Redirecting external blog to main website blog - two questions I'm struggling with
-
Hiya Mozzers - I have a blog separate from main website which is duplicating the blog on the main website. This separate blog is duplicating the main website blog, so it needs to be closed down and redirected. There are some 200 pages of separate blog (identified via Screaming Frog).
So I am suggesting the blog pages should be 301 redirected from the separate blog to the equivalent blog pages on the main website.
Q1) Should the root domain of the separate blog be 301 redirected to the main www.mainwebsite.com/blog page, or to the root domain of the main website?
Q2) Should the blog pages, which lack equivalent content on the main website, be 301 redirected to the main www.mainwebsite.com/blog page, or to the root domain of the main website?
Thanks for your help on this one, Luke
-
Hi Luke,
As alrockn says, I would redirect the root domain of the duplicate blog to mainsite.com/blog.
With the pages that have no duplicate on the main site, either find the likeliest match or redirect to mainsite.com/blog. When I say likeliest match, I mean that if any pages on the old blog seem a good fit with something on the main site, redirect them there. You may find none that fit any of the existing pages. If so, don't worry - I'd redirect those to the main site's blog.
Cheers,
Jane
-
Thanks David - I was wondering whether blog root domain should go to the main website's blog page (www.mainwebsite.com/blog) or homepage (www.mainwebsite.com/) - not sure that it matters one way or the other as never had to deal with this kind of issue before.
-
Option 1 is a very good idea if you think these links will hurt you, Google wise. Since you says these are all duplicate content, this is probably what you want to do, but first be sure you don't want the link or authority juice from the old blog. If the blog gets more traffic, has more authority, etc...the decision gets tougher to make.
-
You have 2 options:
1. You can turn off the duplicated site, and do a URL removal request in Webmaster tools. The domain you do not want anymore, or the one that is causing the duplication must return a 404 error in order for Google to accept the request. This will cause the entire old site to go away, and the links to be removed from Google's index. If the site does not have a lot of traffic, or does not get a lot of visits, this would be the best route.
2. Do 301 redirects on the duplicated site. You should try and match them up, such as:
olddomain.com/your-blog-post
301 redirects to
NEWdomain.com/your-blog-postIf they do not match up exactly, use best judgement and redirect them either to the home page, or a similar subject matter. For example if you had an seo related topic that wasnt exact match, you could forward it to another article that referenced seo. If you have to send a few to the home page, that wont hurt anything, just dont make the total number excessive, as that could potentially look spammy. Best of luck, If you need any help let me know!
-
You should try to mirror the 301's to the duplicates on the main site. So in answer to your first question, the duplicate blog index page should go to main/blog, and everything else should go to the new location on the main site. Anything without landing pages on the new site, should redirect to main/blog.
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
-
Blog on Custom Website - WordPress Alternatives
Howdy folks. I'm trying to find any good alternative for adding CMS blog to custom website. Most people, us included, are using WP, but, as we know, it's really painful to work with, easily hackable etc etc. So, I wonder if anyone knows of a blog platform, which can be installed on our own websites for blogging, but without drawbacks of WordPress. Any nudge in correct direction will be appreciated. Thanks!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | DmitriiK1 -
Created the content, yet we don't rank for it. Toxic website?
Hey everyone, I'm beginning to think our site is toxic i.e. it'll never rank properly again irrespective of what we do. I recently published some data (2 months ago) in an interactive visual called the "iPhone 5S Price Index". I outreached and got thousands of links from sites including Forbes, Gizmodo (various international versions), Washington Post, The Guardian, NY Times, etc etc. All of these results dominate the Google rankings, all with links pointing to us. YET, we're no where to be seen. What incentive are Google giving content creators, like me, to continue producing content that is obviously popular if we can't even rank for it? The traffic we received was fantastic. In one day the traffic was 40 times our average, which made me smile like a Cheshire Cat from ear-to-ear but we need to improve our rankings overall otherwise the value to us is lost. The traffic wasn't there to buy our service, they were there to see the graphic. Hopefully our brand exposure leads to future sales, but it's a pittance compared to our previous rankings income. I've had this type of success 3 times in the last few months on this site alone. Yet nothing changes. We suffered from a loss of rankings in September 2012, fighting ever since to get it back. Now I'm losing hope it is even possible. Does anyone know why our site wouldn't rank when we're undeniable the source that created the work? Also, why wouldn't the increase in domain authority (which has jumped about 10 points according to OSE) have a knock on effect for the rest of our keywords - or even let us appear within the top 100 for ones we obviously serve? We do Real Company Shit - and we're good at it. But I need these rankings back. It's driving me nuts. Thanks.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | purpleindigo0 -
Subdomain blog vs. subfolder blog in 2013
So I've read the posts here: http://moz.com/community/q/subdomain-blog-vs-subfolder-blog-in-2013 and many others, Matt Cutts video, etc. Does anyone have direct experience that its still best practice to use the sub folder? (hopefully a moz employee can chime in?) I have a client looking to use hubspot. They are preaching with the Matt Cutts video. I'm in charge of SEO / marketing and am at odds with them now. I'd like to present the client with more info than "in my experience in the past I've seen subdirectories work." Any help? Articles? etc?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | no6thgear0 -
Pipe ("|") in my website's title is being replaced with ":" in Google results
Hi , One of the websites I'm promoting and working on is www.pau-brasil.co.il.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Kadel
It's wordpress-based website and as you can see the html's Title is "PauBrasil | some hebrew slogan".
