Company is spliting up and moving to new domains, trying to keep link juice going forward
-
A company I am doing SEO work for is splitting into 3 and will be hosted on three separate domains. I am getting 2 of the 3, however, I am not getting the domain that has most links going to it.
What is the best practice to carry any link juice going to my divisions to the new domain names? Should I contact sites linking to my divisions content on the old site and ask them to link to my new sites? Should I do 301 redirects to help carry links to my new sites?
Also, I found this guide in moz http://moz.com/blog/seo-guide-how-to-properly-move-domains its from 2009, but is this still considered the best practices for moving to new domains or is there an updated guide I should be using?
-
There will be one main domain that will act as a landing page for the three divisions.
I am getting divisions that will be starting on a new domain name.
-
Hi, please clarify whether the 3 separate domains will be all new or will 2 of them that you handle be new and the other one be the old domain? That changes how you can do 301 redirects obviously (leading to more questions like if all 3 are new, what happens to the old domain? etc..)
Couple of steps to take:
- Analyse your old site thoroughly with Open Site Explorer or with other Moz (or other provider's) tools. Specifically make a list of the top 200/500/.. pages with most external links, page authority and so on. It is going to be an hefty Excel file but a breeze to put together with the help of Moz professional. Takes a couple of days or so.
- Keep the same URL structure when designing the old site, make it simpler to scan via breadcrumbs if possible.
- Do specific canonical URLs for at least the 200/500/.. most important pages in the 1st page
- Do the 301 redirects and verify them with the help of online tools.
- Notify Google Webmaster Tools. Again It is hard to give specific instructions because I do not which domains will be new and what will happen to the old.
In theory and according to Google officially setting the canonical URL should pass the external links along to the new domain:
- Consolidating link signals for the duplicate or similar content. It helps search engines to be able to consolidate the information they have for the individual URLs (such as links to them) on a single, preferred URL. This means that links from other sites to
http://example.com/dresses/cocktail?gclid=ABCD
get consolidated with links tohttp://www.example.com/dresses/green/greendress.html.
-
Hi Wrench,
Is it a single website or 3 seperate websites before the seperation? If you have multiple websites then you can redirect the websites so that all the link juice will be passed to the new domains. If it is a single website and if the 3 entities are seperated by folder structures. Then you can do a page by page 310 permanent redirect of the corresponding folders to the new websites if the 1st website owner allows you to do that. Then all the SEO goodies of the particular sections of the pages only will be passed to the new domains.
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
-
When link building yourself where would you advise are the best places to add links?
Hi I am not having much success with SEO companies so am looking at link building and doing SEO myself. Where would you advise are the best places to add links? Also is it better to add links to specific pages or just to the home page? Thanks in advance
Link Building | | Briggzy0 -
URL parameters affecting link juice
I have a couple of quirks in my online shop that I'm ironing out. One of them is adding some URL parameters to product links.ie: website.com/product.html?&cat=0&featured=Y If someone links to this URL, will I get the link juice as if it was website.com/product.html ? I have URL parameters in Webmaster Tools and robots.txt set up to ignore them so they're not in the Google index, but I have found a few websites that have linked to us using these longer URL's and I'm wondering whether to write to them and ask them if they mind changing them or not.
Link Building | | sparrowdog0 -
Links from my Own Blog to my Own Website and Link Scheme
Hi There, I use my own blog to give advices and offer information related to my business service. Of course in terms of SEO my blog is useful not only to expand my brand presence but also to acquire long-tail traffic. I use to insert a maximum of one link with a relative matching anchor text in every article of my blog pointing to my own webpage. Said that, the questions are as follows: Am I involuntarily participating in a Link Scheme with my blog? And If so, how many links can I send to my own webpage ? Shall I limit the number of links to a minimum? Thanks a lot for your advices.
Link Building | | Midleton0 -
When buying used domains, how do i see the links pointing to that domain? OSE not showing links
when buying used domains, how do i see the links pointing to that domain? Sometimes the open site explorer doesn't show any links to the domain, especially if the domain is parked. Obviously a domain for sale with 1000 domains linking to it has lots of SEO Value right? Thanks mozzers!
Link Building | | Ron100 -
Are the following considered bad links for Link Building.
I've been doing a lot of research lately on link building & I've read a lot about having a diverse amount of links. Social links, Blog links, comment links, footer links, No follow links, Directory links as well as links with Anchor text URL match, brand match, partial brand match, non-descriptive, and with keywords. But there is a lot of talk of removing those links that look like a site that's built just for link building purposes.... but Directories are basically built for link building are they not? I'm wondering if anyone can tell me if they feel links from the following directories would be bad links. (Non-Paid) http://www.yoganza.com http://www.wkool.com http://www.wee-directory.com http://www.voicelet.com www.hotfrog.ca http://www.webdirectorieslist.com http://multiplelistingboard.com http://mozdirectory.net http://freedirectorypr.info Industry specific below: http://bestautolinks .com http://automotivedome.com http://automobilebuzz.com http://craigsautolinks.com Thanks so much for the help!
Link Building | | DCochrane0 -
Unique Domains vs. Total Links?
At what point is there diminishing returns from getting multiple links from one website? Edit: To clarify, when doing competitor research I come across lots of sites that have say 500 linking domains with 5000 total links. When setting goals and calculating the types of links I should go after, I'm not certain which number is the one actually helping the site to rank.
Link Building | | ErikDster0 -
Do press releases add any link juice?
I've been told by PR Web that anchor text in their press releases will add SEO value and increase our page rank. They even charge more for releases that include the ability to link specific keywords to specific pages (anchor text keywords). So - do such press releases really add any page rank to our site? Here's our press release: http://www.prweb.com/releases/2011/5/prweb8289567.htm Thanks, Alex
Link Building | | tennisround1