New domain purchase 301 and 404 issues. Please help!
-
We recently purchased www.carwow.com and 301 redirected the site to www.carwow.co.uk (our main domain). The problem is that carwow.com had URLs indexed like www.carwow.com/a-b-c the 301 sends them to carwow.co.uk/a-b-c which obviously doesn't exist so is a 404!
What should be done in this situation? Should it be ignored and not re-directed at all, or is there a way to delete/disavow these dead pages? An SEO has advised we redirect all pages to the homepage, but won't that mess up the link profile?
Any advice would be great!
-
This is what scares me about some 'SEO's'...
"An SEO has advised we redirect all pages to the homepage, but won't that mess up the link profile?"
Terrible advice!
I hope you have all sorted out now James.
-Andy
-
Essentially you would be which is the problem, you could redirect homepage links and go through some of the sub pages find any that may be helpful to your new site but 404 may be better for keeping a high quality site, you could also disavow links from the old domain if you're worried about the cost but Google will remove 404 after a period of time anyhow.
I hope you know have a good idea and can make a better choice now anyway.
-
Hi Chris,
Not really bothered with a BR as you'd expect that to be high given traffic would be expecting a completely different site.
I can't help but feel that redirecting thousands of pages to the homepage would incredibly counteractive to SEO, isn't that the equivalent of 4,000 really low quality rubbish irrelevant links?
-
Hi James,
A homepage redirection would best. If you don't have similar content you would loose a lot of the link juice though and users looking for older content may end up as a bounce on your site so it may be worth letting them 404 depending on what you want from the redirect.
You may find the following blog post helpful -
-
Hi Chris,
Thanks for the rapid response!
The problem is that the URLs are related to the old domain, we recently purchased it so the content is completely irrelevant to all carwow content! There simply isn't a 'nearest case' scenario.
-
301 them to the nearest page not the homepage.
If you don't have a page that matches try to do the best you can - e.g if its a eCommerce you could 301 it to a similar product.
301 everything to a home page will not only loose a lot of link juice, it will annoy any users trying to find a product via old links and Google isn't keen on a 301 to a homepage if its not necessary.
Take the time to 301 all the links to the nearest page to what the old link used to point to and it will save you time in the long run.
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
-
How Can I Redirect an Old Domain to Our New Domain in .htaccess?
There is an old version of http://chesapeakeregional.com still floating around the web here: http://www.dev3.com.php53-24.dfw1-2.websitetestlink.com/component/content/category/20-our-services. Various iterations of this domain pop up when I do certain site:searches and for some queries as well (such as "Diagnostic Center of Chesapeake"). About 3 months ago the websitetestlink site had files and a fully functional navigation but now it mostly returns 404 or 500 errors. I'd like to redirect the site to our newer site, but don't believe I can do that in chesapeakeregional.com's .htaccess file. Is that so and would I need access to the websitetestlink .htaccess to forward the domain? Note* I (nor anyone else in our organization) has the login for the old site. The new site went live about 9 months before I arrived at the organization and I've been slowly putting the pieces together since arriving.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | smpomoryCRH0 -
Branding and Page Titles - Please Help
Hello, I have a question about page titles. How important is branding here? I'm not referring to the company name, but rather the terminology that's used as "branding language" for a company. For example, let's say that the it would be a good idea to target the keyword "Restaurant Coupons" based on search volume and competition. However, our branding adheres to the language "Dining Offers". Is it considered a bad idea to use "Restaurant Coupons" in the page title? Or is that considered inconsistent branding? Basically, I'm just trying to figure out the correct balance between the SEO value of words and adhering to a company's branding. Any help is appreciated! Thanks,
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | atmosol
Nick1 -
404 ? 301 ? What is your opinion ?
Hi, I have a classifieds website and I am wondering about the life of a page with an ad. An announcement has therefore a limited life, so : Is a 404 pages? a 301 redirect to the section? let the content without redirection? What is your opinion? Sorry for my english, i'm french 😉 Thanks. A.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | android_lyon0 -
Moving to a new domain
We currently rank well in our niche on a long (and ambiguous) domain, but want to rebrand and have a shorter and more memorable domain. Keeping in mind we're already pointing good links at the new domain (301ing them to the old site), how long should we age the domain before switching the content and 301ing the old site?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | errspy0 -
Brand new domain with a lot of old links.
So I just bought http://penny-auctions.co/ a couple of days ago, ignore the fact it's not set up yet and generally just a mess, and something kept bugging me about why the domain authority kept showing as 25 in the SEOmoz toolbar. Now initially I'd set it up as www. and with the trailing slash so the PA was 1, however after a bit of exploration it seems that someone has been building links to the non-www version of the domain for at least a year! The site has never been owned before so I've now made the non-www version the default and have a 5 day old site with PA 35 and DA 25! SEOmoz shows PA - 45 links, 20 domains and DA - 341 links, 113 domains. Majestic Historic - 8598 links, 236 domains and Fresh - 160 links, 62 domains. Brilliant! Except they're all spamtastic. What do you think this will do for my future attempts at ranking? Should I create pages that have links to them or just 301 them?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | StalkerB0 -
Purchased a high ranking domain and want to transfer my site to the new domain
I recently purchased a highly ranked domain. The link profile is very good and I don't want to lose to many links however I want to transfer my site to that domain. What is the best way of doing this without losing the current rank on search engines? Also how much does the transfer of registrar information impact my SEO?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | ydop0 -
Website domain hosting and set-up for foreign domains?
Hi, I am just wondering what the best practice is for marketing a business in two separate countries? I have a new client that wants me to create their website targeted at the UK market which for me is normal but they also want to target Australia (Probably couldn't get any further away) My initial thoughts are that the business would need two separate websites. The first one in the uk and the second website hosted on servers in Australia with different content. Is this correct? or does anyone have any advice which may simplify getting this thing off the ground. Thanks in advance.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | AdeLewis
Ade.0 -
How long does a new domain need to get a specific level of trust?
We are a small start-up in germany in the Sports and health sector. We currently are building a network of people in that sector and give each person a seperate wordpress blog. The idea is to create a big network of experts. My question is: How long is the period for google to trust a completely new URL? We set up each project and create content on the page. Each week the owner of the site puts up an expert article that contain keywords. And we set certain links from other blogs, etc. Also, do you think it is more important for a site to get say, 20 backlinks from anywhere. Or 5 backlinks from very trusted blogs, etc.?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | wellbo0