Domain Change Of Address & Sale
-
Hi Moz community
Let's say I have two domains
domain1 is my main website.
Domain 2 was a peripheral side project I was working on. I recently decided to shut it down. So I hooked up the proper 301s and filed a change of address request with Google Webmaster tools.
I have had an offer for someone to purchase domain2 - I have absolutely no use for it and would like to sell it. I just want first to figure out that:
-
I can do this without losing any ranking to my main site.
-
I can disassociate this domain from myself and my Company completely.
I don't want any of the work we put into it to transfer to the new owner.
How can I do this?
thanks!
-
-
Thank you so much I really appreciate the response.
-
There's no perfectly clean break with any domain for one important reason - back-links. If the side project has solid back-links and then you disconnect it (break the 301, essentially), you'll lose the positive impact of those links. There's no easy way around that.
At the same time, the new owner will potentially benefit from those links. The only way to disconnect that benefit is to individually request that the linking sites switch their links to your site. If the new site changes ownership and drastically changes content, then Google will eventually see those links as irrelevant and devalue them, but that's probably going to take a while.
I'd worry more about your loss of benefit than about the new owner getting some unearned but probably temporary benefit, honestly. The other issue would be any brand awareness around the secondary domain - since that's tied to the name/domain, you can't really cut that loose.
Since it's a side project, I suspect this isn't a big risk, but it's really tough to know without more details.
-
I would be interested in any type of feedback with this situation.
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
-
301 Redirect Only Home Page/Root Domain via Domain Registrar Only
Hi All, I am really concerned about doing a 301 redirect. This is my situation: Both Current and New Domain is registered with a local domain registrar (similar to GoDaddy but a local version) Current Domain: Servers are pointing to Wix servers and the website is built and hosted with Wix I would like to do a 301 redirect but would like to do it in the following way with a couple of factors to keep in mind: 99% of my link are only pointed to the home page/root domain only. Not to subdirectories. New Domain: I will register this with wix with a new plan but keep the exact sitemap and composition of current website and launch with new domain. Current Domain: I want to change server pointing to wix to point to local domain registrar servers. Then do a 301 redirect for only the home page/root domain to point to the new domain listed with wix. So 301 is done via local registrar and not via Wix. Another point to mention is it will also change from Http to Https as well as a name change. Your comments on the above will be greatly appreciated and as to whether there is risk in trying to do a 301 redirect as above. Doing it as above it also cheaper if I do the 301 via the wix platform I will need to register a full new premium plan and run it concurrently to the old plan whereas if I do it as mentioned above will only have the additional domain annual fee. Look forward to your comments. Mike
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | MikeBlue10 -
Microsite as a stand-alone site under one domain and sub-domained under another: duplicate content penalty?
We developed and maintain a microsite (example: www.coolprograms.org) for a non-profit that lives outside their main domain name (www.nonprofit-mainsite.org) and features content related to a particular offering of theirs. They are utilizing a Google Grant to run AdWords campaigns related to awareness. They currently drive traffic from the AdWords campaigns to both the microsite (www.coolprograms.org) and their main site (www.nonprofit-mainsite.org). Google recently announced a change in their policy regarding what domains a Google Grant recipient can send traffic to via AdWords: https://support.google.com/nonprofits/answer/1657899?hl=en. The ads must all resolve to one root domain name (nonprofit-mainsite.org). If we were to subdomain the microsite (example: coolprograms.nonprofit-mainsite.org) and keep serving the same content via the microsite domain (www.coolprograms.org) is there a risk of being penalized for duplicate content? Are there other things we should be considering?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | marketing-iq0 -
Affiliate & canonicals
Hi, any help with this one would be great.... www.example.com sells widgets online. They are also promoted on a 3rd party website www.partner.com. Currently www.partner.com links to a page on www.example.com that is completely branded with the 'partners' design, style and unique copy (you would think you were still on 'partner' website). I saw this interesting article from 2011: http://www.seomoz.org/blog/getting-seo-value-from-your-affiliate-links (in particular idea 1) Do you think adding a rel=canonical on www.example.com's partner page is still safe? All the best & thank you, Richard
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Richard5550 -
Redirect old .net domain to new .com domain
I have a quick question that I think I know the answer to but I wanted to get some feedback to make sure or see if there's additional feedback. The long and short of it is that I'm working with a site that currently has a .net domain that they've been running for 6 years. They've recently bought a .com of the same name as well. So the question is: I think it's obviously preferable to keep the .net and just direct the .com to it. However, if they would prefer to have the .com domain, is 301'ing the .net to the .com going to lose a lot of the equity they've built up in the site over the past years? And are there any steps that would make such a move easier? Also, if you have any tips or insight just into a general transition of this nature it would be much appreciated. Thanks!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | BrandLabs0 -
Overly-Dynamic URLs & Changing URL Structure w Web Redesign
I have a client that has multiple apartment complexes in different states and metro areas. They get good traffic and pretty good conversions but the site needs a lot of updating, including the architecture, to implement SEO standards. Right now they rank for " <brand_name>apartments" on every place but not " <city_name>apartments".</city_name></brand_name> There current architecture displays their URLs like: http://www.<client_apartments>.com/index.php?mainLevelCurrent=communities&communityID=28&secLevelCurrent=overview</client_apartments> http://www.<client_apartments>.com/index.php?mainLevelCurrent=communities&communityID=28&secLevelCurrent=floorplans&floorPlanID=121</client_apartments> I know it is said to never change the URL structure but what about this site? I see this URL structure being bad for SEO, bad for users, and basically forces us to keep the current architecture. They don't have many links built to their community pages so will creating a new URL structure and doing 301 redirects to the new URLs drastically drop rankings? Is this something that we should bite the bullet on now for future rankings, traffic, and a better architecture?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | JaredDetroit0 -
Any Issues with Changing a Page based on IP address?
Building a site and wondering if we have one page that changes depending on where how it is accessed if that is a good / bad idea. Thanks in advance!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | nicole.healthline0 -
Virtual Domains and Duplicate Content
So I work for an organization that uses virtual domains. Basically, we have all our sites on one domain and then these sites can also be shown at a different URL. Example: sub.agencysite.com/store sub.brandsite.com/store Now the problem comes up often when we move the site to a brand's URL versus hosting the site on our URL, we end up with duplicate content. Now for god knows what damn reason, I currently cannot get my dev team to implement 301's but they will implement 302's. (Dont ask) I also am left with not being able to change the robots.txt file for our site. They say if we allowed people to go in a change this stuff it would be too messy and somebody would accidentally block a site that was not supposed to be blocked on our domain. (We are apparently incapable toddlers) Now I have an old site, sub.agencysite.com/store ranking for my terms while the new site is not showing up. So I am left with this question: If I want to get the new site ranking what is the best methodology? I am thinking of doing a 1:1 mapping of all pages and set up 302 redirects from the old to the new and then making the canonical tags on the old to reflect the new. My only thing here is how will Google actually view this setup? I mean on one hand I am saying
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | DRSearchEngOpt
"Hey, Googs, this is just a temp thing." and on the other I am saying "Hey, Googs, give all the weight to this page, got it? Graci!" So with my limited abilities, can anybody provide me a best case scenario?0 -
What to do with keyword specific domains
I have a few domain names with the keywords I'm trying to target for my website. My website currently has been in operations for a couple years, and while not hugely authoritative, has built some value. Now, are these domain names with keywords any use to me? Is there any point to forward them to my site? Do I try to build up a page (or a few of content) and then have a link to my main site? Any insight would be mucho appreciated! Thanks!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | gregalam0