Best way to move the content to a different domain without inviting any SERP penalty?
-
Hi all,
We are in a bit of a fix right now. We have around 60-70 articles (Wordpress pages / posts) that we intend to move to another domain of ours. What's the best way to do so such that we do not invite any Google penalty.
Here's a detailed information about our case:
Let's say, our site example.com has more 2000 articles. To help us better position our content for one of the sections on example.com, we have started another website, example2.com and want to move those 60-70 articles from example.com to example2.com.What is the best way to do it such that we are not penalised by Google? Is it (a) Move all the said content (60-70 articles) from example.com to example2.com and (b) do a permanent redirect (301) of each of the older article URLs to newer article URLs.
What are the other options?
-
Thanks Tom and Donford.. That helped a lot.
We just posted a follow-up question to this over here - http://moz.com/community/q/is-it-possible-to-move-a-couple-of-posts-and-comments-from-one-wp-domain-to-another
-
100% agree with Tom. There really is nothing I can think to add.
-
Hi Shalin
You've already listed the best option available.
Add those articles on your new website and then 301 the old pages to the new ones. That is the best possible solution.
Alternatively, you could change the canonical tags on the old website to point to the new website - ie on www.oldsite.com/article-1 you have this canonical tag: and so on. However, this is a longer way of doing the same thing as a 301, while the effect may not be instant either.
A third option would be to add a noindex,nofollow tag on the old site pages to deindex the pages.
The last two solutions would let you keep the articles on both sites - but in this case I would not recommend it, because even with the canonical change and/or noindexing, it could be misinterpreted as you looking to flesh out your site with more content that isn't original. I'd recommend the 301 redirect.
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
-
Best way to get love from expired domain
Hi so i have bought a couple of expired domains (which when they were live had good PA , link profile etc) my question is is it better to just 301 the domains to my main site or to set up a "landing page" for the expired domain and then put a number of links on this page to my main site which would give me the most benefit google-wise ? obviously 301ing would be the easiest !
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | odysseytravels0 -
What is the fastest way disassociate an old URL with a new domain name?
We have a client with an old domain which was spammy (bad links). Until two months ago, it was forwarding to his current domain and (I believe) causing a penalty. Two months ago we transferred ownership of the spammy URL to a third party and setup an unrelated blog for Google to pick up on. Google did pick up on the URL. After two months Google Webmaster Tools is still showing 200 links from the old domain, to the new domain (from the spammy domain). Also, when you search the company name, the spammy domain still appears in the results (page two). Is there a faster way disassociate the old domain entirely from the business? I.e., just delete the domain, forward the domain to another website, etc.? If you have experience in this, I'd love to hear from you. Thanks!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | mgordon0 -
Is writing good content the best SEO?
Hi, After reading Mr. Shepard's amazing article on the 7 concepts of advanced on-page SEO (https://moz.com/blog/7-advanced-seo-concepts), I decided to share my own experience in hopes of helping others. I started doing legal SEO back in 2013. At the time I really didn't know much about SEO. My first client (my brother) had recently left the D.A.'s office to become a criminal defense attorney. I told him to write content for the following areas: domestic violence, sex crimes, and homicide. He finished his first content piece on domestic violence and I was not impressed. It seemed too unique, individualized, and lacked the "generic" feel that many of the currently ranking pages had. Please note that I don't mean "generic" in a negative way. I just mean that his content regarding domestic violence felt too personalized. Granted, his "personalized" approach came from a Deputy D.A. with over 13 years handling domestic violence, sex crimes, and murder cases. I was inclined to re-write his content, but lacking any experience in criminal law I really had no choice but to use it. IMPORTANT: Please note that I barely knew any SEO at the time (I hadn't even yet discovered MOZ), and my brother knew, and continues to know, absolutely nothing about SEO. He simply wrote the content from the perspective of an attorney who had spent the better part of 13 years handling these types of cases. The result? Google: "Los Angeles domestic violence lawyer/attorney", "Los Angeles sex crimes lawyer/attorney", and "Los Angeles homicide attorney." They have held those spots consistently since being published. I know that MANY other factors contribute to the success of content, but at the time I published them we had few links and very little "technical SEO." Unfortunately, I started learning "SEO" and applied standard SEO techniques to future content. The result? Never as good as the articles that were written with no SEO in mind. My purpose in writing this is to help anyone about to tackle a new project or revamp an existing site. Before getting too caught up in the keywords, H tags, and all the other stuff I seem to worry too much about, simply ask yourself - "is this great content?" Thanks again to the MOZ team for the great advice they have shared over the years. Honestly, I think I sometimes become overly reliant on SEO b/c it seems easier than taking the time to write a great piece of content. P.s. Any "SEO" stuff you see on the above-mentioned pages was done by me after the pages ranked well. P.p.s. I don't mean to imply that the above-mentioned pages are perfect, because they are not. My point is that content can rank well even without any emphasis on SEO, as long as the person writing it knows about the subject and takes the time to write something that readers find useful.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | mrodriguez14403 -
Subdomain vs Subdirectory - does the content make a difference?
