301 Redirect from now defunct website?
-
Hi guys
Quick question about 301 redirection between domains.
I currently manage a website, lets call it website A.
Website A sells a particular product range, however the decision has been made by the powers that be to pull the plug on the business and sell the products previously sold via Website A via another website within the parent companies control.....lets call it Website B.
I need to make it clear to customers of Website A that the company no longer operates but want to pass the SEO equity that has been built up over time to the relevant pages on Website B.
My plan was to
1. 301 Redirect all key landing pages on Website A to the most relevant pages on Website B
2. Initially keep the website A homepage live but change the message to say "Website A no longer operates, but Website B can help etc. etc." Remove all sub links from navigation.
3. Monitor referral and direct traffic levels and consider 301 redirecting website A homepage to Website B homepage in the long term.
My questions:
- Does this sound like the best approach? If not, what alternatives are there?
- Will Website A look like a link farm for Website B? I dont want this obviously!
-
Hi Tom,
I am interested in how your project turned out with the redirect from the defunct site. I am in the exact position now and would love to know if you have any wisdom to impart...?
Cheers,
Brett
-
Hi Tom, yes - I think you'd be better off creating a page on website B which explains that website A is now website B.
I would also explain the site move on all the other redirects (but only for visitors arriving from website A). Yoast writes a good post about how to do this.
-
Hi Yusuf
Yes. Website B will now offer the same product as website A. Website A would also have repeat visitors.
Do you then think it would be a better bet to create a page on website B instead explaining that Website A is no longer in operation and redirect to this? I guess this may bring in branded traffic to website A using website Bs brand name?
-
Hi DHStom,
This seems like a reasonable approach.
But is there really a need to have the landing page on the old site to state that 'website A no longer operates..'? Is website well known and/or does it have a loyal customer base? Also does website B offer all the same products as website A used to?
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
-
Redirect Juice?
Hello all! I have a partner site that is linking their product page (step 1) to our product page (step 2) and then we instantly forward them to our shopping cart page (step 3) with that product added. Will my product page (step 2) get the SEO juice from our partners link (step 1) even though we instantly forward to our shopping cart page (step 3)? Curious about ways to technically do this correctly. Thank you!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Jamesmcd030 -
What to keep in mind: to 301 redirect every page in an entire online store
Hello, I've got to put a 301 redirect on every page in an entire online store. We're moving to a better premade cart. Who has experience with this? How do I not lose traffic, if that is possible? What do I need to keep in mind? Thanks!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | BobGW0 -
I'm a newb, built a website with Wix want to redirect it to a domain I own, but am reading that Wix is bad for this
Hi, I am building this site for my boss http://charlesfridmanpr.wix.com/real-estate and am still working on it. I'm getting close to the stage where I want to redirect it to the URL we want to use, but in reading these forums, it says that because all of subpages (?) have a # in them, they will not be read or indexed by google. I am very new to this, and while it may not look like it, the website has taken me quite a while to design. Is there a way to fix this? We want to appear high up for a non competitive keyword. Thanks
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Charlesfridmanpr0 -
Is a 301 Redirect and a Canonical Tag on Uppercase to Lowercase Pages Correct?
We have a medium size site that lost more than 50% of its traffic in July 2013 just before the Panda rollout. After working with a SEO agency, we were advised to clean up various items, one of them being that the 10k+ urls were all mixed case (i.e. www.example.com/Blue-Widget). A 301 redirect was set up thereafter forcing all these urls to go to a lowercase version (i.e. www.example.com/blue-widget). In addition, there was a canonical tag placed on all of these pages in case any parameters or other characters were incorporated into a url. I thought this was a good set up, but when running a SEO audit through a third party tool, it shows me the massive amount of 301 redirects. And, now I wonder if there should only be a canonical without the redirect or if its okay to have tens of thousands 301 redirects on the site. We have not recovered yet from the traffic loss yet and we are wondering if its really more of a technical problem than a Google penalty. Guidance and advise from those experienced in the industry is appreciated.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | ABK7170 -
Buying a domain and redirecting it to your website (improves seo?)
hello everyone, imagine that I have a website with Pagerank 7, PA50 DA59... and there is another website who is my competitor... so I decide to buy them... Pagerank3 PA30, DA25.. So I redirect this website to my domain...Using google webmasters I say to Google that it was redirected... So does this improve my SEO or no? Do I get part of the link juice and so on? Can this really improve my rankings?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | FCRMediaLietuva0 -
Confusing 301 / Canonical Redirect Issue - Wizard Needed
I had two pages on my site with identical content. What I did was 301 redirect one page to the other. I also added canonical redirect code to the page that held the 301 code. Here is what I have: www.careersinmusic.com/music-colleges.aspx - this page was a duplicate and I needed it to resolve to:
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | 4Buck
www.careersinmusic.com/music-schools.aspx Here is the code I used: XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX music-colleges.aspx
<%@ Page Language="VB" AutoEventWireup="false" CodeFile="music-colleges.aspx.vb" Inherits="music_colleges" %>
http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd">
http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"> http://www.careersinmusic.com/music-schools.aspx"/> XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
music-colleges.aspx.vb
Partial Class music_colleges
Inherits System.Web.UI.Page
Protected Sub Page_Load(ByVal sender As Object, ByVal e As System.EventArgs) Handles Me.Load
Response.Status = "301 Moved Permanently"
Response.AddHeader("Location", "http://www.careersinmusic.com/music-schools.aspx")
End Sub
End Class XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX The problem:
For some reason, when the search “music colleges” is done in Google, I am #7. When the term “music schools” is done, I am around 119. I MUST be getting a penalty for some reason, I just cannot figure the reason. When perform well for one term and terrible for the next? All I can come up with is a duplicate content penalty or something along those lines. Also, music-colleges.aspx seems to still be in Googles index, even though the above 301 happened months ago. Thoughts? site:www.careersinmusic.com/music-colleges.aspx Any insight into this would be GREATLY appreciated. Many Thanks!0 -
301 Redirect - What happens to backlinks
Hello... One of my sites is losing rankings in G. I received the webmaster notification of unnatural links... My question is, should i do a 301 redirect of every page on my site to a new domain? If so, do the backlinks (which i believe are causing my rankings to drop) carry over? How about the good backlinks? Also, what would happen to the rankings i currently have on page 1? Thanks
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Prime850 -
What happens with a 301 redirected page?
Hi All, What happens with an indexed page that I 301 redirect?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | BeytzNet
Is it removed from the Google index after a while? Thanks0