(Screenshot: http://i.imgur.com/2f80EEY.gif)
When I'm searching for "PauBrasil" (Which is the brand's name) , one of the results google shows is "PauBrasil: Some Hebrew Slogan" (Screenshot: http://i.imgur.com/eJxNHrO.gif ) Why does the pipe is being replaced with ":" ?
And not just that , as you can see there's a "blank space" missing between the the ":" to the slogan.
(note: the websites has been indexed by google crawler at least 4 times so I find it hard to believe it can be the reason) I've keep on looking and found out that there's another page in that website with the exact same title
but when I'm looking for it in google , it shows the title as it really is , with pipe. ("|").
(Screenshot: http://i.imgur.com/dtsbZV2.gif) Have you ever encountered something like that?
Can it be that the duplicated title cause that weird "replacement"? Thanks in advance,
Kadel0 -
Redirect non www. domain to WWW. domain for established website?
Hey guys, The website in question has been online for more than 5 years but there are still 2 versions of the website. Both versions are indexed by Google and of course, this will result in duplicate content. Is it necessary to redirect the non-www domain to the www. domain. What are the cons and advantages? Will a lot of organic traffic be lost at first (if non-www are getting a good amount of traffic)? Thanks.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | BruLee0 -
My PR 4 website won't rank for keywords that have very weak competition
I bought a real 1Yr old PR4 domain and used it to make a blog that would rank easily for new trending keywords (Ex: product launch keywords). I used Yoast SEO and made sure I did all the on-page recommendations it gave me and had linklicious ping the post and a couple high PR backlinks that I gave the page, but it won't even rank page 10 let alone index. My domain is indexed and the home page links to my post. I know a average amount of SEO but I hate doing it because stuff like this frustrates me. Can someone help me? Do I need to get certain backlinks? Is there a way to get my site and post to index faster? BTW the keywords i'm trying to rank for have websites that are brand spanking new some of them are blogspot websites. Most of them don't have a single backlink to them.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Jamal41930 -
Website layout for a new website [Over 50 Pages & targeting Long Tail Keywords]
Hey everyone, We are designing a new website with over 50 pages and I have a question regarding the layout. Should I target my long tail keywords via blog pages? It will be easier to manage and list and link out to similar articles related to my long tail keywords using a word press blog. For this example - lets suppose the website is www.orange.com and we sells 'Oranges' Am I going about this in the right way? Main Section: Main Section 1 : Home Page - Keyword Targeted - Orange Main Section 2 : Important Conversion page - 'Buy oranges' Long Tail Keyword (LTK) 1: www.orange.com/blog/LTK1 Subsection(SS): www.orange.com/blog/LTK1/SS1 www.orange.com/blog/LTK1/SS1a www.orange.com/blog/LTK1/SS1b Long Tail Keyword (LTK) 2: www.orange.com/blog/LTK2 Long Tail Keyword (LTK) 3: www.orange.com/blog/LTK3 Subsection(SS): www.orange.com/blog/LTK1/SS3 www.orange.com/blog/LTK1/SS3a www.orange.com/blog/LTK1/SS3b All these long tail pages and sub sections under them are built specifically for hosting content that targets these specific long tail keywords. Most of my traffic will come initially via the sub section pages - and it is important for me to rank well for these terms initially. _E.g. if someone searches for the keyword 'SS3b' on Google - my corresponding page www.orange.com/blog/LTK1/SS3b should rank well on the results page. _ For ranking purposes - will using this blog/category structure hurt or benefit me? Instead do you think I should build static pages? Also, we are targeting more than 50 long tail keywords - and building quality content for each of these keywords - and I assume that we will be doing this continuously. So in the long term term which is more beneficial? Do you have any suggestions on if I am going about this the right way? Apologies for using these random terms - oranges, LKT, SS etc in this example. However, I hope that the question is clear. Looking forward to some interesting answers on this! Please feel free to share your thoughts.. Thank you! Natasha
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Natashadogres0 -
How to place two NADs on site (One website, 2 locations)
Hello, For our site: nlpca(dot)com we have 2 locations. One location is based out of a hotel in California, and one location is where we have our offices in Utah. Our site is about both locations, emphisizing California. Do we need to create a Utah page and put the Utah NAD on that page with separate address and phone number? What do we use as an address since we only have a hotel room in California now? What do we need to do to rank for both in the natural and also Places listings? Right now we're #1 for NLP California and #4 for NLP Utah Thanks!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | BobGW0