Moz Q&A is closed.
After more than 13 years, and tens of thousands of questions, Moz Q&A closed on 12th December 2024. Whilst we’re not completely removing the content - many posts will still be possible to view - we have locked both new posts and new replies. More details here.
Merging several sites into one - best practice
-
I had 2 sites on the web (www.physicseditor.de, www.texutrepacker.com) and decided to move them all under one single domain (www.codeandweb.com)
Both sites were ranking very good for several keywords.
I not redirected the most important pages from the old domains with a 301 redirect to the new subpages (www.texturepacker.com => www.codeandweb.com/texturepacker)
Google still delivers the old domains but the redirect take people directly to the new content.
I've already submitted the new site map to google webmaster tools. Pages are already in the index but do not really show up in the search results.
How long does it take until google accepts the new domain and delivers the new content in the search results?
Was it ok what I did? Or is there some room for improvement?
SeoMoz will of course not find any information about the new page since it is not yet directly linked in google. But I can't get ranking information for the "old" pages since SeoMoz tells me that it can't crawl the old domains....
-
Argh. It's too late for 2) - totally missed that.
Would it help to redirect the sitemap to the new domain's site map instead?
-
Thanks - seems google picked up the new domain
I had one bug - though php would do a 301 redirect but does a 302 by default. This is why it was not updated for some time.
-
Hi Andreas,
Looks like you're doing everything right, but I want to make sure all the bases are covered. Depending on the size, link profile, link structure and domain authority of your site, it can take several weeks for Google and other search engines to complete migrate a domain. Here are some important processes not to overlook.
1. Did you file a change of address within Google webmaster? http://support.google.com/webmasters/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=83106
2. When migrating domains, it's important to leave an old sitemap up, so that Google will try crawling the old URLs and register the 301s. If you neglect this step, it may take much longer for Google to crawl the old URLs to see that they've moved.
3. As Joel pointed out, make sure to update as many internal and external links as possible.
That should cover the basics, but there are a million more details you can explore to make the process go more smoothly. For a detailed approach, here's a couple of excellent guides written my some very smart folks.
- https://seogadget.co.uk/domain-migration/
- http://www.seomoz.org/blog/web-site-migration-guide-tips-for-seos
Hope this helps. Best of luck with the migration!
-
You did the right move by doing the 301 redirect and by submitting a new sitemap. Another thing you should consider doing if possible is identifying the links you previously had for those two sites, contact the site owners or webmasters and politely ask them to change the old link for your new URL. You should also make sure you are promoting your new site on all social media and you might consider a small PPC campaign. Also analyze the keywords you had on both sites and see how they compare to your new site. Keyword density may not be as powerful as before but still relevent. Hope this helps.
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
-
Why is Google not indexing my site?
I'm a bit confused as to why my site just isn't indexing on Google. Even if I type in my brand name, my social channels rank and there's no evidence of my website. I've followed all of the advice I've read and gone into webmaster tools and got the Wordpress yoast plug-in but nothing seems to be making a difference!One thing I've noticed, in Google Webmaster Tools it says "Couldn’t communicate with the DNS server." in site errors. I've called GoDaddy and they said that everything is fine. A bit frustrating. Trying to work out what my next steps should be but feeling a bit lost to be honest! Any help GREATLY appreciated!
Technical SEO | | j1066s0 -
If I want clean up my URLs and take the "www.site.com/page.html" and make it "www.site.com/page" do I need a redirect?
If I want clean up my URLs and take the "www.site.com/page.html" and make it "www.site.com/page" do I need a redirect? If this scenario requires a 301 redirect no matter what, I might as well update the URL to be a little more keyword rich for the page while I'm at it. However, since these pages are ranking well I'd rather not lose any authority in the process and keep the URL just stripped of the ".html" (if that's possible). Thanks for you help! [edited for formatting]
Technical SEO | | Booj0 -
How best to optimise a website for more than one location?
I have a client who is a acupuncturist and operates clinics both in Chester and Knutsford in Cheshire the site performs well for Chester based terms such as "Chester acupuncture" this is the primary location the client wishes to focus efforts on but would also like to improve rankings for the Knutsford clinic and area. I have setup local places pages for each clinic and registered each on different local directories. Both clinic addresses are placed on each page of the website and have a map to each on the contact page. Most of the on-page SEO elements such as page titles, descriptions and on-page keywords mainly focus on the term "Chester" over "Knutsford" is it advisable to target both locations in these page elements or will local search have an effect on this and will reduce/ dilute overall rankings for Chester clinic? I haven't setup and separate page for each clinic location as this might help in terms of SEO for improving ranking for both locations but from a user point of view it would just duplicate the same content but for a different location and also would create duplicate content issues. Any advice/ experience on this matter would be greatly appreciated.
Technical SEO | | Bristolweb0 -
One good reason why i should have a mobile site map
Good evening from I can just about keep my eyes open 7th cup of Coffeee David, Ok I'm adding a mobile sitemap to a mobile site. Whilst I know this is important the client wants one good reason why he should have one integrated into http://www.innoviafilms.com/m/Home.aspx I'm so knackered I cant articulate one, could some one put me out my misery and give me one good reason I should toil away with mobile xml; sitemap? Resource: http://support.google.com/webmasters/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=34648 Any insights welcome 🙂
Technical SEO | | Nightwing0 -
Mobile site: robots.txt best practices
If there are canonical tags pointing to the web version of each mobile page, what should a robots.txt file for a mobile site have?
Technical SEO | | bonnierSEO0 -
Should I create mini-sites with keyword rich domain names pointing to my main site?
Hi, I'm new to seomoz (and seo in general) and loving it so far. My main domain name is more of a brandname than a search engine friendly list of keywords. I rank well for some keywords I optimized for, and less so for the more competitive keywords. I was wondering if making one page minisites hosted on keyword rich domain names could help in this respect? What I want to do is just have a single page with a few paragraphs of content and links to the main site. I am not looking for links to boost the main site, just for the minisites to do better for several keywords. Will this help? Is this ok, or against some Google policy? Can this hurt the main site rankings? Thank you! **Edit: **I noticed that sites ranking above me on the first page for some keywords have much less on-page elements than my page, have about the same domain trust and also very little inbound links. The only factor I can see is the exact match of keywords in the domain name.
Technical SEO | | Eladla1 -
.CA site same as .com site - are both necessary?
Dear Friend, We representa a major national brand in the auto care industry, and they have locations in both US and Canada. There is a primary content site at .com that we have duplicated at .ca. We are hosting the .ca site on a separate IP on a server in Canada - but by in large it is the same site. (there are some minor changes we made to change US English to Canadian English - though minor. When we search Google.ca we generally see strong search results for the .com site, but rarely, if ever any evidence of rankings for the .ca site. The .com site was launched several years ago about 18 months before the .ca site. Why doesn't Google.ca show the .ca site? Is this an issue of duplicate content, and Google.ca simply shows the .com version which it knew about first? Are we wasting our time, money and efforts having both? Thanks, Tim ps. this isn't about location. We use a separate site to locate local shops, and have coordinated that well with Google Places, and when looking for local auto care - we do well in both US and Canada. The sites described above are largetl content sites.
Technical SEO | | lunavista-comm0