on the new domain. This is more direct for the user but we don't know how it will affect the current ranking.
Something other than the above.
Many thanks for you help
Gary
-
I agree do 301 to each page and get people to the new site.
Overtime they will learn the new site domain and you will gain new links to the new site.
I just did the same thing and merged an older well ranking site into a new site a year ago, & did a bunch of 301 redirects from good high ranked pages and then I also did full global 301 from several smaller sites to the new site.
-
It depends on what you're trying to accomplish. I'd go with option #2 if you're looking to transfer your rankings from the old site to the new. Once Google reindexes everything, you should have most of your ranks back.
If you're keeping the same content on the new site and the old, then option #1 isn't really an option, unless you canonicalize the old pages, which will have the same effect on ranks as the 301s.
So then it comes down to what's better for users? Do you think they would rather clickthrough the old site and its calls to action, or would they prefer to be automatically redirected to the new property?
I would think that you would want the new website to rank instead of the old, since having the old site continue to rank would just create an extra step for users.
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
-
Syntax for canonical tag for a default page in a sub directory (not subdomain) of a web site?
I'm getting two "no canonical tag" errors for the default page of a sub-directory default page (www and root) - again NOT a subdomain. Since the page is not the root of its own site, I tagged it as -- I have tried without the default.asp, but the error remains. Been doing this for 24 years and don't remember running across this before.
Moz Pro | | dcmike0 -
Redirecting back to initial redirect.
Hello, I have an example site A.com that is currently being redirected to site B.com. My client is having issues with B.com and finding that there is more equity in site A.com. The client now wants us to have A.com as the site. What is the best way to proceed with implementing A.com without hurting search in the long run, since A.com was initially a 301 redirect to B.com. How should I proceed in this redirection back to A.com What pitfalls should I look out for that could affect SEO and how should I input safegaurds to protect myself? I appreciate the support
Moz Pro | | arousta0 -
404 : Errors in crawl report - all pages are listed with index.html on a WordPress site
Hi Mozers, I have recently submitted a website using moz, which has pulled up a second version of every page on the WordPress site as a 404 error with index.html at the end of the URL. e.g Live page URL - http://www.autostemtechnology.com/applications/civil-blasting/ Report page URL - http://www.autostemtechnology.com/applications/civil-blasting/index.html The permalink structure is set as /%postname%/ For some reason the report has listed every page with index.html at the end of the page URL. I have tried a number of redirects in the .htaccess file but doesn't seem to work. Any suggestions will be strongly appreciated. Thanks
Moz Pro | | AmanziDigital0 -
Seomoz legacy pages?
Hello, I am finding that I miss several of the old seomoz sections. The legacy tools in particular like the visual website comparison. Where is that now? Also, where is the ongoing list of the top 100 sites? So much was lost in the shift to MOZ, I hope some of the good old stuff is still available. Thank you, Nolan
Moz Pro | | QuietProgress0 -
Tracking keyword rankings on sub pages
Hello, What is the best way to track keywords on sub pages of a website through seomoz? Do we need to create a separate campaign for each sub page? Thanks for all the help!
Moz Pro | | DerekDenholm0 -
"Too many on page links" phantom penalty? What about big sites?
So I am consistently over the recommended "100 links" rule on our site's pages because of our extensive navigation and plentiful footer links (somewhere around 300 links per page). I know that there is no official penalty for this but rather that it affects the "link juice" of each link on there. I guess my question is more about how places like Zappos and Amazon get away with this? They have WAY over 100 links per page... in fact I think that Zappos footer is 100+ links alone. This overage doesn't seem to affect their domain rankings and authority so why does SEO moz place so much emphasis on this error?
Moz Pro | | kida12meyer0 -
Open Site explorer
I checked some of the results with OSE that ranked top on Goolge SERPS that have high Domain Authority,Page Authority 1 and content on the website's particular page is thin. How come they rank high when PA is very low?
Moz Pro | | Frost0 -
2 SEO questions
Hello everyone 🙂 I have two questions for all you fine seo people this morning... 1 - Is there a website that I could go to to make sure that I do not have duplicate content floating around on the web that I am not aware of? Sometimes people take information from my site and post it as their own and I want to make sure that google does not ping me for it. 2 - Does anyone know how I can report a spam site to google? I have filled out the reports many times over the past year and posted it in the webmaster discussion forum and it is still up there 🙂 I sent one email to bing and the next day they contacted me with a thank you email and indicated that I was 100% correct and they removed the site from their index. Thank you all!!!!
Moz Pro | | nazmiyal0