Where should I 301 redirect my current domain to given this situation?
-
My company currently owns three apartment complexes. They are within blocks of each other. Only one of them has a website (believe it or not). The one that has the website ranks fairly well, but only because it has been around for a long time. There have not been any intentional SEO efforts. I have stumbled across a wonderful, keyword rich & location specific, domain name but I have a question. Here's the scenario:
We have:
Apartment Complex 1 - www.apartmentcomplex1.com (longstanding website)
Apartment Complex 2 - No website.
Apartment Complex 3 - No website.
We are considering buying the domain: www.KeywordRichDomain.com. The new URL structure would be:
www.KeywordRichDomain.com/apartment-complex-1
www.KeywordRichDomain.com/apartment-complex-2
www.KeywordRichDomain.com/apartment-complex-3
Should I 301 redirect www.apartmentcomplex1.com to the new root domain or should I redirect it to the appropriate sub-folder of the new domain?
Putting myself in the user's shoes, if I were expecting to go to the apartmentcomplex1.com domain, I would want to land on the sub-folder because it's relevant to what I was looking for. However, I don't think people will directly type in the old URL. I think people will be searching for apartments in the area and I want all three of our complexes to show up. By redirecting the good domain to this new root domain, it should help us start out life pretty well in the SERPS. (my assumption at least).
Thoughts?
-
George,
Thank you for your feedback. I agree with you that exact match domains are likely becoming less significant, but I thought I remembered from MozCon that case studies, as of that date (earlier this year), proved that EMDs were still resulting in clearly higher rankings. I'll have to go back to the videos.
I agree with you about the age assumption. I wasn't stating that the age, itself, was the ranking factor. I meant that because it had been around for so long that natural optimizations were occurring (natural linking, natural content, etc...). This wasn't intentional though. It just occurred through the normal course of business. According to the MozBar, while on the home page, it has a Domain Authority of 19 and a Page Authority of 31 with 266 links coming in from 13 root domains.
Thank you for sharing about the Google Webmaster tools restriction. I was unaware of that, but it makes sense. I could see why that would be abused, even though in this case I have a legitimate reason for doing so. I will ensure that clear navigation is in place on the home page.
Thanks again George!
-Alex
-
Hi,
I see a couple of assumptions in your question - I would say that having a "keyword rich domain" is becoming a less significant ranking factor in SERPs so I wouldn't base the migration of an existing website that performs pretty well on the potential of a new domain targetting certain KWs.
Secondl assumption is that your existing domain is ranking purely because it's older. There are likely to be other factors at play here - particularly backlinks.
However, I realise that you need to restructure the website and moving to a single domain with the complexes on subdirectories makes sense architecturally. You might well see a drop in rankings certainly in the meantime while you do this migration so if this is a key acquisiton channel, then investigate PPC options to bolster your traffic.
As for the 301 - I agree it makes sense to 301 to the complex subdirectory for a user, however in Webmaster Tools Google doesn't support the migration of one domain to the subdirectory of another domain. This means it won't be as seamless as if you migrate to the root of the new domain.
One way around this would be to redirect the old domain to the root domain, but provide very clear navigation on how to get to the relevant apartment complex to a user. As far as a user is concerned, I would see this as an acceptable solution.
George
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
-
Local Strategy for Multiple Domain Integration
Hello, We are a locally driven business with two locations. Currently, each location has its own local site and are linked to from our central domain (3 domains total). We are discussing whether we should integrate the local sites into location pages on our core domain. However, we would also prefer to keep the ‘local’ domains live. Is this a viable strategy and what would we need to do to ensure the local sites won’t cannibalize our efforts with the main domain? Also, should we remove the contact information on those local sites to avoid NAP issues? The other option would be to build out the local domains but that could raise concerns over budget and potentially expanding into the future. And we would like the main domain to take presendence. A few additional notes on this: Each location has its own brand name and contact information. Traffic across all 3 sites is about the same. We are also considering using silos with sub-folders to build out local service pages. We understand how to set up location pages but are asking more in terms of overall strategy and ideal way to position all 3 sites. Any help or insight would be very appreciated. Thank you in advance.
Local Website Optimization | | Ben-R
Best,0 -
Best domain setup for network of locations
Hi there! I am looking for some industry expert weigh-in on best practices to how to best approach the business scenario described below to bring in some outside confirmation of our approach for a client. Tim runs a business,timsbusinesswebsite.com. Tim's business has between 15 and 30 individual locations in large cities across the United States. Unfortunately, the approach to each individual location's digital marketing has been inconsistent. Some have a unique URL for their location (e.g.timsbusinesswebsite.com/new-york-city/) Some have a subdomain (e.g.chicago.timsbusinesswebsite.com) Some have a separate domain altogether (e.g.timsbusinesswebsiitelosangeles.com) Which of these three approaches would best build the best foundation for the business in local and national rankings from an SEO standpoint and why?
Local Website Optimization | | searchcityusa0 -
I have a Wordpress site that ranks well and a blog (uses blogger) with slightly different URL/domain that also ranks decently. Should I combine the 2 under the website domain or keep both?
I realize that I am building essentially 2 different sites even though they are connected, but on some local town pages i have 2-3 results on Page #1. Nice problem to have eh? But i am worried as for a lot of my surrounding towns my competitor has the top listing or definitely ahead of me, so i am wondering if i combine or convert my blog into the same domain as my site, then all of that content + links should hopefully propel my site to #1. Anyone have an experience like this? thanks, Chris
Local Website Optimization | | Sundance_Kidd0 -
Any idea how to solve sub domain tracking using GTMv2?
my traffic goes to referral if visitors visits in my subdomain page. i have tried adding my subdomain in referral exclusion list and other ways via GTM posted in some articles, nothing seems to be working for me. any suggestions how to solve this issue
Local Website Optimization | | Jenifer300 -
Closed Location Pages - 301 to open locations?
I work with several thousand local businesses and have a listing page for each on my site. Recently a large chunk of these locations closed, and a number of these pages rank well for localized keywords. I'm trying to figure out the best course of action.
Local Website Optimization | | Andrew_Mac
What I've done so far is make a note on each of the closed location pages that says something to the effect of "This location is currently closed. Here are some nearby options" and provide links to the location pages of 3 open places nearby. The closed location pages are continuing to rank well, but conversion rates from visitors landing on these pages has dropped. What I'm considering doing is 301ing these pages to the nearest open location page. I'm hoping this will preserve the ranking of the page for keywords for which the nearby location is still relevant, while not hurting user experience by serving up a closed location. I'm also thinking of, as a second step, creating new pages (with slightly altered URLs) for the closed listings. They won't rank as well obviously, but if someone searches for the address or even the street of the closed location, my hope is that I could still capture some of that traffic and hope to convert it through someone clicking through to an open location from there. I spoke with someone about this second step and he thought it sounded spammy. My thinking is, combined with the 301, I'm telling Google that the page it is currently ranking well no longer has the importance it once did and that the page I'm 301ing to does, but that the content on the page I'm creating for the closed location still has enough value to justify the newly created page. I'd really appreciate thoughts from the community on this. Thanks!0 -
For a generic domain say www.purplecola.com where the company is based in India (IP address there too), how should they best optimize for US search traffic?
Let's just say that they want to target the US market. Should they add a US based IP address? Would love to hear insight from people who have managed this, experienced this or have expertise. Obviously, a US based physical address would help. Thanks!! Chris
Local Website Optimization | | Sundance_Kidd0