So I've read through all of the answers that suggest using a subdirectory is the best way to approach this - you rank more quickly and have all of your content on one site. BUT what if you're looking to move into a totally new market that your current site/content isn't in any way relevant to? Some examples are Supermarkets such as Tesco (who seem to use a mix of methods) http://www.tesco.com/groceries/, http://www.clothingattesco.com/, http://www.tesco.com/bank/ which links out from their main site to http://www.tescobank.com/ etc and Sainsburys http://www.sainsburys.co.uk/ who use subdomains - here they have their grocery offering, their bank offering, clothes, phones etc split into subdomains. If you have a product that is totally new to your Brand and different from all the products on your current site, does this change the answer to subdirectory vs subdomain? Would be great to hear your expert opinions on this. Thanks
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | giffgaff2 -
What is the best way to get anchor text cloud in line?
So I am working on a website, and it has been doing seo with keyword links for a a few years. The first branded terms comes in a 7% in 10th in the list on Ahefs. The keyword terms are upwards of 14%. What is the best way to get this back in line? It would take several months to build keyword branded terms to make any difference - but it is doable. I could try link removal, but less than 10% seem to actually get removed -- which won't make a difference. The disavow file doesn't really seem to do anything either. What are your suggestions?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | netviper0 -
We are moving one website to a different domain and would like to know what is the best way to do it without hurting SEO
The website we want to move, let's say www.olddomain.com has a low quality back links profile, in fact it received a manual notification from google of unnatural links detected; but the home page has a PR 3. We want to move it to a different domain let's say www.newdomain.com. We would like to know if it's better to do a 301 redirect to the new domain, in order to transfer the link juice or if it would be better to do a 302, taking into account that this redirect won't pass any link juice, so it would be like start from scratch with this new domain. Thanks for your help.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | DoitWiser0 -
Moving Entire Domain to New Site with New File Extensions
I have been looking for a while for a good an clear Step by Step guide for moving a site from an old to a new domain... so I guess a good discussion here, could help many web masters have a smooth transition. So in your opinion, beside the obvious, what are the most important steps you must take? Here is what I do: 1. 301 old site to new one and TEST.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | dhidalgo1
2. Check Internal Links - Double Check for 404's.
3. Update your Social Profiles with new URL.
4. Let GWT and BWT of the change and request a Crawl.
5. Contact as Many of Webmaster as you possibly can to point your links to your new domain. What's missing? What have you found helpful and/or Effective?0 -
Why do SERP Results ( Rankings ) differ from country to country ?
Hi, I have been doing seo for this client based in Sri lanka for almost 8 months now. Since we started SEO we had set up geographic target setting to UK through google webmaster tools. At the moment Site is completely ranking higher on google uk & other countries except Sri Lanka . On Google.lk site doesn't even come within 1st 5 pages for keywords which are ranked on1st page in other countries ? What do you think about this ? How does it happen ?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | pyxle0