How to Redirect Old Domain to a New Domain?
-
One of my clients has chosen a new domain for her website so we will redirect the old domain to the new. I understand that once redirected, most of the authority built up over the years for the old domain will pass through to the new domain. Is this correct?
Can this be done through the Wordpress dashboard, say with a plugin perhaps? I have a plugin called 404 Redirected I was going to try to use for this purpose.
Finally, the client has other domains (5 total) she has used for one reason or another. She wants to consolidate all of them and have everything redirected to her new domain. Do you see any downside to this in terms of crawling, Google trust and authority? I know there are some user experience issues to deal with, but we're addressing those. I just don't want to do anything that may cause Google not to trust the new domain.
Thanks, Dino
-
If the aged domain has links going deeper than the homepage you should look at redirecting those pages/directories directly to their associated pages/directories on the new site. Otherwise all passed link equity will go to the homepage.
-
Yes. Redirection done correctly will pass most authority over to the new site. Ideally you should modify your .htaccess file as it is a root level file that's accessed prior to your CMS. Redirecting multiple domains is an acceptable practice as well, and there are no down sides other than the warnings and precautions that should be taken when doing any amount of redirecting. To really help amplify the new domain, it'd be best to work at promoting the change via bloggers and press she's worked with in the past as much as possible. That way there aren't just technical signals that the domain is new, but PR, link, and social as well. Cheers!
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
-
Having a Subfolder/Subdirectory With a Different Design Than the Root Domain
Hi Everyone, I was wondering what Google thinks about having a subfolder/subdirectory with a different design than the root domain. So let's say we have MacroCorp Inc. which has been around for decades. MacroCorp has tens of thousands of backlinks and a couple thousand referring domains from quality sites in its industry and news sites. MacroCorp Inc. spins off one of its products into a new company called MicroCorp Inc., which makes CoolProduct. The new website for this company is CoolProduct.MacroCorp.com (a subdomain) which has very few backlinks and referring domains. To help MicroCorp rank better, both companies agree to place the MicroCorp content at MacroCorp.com/CoolProduct/. The root domain (MacroCorp.com) links to the subfolder from its navigation and MicroCorp does the same, but the MacroCorp.com/CoolProduct/ subfolder has an entirely different design than the root domain. Will MacroCorp.com/CoolProduct/ be crawled, indexed, and rank better as both companies think it would? Or would Google still treat the subfolder like a subdomain or even a separate root domain in this case? Are there any studies, documentation, or links to good or bad examples of this practice? When LinkedIn purchased Lynda.com, for instance, what if they kept the https://www.lynda.com/ design as is and placed it at https://www.linkedin.com/learning/. Would the pre-purchase (yellow/black design) https://www.linkedin.com/learning/ rank any worse than it does now with the root domain (LinkedIn) aligned design? Thanks! Andy
Web Design | | AndyRCWRCM1 -
Why is google still crawling my old website pages?
Why is google still looking at my old indexed pages and not my new index. ? Why are they crawling my old website links when none of them are available? How do I overcome these problems?
Web Design | | optimalspaces0 -
How can I fix New 4XX Issue on Site Crawl?
Hi all, My recent site crawl shows 27 4xx issues on this website http://www.rrbusinessconsultants.com/ All of them are for 'posts' on this wordpress website. Here is an example of the issue: http://www.rrbusinessconsultants.com/rr-business-consultants-on-the-rise-of-glassdoor-and-how-companies-are-coping/void(null) The blog page seems to be creating links ending in void(null) which are defaulting to 404 pages. I cannot see the links on the site so cannot see how to remove them. Can anyone provide any insight into how to correct his issue? Many thanks in advance.
Web Design | | skehoe0 -
Domain branding and such
I have a client that has a website hosted with the site designers hosting company. That designer has proven to be unreliable, ineffective and non-responsive. We have since built a new website using a new domain name, but now we have lost all citations and links. Can I reclaim this domain name by pointing it towards my server and migrating the new site to his established domain? Should I update all of his citations to the new domain? What will happen to the old site? The old designer does not respond to any emails or phone calls so any help would be appreciated. Thanks
Web Design | | mrobby10 -
Setting a Preferred Domain
Should you set a preferred domain? www.domain.com or domain.com Does this influence your SEO strategy?
Web Design | | HMCOE0 -
Is it a good idea to use sub-domains?
Hello everyone! I have a question about whether we should be using sub-domains. We are currently in the process of redesigning our site so this would be the time to do it. We are a reseller of brand name IT equipment (servers, storage, etc...) should we create a sub-domain for each brand for example: hp.domain.com dell.domain.com or should we just use folders instead like: domain.com/hp domain.com/dell does one have any more SEO value than the other? Thank you!
Web Design | | igor.pinchevskiy0 -
Old links in Google, new website affecting SEO?
Hi Guys, I have launched my website in october and it has already been indexed by google. Now I'm going to launch my redesign which comes with a new structure, content, links, etc. So the question is, do I have to resubmit my website to google to get rid of old links? Onsite Explorer shows links to my forum which has been spammed with p* stuff which has been already indexed as well. The forum is off now. I want to use SEOmoz to track my new website but I guess this could be a hard thing as old links etc will be shown as well. Is there any tool to let Google know about my changes? Does it affect my SEO in any way? Thank you for your help. Nick
Web Design | | NickITW0