Tips to Merge Two Domains?
-
Hi all, my client assigned me to merge both their two domains.
To cut the long story, at the moment they have, for example, domain1.com and domain2.com. Practically, they sell quite the same products but with different content and layout. This has been happening for several years: domain1.com came first then domain2.com a couple of months after.
They noticed that domain2.com has now more traffic than domain1.com. Another reason is they want to use one placeholder to avoid brand confusion (as expected because the products are actually the same).
So, they are planning to merge the brand into domain2.com.
I think this is just the same as moving domain, isn't it?
I have been preparing all things as per SEOmoz SEO Guide: How to Properly Move Domains and Google's moving your site .
Do you have any other tips to include?
I want to make sure that the domain moving will be successful and the link juice on domain1.com can be transferred to domain2.com .
Many thanks for your help!
-
Ah, thanks about it. Withdrawing a change of address is what I looked for.
Just in case if there is a need to revert.
-
yep, here is a reference source for the change of address.
-
Thanks, Luis. I feel the same way, too. That is one of the reasons my client finally decided to merge the brand.
-
Hi SEO5,
Thanks for your input. Yes, I am working on this, just to make sure that the mapping will be as relevant as possible.
By the way, have you had experience for "change of address" on Google Webmasters to set domain1 back to domain1 again?
This is just in case.
Many thanks,
Christian
-
think the best thing you can do is do a 301 redirect, maintain two websites can be complicated in your case it seems unnecessary.
-
Hi Christian,
You highlighted excellent sources for reference. You can apply the 301 redirect to move the domain. Ideally 301 the specific pages to domain 2 that relate to the same product info as domain 1. This way when someone clicks on a product page for domain 1 that is still ranking , they see a similar page on domain 2 when they are redirected.
-
Hi Exequiel, I am a bit confused now. Your reply seemed to contradict your first one; which I thought you were in support to migrate the domain.
You, however, raised a valid point here. Nevertheless, sometimes it is a risk due to business decision and to avoid brand confusion.
We will be still keeping the domain1 after migration, so we can have mitigation plan if this doesn't work.
I also want to seek everyone's opinion on this matter.
-
Hi Christian, In my opinion I wouldnt do it. I tell you why... Imagine that now you redirect your site to the one that is ranking better, and in a few months you receive a penalization on this site... you are going to loose everything. I think the best option is conserve your second site. Actually you can use it to test new seo strategies
-
Hi Exequiel,
Thanks for your inputs, these are also in the links above.
Just wondering if there is anything else I need to be aware of
-
Hi Christian,
The appropiate way to do it is with a 301 redirection, and you have to put it on Webmaster Tools too.
Good luck!
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
-
Not Ranking - Any Tips?
Hi guys, I have a client site that I've recently come onboard with that was published late last year, not really optimized for anything, and in a moderately, but not very, competitive, search space. Early April we optimized the home page and a couple of other pages and have since built about 5-6 (high quality, partial match) links to it, and a press release was done mid last month. The only other thing we did was change the site from non-www to www and set this as the preferred domain in Search Console. Over 6 weeks since that all began, and we're still not on the radar at all for any of our main keywords - nowhere. The only thing we are really ranking for is our brand name, but this is the wrong (press release, not home!) page, and it's bouncing a lot. All of the pages seem to be indexed, and we are ranking for one other (inconsequential) keyword, but 99 is the highest it has reached. An SEO friend told me to build some citations, but this is not a local business, nor are we trying to rank locally. Can anyone please suggest why it might be taking so long, and what else I could try? I imagine more links will help, but results from our outreach are hard to predict, so if there were another safe link type that could help me figure out whether this domain is in trouble or not ASAP, that would be ideal. Thanks very much in advance for any help you can provide. Ulla
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Ullamalm0 -
Merging Two Unrelated Sites into a Third Site
We have a new client interested in possibly merging 2 sites into one under the brand of a new parent company. Here's a breakdown of the scenario..... BrandA.com sells a variety of B2B widget-services via their online store. BrandB.com sells a variety of B2B thing-a-majig products and services (some of them large in size) not sold through an online store. These are sold more consultatively via a sales team. The new parent company, BrandA-B.com is considering combining the two sites under the new brand parent company domain. The Widget-services and Thing-A-Majigs have very little similarity or purchase crossover; so just because you're interested in one doesn't make you a good candidate for the other. We feel pretty confident that we can round-up all the necessary pages and inbound links to do proper transitioning to a new, separate third domain though we're not in agreement that this is the best course of action. Currently the individual brand sites are fairly well known in their industry and each ranks fairly well for a variety of important terms though there is room for improvement and each site has good links with the exception of the new site which has considerably fewer. BrandA.com DA = 73 - 19 years old
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | OPM
BrandB.com DA = 55 - 18 years old
BrandA-B.com DA = 40 - 1 year old Our SEO team members have opinions on what the potential outcome(s) of this would be but are wondering what the community here thinks. Will the combining of the sites cause a dilution of the topics of the two sites and hurt rankings? Will the combining of the domain authority help one set part of the business but hurt the other? What do you think? What would you do?0 -
Consolidating two different domains to point at same site, duplicate content penalty?
I have two websites that are extremely similar and want to consolidate them into one website by pointing both domain names at one website. is this going to cause any duplicate content penalties by having two different domain names pointing at the same site? Both domains get traffic so i don't want to just discontinue one of the domains.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Ron100 -
Domain Forwarding for SEO
Hey guys, I recently created a new website for a client who was ranking #1 for the term "jupiter obgyn" but they have now dropped down to #4. This happened because their old home page was at www. instead of just jupiterobgyn.com. When you type in the www. version, it does take you to the root domain but it's not carrying the old PA! The www. version of the page had a 22 PA and the new root domain hosted page is a 1. How can I fix it so that "link juice" carries over? Is this something i need to do in 1and1 (their web host) or within Wordpress? Thanks!!!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | RickyShockley0 -
Linking and non-linking root domains
Hi, Is there any affect on SEO based on the ratio of linking root domains to non-linking root domains and if so what is the affect? Thanks
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | halloranc0 -
Redirect multiple domains to a primary domain
Hello that such I make the following query imagine we have three domains on the same thematic or category primary domain: domain-antiguo1.com (3 years) (200 Backlink), domain-antiguo2.net (10 years) (1000 Backlinks) and domain-antiguo3.com (6 years) (500 Backlinks) and decide to redirect all these domains favorite one: domain-principal.com The three domains registered refeccionar this google webmaster, has its respective income sitemap and google webmaster area change of address to the main domain the three domains are my property It would have a penalty for doing this practice?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | globotec0 -
How does Google see an article in two languages?
Hi, We are translating our articles into French (they are already in English) and are considering Cantonese & Mandarin. How does Google see this? Say I post an article on Diabetes Symptoms in English, Cantonese and French. Same article, different languages. Does Google look at this as three separate articles, ranking you uniquely, or does it count as one article? Thanks, Erin
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | erinhealthchoices0 -
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