Need help on redirects and which domain to make my main

[cars111]

Hi there i have at the moment abcecigs.com  as my main domain for my electronic cigarette company, I have now aquired abcelectroniccigarettes.co.uk and abcelectroniccigarettes.com which one would be best for my main domain?

i will be having mostly UK customers to keep postal cost down ect, what would be the best way to go about having my main domian changed to one of the better electroniccigarettes.co.uk or .com domains, and still have abcecigs.com  used as I have a few links posted to there.

Thanks alot

[Matt-Williamson]

Place a 301 redirect on each of those domains pointing at your new abcelectroniccigarettes.co.uk.

[cars111]

Hi matt thanks for the reply really appreciate it.

So I think im going to copy all content and change the hard coded links. Once I have done this what exactly should I do to the existing abcecigs.com and the other .com domain to keep the juice ect.

Thanks

[Matt-Williamson]

Unfortunately I think there are only two options redo all your content or go through your old content updating the hard coded links and then upload this with filezilla to your new domain - which would be quicker than redoing everything.

[cars111]

Hi carlos yes I have already bought the domains, i bought them from 123 reg but my site is hosted on arhoster will this be a problem?

Im finding it tricky as to what I do, I would like to have the .co.uk as my main domain, and the 2 .com's pointing to it,

my site as it stands has the abcecigs.com domain and I have hardcoded links included on the site, what would be the best way of doing the swap

thanks

ps my server uses cpanel

[cars111]

Hy guys sorry for the delay in response my internet has been down

I will be using the abcelectroniccigarettes.co.uk domain as my main domain, what is the best way to do this, i was originally going to copy all files from abcecigs.com to new domain using filezilla but as Matt said that will take for ever as i have many hard coded links.

What way would you guys recommend i do it

thanks for all your help

[Matt-Williamson]

Well if you are going to target specific European countries I would look at creating content specific to them and targeting them. I would in this case consider setting up subfolders on your new .com domain such as /uk, /de, etc and putting the specific country contents in them. You don't need individual country code domains for each.

If you setup your new site on the new domain yes you could copy all your webpages via ftp from your old domain to your new domain, however you would need to look at your navigation and internal links because if any of these are hard coded to your old domain such as abcecigs,com/aboutus.html then you will need to change it to your new domain.

When you have a 301 redirect in place you should go into Google Webmaster Tools on your old domain and tell it that this website has moved and select your new address.

For a great insight into international seo strategy take a look at this article - http://www.seomoz.org/blog/international-seo-where-to-host-and-how-to-target-whiteboard-friday

[cars111]

Hi thanks for the quick reply wow!! I would like customers from other European companies aswell as postal cost wouldn't be that much , postal to us Asia ect would be costly! Would it be good to build a brand new site for the eu? ie abcelectroniccigarettes.sl ect or will the .com or . Uk surffice? So for the uk I need to copy all content from abcecigs.com to the abcelectroniccigarettes.co.uk using FileZilla then do a 301 redirect form abcecigs.com and tell google I have redirected it? Sorry for a lot of questions you guys are a real help

[Carlos-R]

Hi,

I thought you had already registered the domains?

If you have already bought the domains, all you need to do is add the domain to your Cpanel using the "addon domains" option. (if you bought the domains with a different registrar to your hosting provider you will need to change the nameservers)

To redirect your old site to the new, use  an .htaccess file. http://www.search-friendly-web-design.com/general/55-301-redirect-each-page-of-site-to-new-domain-address

[Matt-Williamson]

Well if you are mainly targeting the UK I would setup a 301 redirect from abcecigs.com to abcelectroniccigarettes.co.uk and I would also setup up a redirect from the abcelectroniccigarettes.com to the .co.uk.

However you could consider building your new site on abcelectroniccigarettes.com and putting the different countries that you are targeting in subfolders such as abcelectroniccigarettes.com/uk and putting a 301 redirect from abcelectroniccigarettes.co.uk to abcelectroniccigarettes.com/uk. You would also want to 301 redirect abcecigs.com to abcelectroniccigarettes.com. This all depends on the fact of whether you want to target international customers properly? If not I would go with something like my first suggestion.

Remember a 301 redirect passes the majority of your link juice from your old domain to the new one it is redirected to as it is a permanent redirect.

[cars111]

Hi carlos thanks so much for your help. Do i do the 301 redirect in cpanel? I find redirects tricky. thanks

also do i use the addon domains in cpanel to register the .co.uk domain name?

thanks

[Carlos-R]

If you want to rank in Google UK I'd use the .co.uk domain, not only will it help you rank quicker but customers tend to trust local TLDs over .coms when it comes to purchasing online.

To move your site:

• 301 redirect all your pages to the respective pages on the .co.uk domain to make sure all the link juice and authority is passed to the new domain

• Inform Google via Webmaster Tools that you have moved your website to a new domain