Redirecting a blog
-
We've acquired another company and want to redirect their soon-to-be-obsolete website to ours.
It includes a blog with many blog posts. Should we:
only 301 redirect the top level blog URL
try redirect individual blogs to blogs of a similar topic on our site (least practical I'm sure)
redirect all their individual posts to our main blog URLThanks, Caro
-
Thanks for the nudge Matt,
We're in the process of working on the redirects now...and checking GA results based on Matt-Williamson's feedback.
~Caro
-
Hi Caro!
We'd love an update on this.
Have any of the responses helped? And if so, would you mind marking one or more as a "Good Answer?"
Thanks!
-
Hi Caro
Just before I directly answer your question can I ask whether you have done a backlink audit on their site? If not I would strongly advice it in order to make sure they don't have any penalties or links you don't want associating with your site. I like to work this way, yes it does take longer but you are going into it with your eyes wide open and avoiding any issues down the line, which will inevitably take up even more time trying to rectify. I would recommend further reading on the following:
Link Audit - http://searchenginewatch.com/sew/how-to/2207168/how-to-conduct-a-link-audit
Link Removals & Risk Mitigation - https://moz.com/blog/link-audit-guide-for-effective-link-removals-risk-mitigation
As the others have already said I would look to redirect individual URLs to similar corresponding URLs on your site in order to get the best from this. As we know 301 redirects pass authority from the original URL to the new one.
However I would also take this one step further and look at the Google Analytics and Google Search Console Search Analytics Report for the other companies site if you have access to it and I would look at the most popular pages in terms of organic traffic. I would also look to analyse current rankings for that site and see if it is out ranking any of the corresponding content on your site. If so I would look to use it to improve my own content and then still do the 301 redirect. I have done this in the past and when moving across a popular blog from one site to yours I would look and see what are the most popular posts in terms of organic traffic as mentioned above but also other factors such as social interaction (I find https://socialcrawlytics.com/ ) and referrals. Then if my current site that I am redirecting too doesn't have some content that is on the same subject and very close in nature and popular I would look to migrate the content itself to a new post with the same content and then 301 redirect the original to that new piece.
Too many times you see people rushing this and just blanket redirecting things, however they forget that 1. you need to redirect to similar content to get the most benefit as a redirect is essentially telling the search engines the content has moved to a new location and 2 you won't always get close matches so why not take that content and publish it on yours if it is already working rather than trying to fit it somewhere it doesn't (basically don't force a square peg in a round hole).
Obviously I don't know how strong the site you want to redirect is but taking time over this now will pay dividends.
Hope this helps!
Matt
-
What you'll want to do is crawl the other site--and make note of all of the URLs. Then, 301 redirecting each page to the most appropriate page on the main site.
We usually recommend using a spreadsheet and making a list of the old URLs in one column and then listing the page it will redirect to next to it, in another column. That will make it easy to set up the 301 redirects in the .htaccess file on the site or put them into a redirect plugin.
There will be pages that you can't find another equivalent page on the new site--so you should 301 redirect those to the site's home page.
-
The redirects should always be to the most similar content on your site. The reason being is when the old site is being crawled by the search engine spider they will encounter the 301 permanent redirect and replace the index with the new url the redirect points to. So if you point all the links to irrelevant content you may loose ranking. The point of the 301 permanent redirect is to carry link juice over to the new urls.
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
-
Regarding Redirect chain
**Old site urls:- **http://www.giftalove.com/birthday-gifts-5.html **New site urls:- **https://www.giftalove.com/birthday **Old site urls:- **http://rakhi.giftalove.com **New site urls:-**https://www.giftalove.com/rakhi My old site url redirect to new site url but show redirect chain issue. My site redirect A to B to C. Kindly find attached image and guide me what is the best way of redirection. Thanks & Regards Dilip Kumar boxgEpd
Technical SEO | | Packersmove0 -
Trash Domain Or Redirect it (unmaintained)
We have an old website with an old domain that has not been maintained for a few years; it now has a DA of 14 and a spam score of 24%. Our current domain (same business) within a few years has a domain authority of 21 and page authority 29 spam score 1%. (Yes, this domain should have been redirected from the get-go) The question is what do you do with it now? Toss it. Or redirect it. That domain has existed for years but still not sure what its value is from an SEO perspective. I would love to hear your feedback. Is there any benefit to redirect the old domain to the current domain. Or is it a negative and what impact?
Technical SEO | | MyBambooSEO0 -
Redirect for Soft 404 or 404?
I have a client site that displays properties from the MLS. Once these properties sell they're removed from the MLS and they stop showing up on her site. This would result in a 404 error, but right now any property that's not being found is being 301 redirected back to the property page. I see how this makes sense for a user, but Google is saying there's an increase in Soft 404 errors and I've read that this could negatively affect organic traffic. Should I keep the redirect for removed properties or should I have it serve a 404 with a message that the house you're looking for may have sold and link to the property page? Is it better to have Soft 404 errors or 404 errors?
Technical SEO | | JaredDetroit0 -
Bolt on Blog Software
We have several large eCommerce websites built on Cold Fusion. It is running on IIS, not Apache. We are looking for a blogging package (CMS) that we can bolt on to the website. We don't want the blog residing in a sub-domain. The blog needs to reside in a folder. NO => blog.mydomain.com YES => www.mydomain.com/blog/ Has anyone ever adapted Wordpress for this type of situation? Can WordPress reside in a folder? Are there any other suggestions?
Technical SEO | | AMHC0 -
Importance of 301 Redirects
Hello, I have been brought in at the last minute to consult for an e-commerce client who is about to relaunch their website. The site currently receives 8000 visits a month, 3100 of which are from organic search. They have a few thousand product pages. The web development firm they are using is changing all of the old product page urls and using 'search engine friendly' urls for the new site, which is expected to launch in a few weeks. However, they did not/are not planning on including 301 redirects from the old URLs. Other than simply stating 'this will be bad for your SEO', what would be a correct way of explaining to the client how much of a problem it will be if their new site launches without 301s. For example, is this a big enough issue to delay the launch of the site / get in a contract dispute with the web developer?
Technical SEO | | stageagent0 -
Delete 301 redirected pages from server after redirect is in place?
Should I remove the redirected old pages from my site after the redirects are in place? Google is hating the redirects and we have tanked. I did over 50 redirects this week, consolidating content and making one great page our of 3-10 pages with very little content per page. But the old pages are still visible to google's bot. Also, I have not put a rel canonical to itself on the new pages. Is that necessary? Thanks! Jean
Technical SEO | | JeanYates0 -
Old Blog
I have an old blog that I started long ago and it has tons of content. I'm thinking about migrating it my current blog but am worried about panda and bringing over mediocre content. The content is fine, not bad not good. Should I bring it over or should I just delete the blog?
Technical SEO | | tylerfraser0 -
WP Blog Errors
My WP blog is adding my email during the crawl, and I am getting 200+ errors for similar to the following; http://www.cisaz.com/blog/2010/10-reasons-why-microsofts-internet-explorer-dominance-is-ending/tony@cisaz.net "tony@cisaz.net" is added to Every post. Any ideas how I fix it? I am using Yoast Plug in. Thanks Guys!
Technical SEO | | smstv0