Is there a downside to "closing" a domain and 301'ing to to your main domain?
-
We have a domain which was optimized for a specific keyword. It does very well for that keyword, but seems like it has in turn caused our primary domain to be penalized (back to page 3) for that same keyword (We think they've figured out the connection).
The optimized domain (only one page) has links on it to our primary domain, so I don't want to delete it as that's where our traffic currently comes from. But if I deleted it and 301'ed it to the primary domain is there a downside?
Alternatively I could disavow it, but if the search engines know it's the same owner will they hold that against all domains?
Or, alternatively again. Should I turn it into a more substantial website? Which could in turn remove it's "spamminess".
Any suggestions are welcomed!
-
What did the reviewer do? First, this is a person who has a lot of knowledge about me and my websites from doing work on them several times over a period of several years. I told the person to review the entire site and give me a list of the things that they would do if the website belonged to them. I offered access to analytics and would answer any questions.
I got back a big "to do list" that would significantly improve the site and require lots of work. Doing the tasks on the list cost many times more than the review. My problems have been solved but I am still working on the list because the list will improve the site.
-
In the past couple of years, I have had some challenges with my own sites. Each time I made up my mind what was wrong but also got paid opinions before I took actions. I wanted to get objective opinion - from smart people. Also, from experienced people who have looked at a lot more websites with problems than I have.
When a Google algo is causing problems for your website, nobody outside of Google can tell you with 100% certainty exactly what needs to be done, even people within Google can not tell you with 100% certainty. Why? Because there are many algos that can hit your site, all worked on and understood by different people - iff - they understand them.
So, anytime a website that is important in supporting a business needs help. I would always suggest outside advice - no matter who owns the site.
-
EGOL, along with a few others on this board, aided me in a similar situation, and no matter how many times I tried to ask the question by altering my language or spinning it in a different light the bottom line was simple, I needed outside assistance. If you are being penalized, there is a very different course of action to be taken given the circumstances. If the competing website is merely ranking better because it was optimized more effectively, that opens another avenue of action.
Again, these are questions that ultimately are much bigger than the forum can answer. In my situation we had 1500 domains that had been built into a link wheel. After a lot of analysis and slowly unraveling the web, we were/are left with 5 domains that are still active, and we have built a plan around 301s. A lot of content movement, content cutting, relinking, etc. Also building new links to replace a lot of the old ones that were removed.
This process has been going on for the past 8 months and continues to be monitored pretty consistently.
If you are not getting receiving Manual Actions from Google, and you are still making some income I personally would act swiftly but be smart. I'm happy to share our solution with you if you want as well!
-
I don't think that you will get anything but guesses to your questions because a variety of things could be causing this problem. I certainly would not take action on any advice given with multiple potential causes.
If this was my business, I would hire someone who understands the various Google algos that can change the rankings of websites, have them assess both sites, and then give you advice on what might be the cause and what might be the cure.
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
-
Google isn't crawling my website page
I have been trying to get indexed my inner page's title tag but still I cannot see this. It has been almost a week. I have done "Fetch as Google" even though I cannot see this. What can be the reason?
Link Building | | ksmith880 -
Are Millions of back links from 3 domains bad?
I have a client that has 4 individual domains with duplicate content mirroring certain sections of the main site as well as the home page. I understand the duplicate content issues but have a different question that I would like advice on. I am seeing 3 of these domains back linking to the main domain causing over 5 million backlinks. Is this bad and can it hurt rankings? One domain has 3,215,658 backlinks and another has 1,553,947 backlinks. I have experienced this in the past with a different client, where sister companies back linked using the exact same anchor text caused over 5 million back links. This client experienced a drop of their top 2 keywords where they dropped from # 1 & 2 positions in Google SERPs to the 82nd position. Appreciate feedback
Link Building | | dctomten0 -
301 redirect of PR 6 domain to PR 1 site, Will it improve my site's seo?
I have a pagerank 1 website but i recently purchased one old pagerank 6 domain, if I 301 redirect this pr6 domain to my currrent pr1 site, will it will increase my site's pr and improve seo ?
Link Building | | IndiaFPS0 -
Main keyword problem
Hello Since the latest Google update our main keyword has been dropping. We employed a SEO company about 6 weeks ago and since then the keyword has dropped a couple of pages further on Google. We have been using the Remove'em site to check our backlinks and a blog this SEO company have done has appeared on the list. The DA is good but the PA is low. In the blog they have linked the exact keyword to our site homepage. Do you think the blogs the SEO company are doing will be causing us more problems? Any help is very much appreciated. Thanks
Link Building | | Palmbourne0 -
How to increase "domain authority" in opensite explorer?
When I use opensiteexplorer, they use "domain authority" in 1 - 100 scale.. How to increase this number to my domains n website?
Link Building | | martino8880 -
Would you advise removing a "links" page?
I'm doing a site audit for someone and they have a links page full of reciprocal links for other similar businesses across the country. My gut instinct is to remove this page. How would you approach this if this was your client?
Link Building | | MarieHaynes0 -
Inproving my Domain Authority
Hello everyone, Is there any other way to earn domain authority if not by link building ? Or just SEO OFF PAGE can make it happend? thanks fellows.
Link Building | | augustos0 -
Links per Site vs. Domain Authority
Here's a quaint one: 1. Posting follow links on another site helps increase one's domain authority. 2. If I post to the same site/forum with followed links each week, would my domain authority reap a domain authority increase benefit? In short, is there any domain authority benefit to continually post links to a site to which I've already posted a follow link?
Link Building | | GreenCupboards0