Acquiring a blog
-
Hello All,
I've recently acquired somebody else's blog and have redirected every post to the relevant page of my website (madegood.org). The content is the same as on the original site, and I have used 301 redirects. The original blog didn't have a particularly high page rank
I'm slightly worried that there are now thousands of links coming from one domain, which itself doesn't have much authority. Is there a way that I can tell google that I've acquired the blog, as opposed to just having lots of links from one domain.
Thanks
Will
-
Hey thanks!
-
Couple of good resources I can recommend:
1. How to find low value Links: http://www.stateofsearch.com/step-by-step-guide-finding-low-quality-links/
2. Link Detox: http://www.linkdetox.com/
If using an automated system like Link Detox, be sure to review each link manually.
-
Charles, saying that "Google will penalize you" for doing something is a fairly strong statement. Can you point to your source on this subject? It's helpful to give additional information in cases like this.
-
Although, what am I looking for with regards to dodgy backlinks? What are the tell tale signs?
I'd be happy to go through my backlinks in WMT and check each one, but not entirely sure what I'm looking for. I know all the theory behind good backlinks, but it all seems a bit wooly when it come to bad links, is there an easy way to spot sure fire offenders. Then when I find one, what can I do about it?
Cheers
Will
-
Will do!
-
I'd start by checking your backlinks, both to your domain and the one you redirected. After that, expand your investigation from there.
-
Thanks Cyrus, that's a very comprehensive answer!
I basically uploaded the copy on to new pages on my site, and manually put a 301 every page of the old site to the page on my site that has the same copy.... If that makes sense!?
I'm only concerned because I've suddenly (over the last couple of days) seen a hit in my google search referrals by about 70%. This migration happened months ago but I'm trying look under every stone.
I'll do as you suggested and see how I get on. Thanks again.
Will
-
It sounds like basically you did a domain migration? I'm a bit confused because you said you redirected to relevant pages on your website, but you also said the content is the same. So I'm wondering if you redirected to existing pages on your own site, or simply redirect the old URLs over to new URLs with the content from the old site. (Yeah, it doesn't make sense, but I'm on my first cup of coffee)
Generally, a large amount of redirects won't hurt you if it's for a legitimate reason - especially if you're migrating content from one domain to another. Where you get in trouble is when you 301 redirect URLs with low-quality backlinks. Those links then become YOUR links.
It might also look suspicious if you redirected multiple domains in a short period of time to your new domain, but this doesn't sound like the case.
Regardless, the best way to handle this is to claim ownership of both sites in Google Webmaster Tools before the redirect, then file a change of address for the old domain. You can actually still do this after the fact - you simply need to stop the 301 for the homepage long enough to claim ownership.
You likely want to file sitemaps for both the old URLs and new URLs so search engines can "process" the 301s. You can find more helpful tips here: http://www.seomoz.org/blog/web-site-migration-guide-tips-for-seos
I wouldn't expect this to effect your traffic in a negative way or cause a penalty, but keep an eye on your traffic and rankings just in case. If anything does go wrong, you can revert the changes you made.
Hope this helps! Best of luck with your SEO.
Cyrus
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
-
Blog article cannibalizes our home page
Hello there, We're having a rather big SEO issue that I’m hoping someone here can help us with, perhaps having experienced the same thing or simply understanding what's going on. Since around June, our website's home page has lost the majority of its most important rankings. Not just dropping, but losing them entirely and all at once. We think it was self-inflicted: Almost at the same time, a blog article of ours (which we had recently updated) started ranking for almost all the same keywords. While our home page is a commercial page highlighting only our own product, the article that usurped the position is a comparison article, comparing our own solution to competitors. The reason we created that article is because we noticed a trend of Google increasingly favoring such comparison articles over dedicated product pages. But of course we didn’t plan to cannibalize our own home page with it. My question is whether anyone has experience with such a case? Is there a way to "tell"/influence Google to rank our home page again, instead of ranking that article? Thanks a lot, Pascal
Technical SEO | | Maximuxxx1 -
To merge website and blog?
I was hoping to get a bit of advice if possible. Our website has a domain authority of 25. Our blog, on a separate platform has a domain authority of 73. In essence, we were wondering if we should move all the content from our blog to our website and then set up redirects? What's stopped us so far is the fear that the links from the blog, with the higher domain authority, are having a positive effect on the website, and if we were to move the content we'd lose the value of those backlinks. So I was wondering if you could possibly advise me on the matter? Any help would be much appreciated. Thanks
Technical SEO | | Stone_Junction0 -
Will adding a mini directory to our blog with lots of outgoing no follow links harm our authority and context
We are an adventure travel tour company, who run hiking, kayaking, biking adventures in several countries. We have a travel tour operator website with a blog in a sub folder of the site. We want to add a section/category in the blog itself with a hiking club mini directory, that lists all hiking clubs in 1 or 2 specific countries. The reason we want to do this is because the people searching online for these clubs are our target market and potential clients. We hope to rank for some of these searches, and encourage interest in our blog/website in the process. We also want the potential to build relationships with these clubs. The question I want to ask is: if we add say 100 to 200 listings, and make all outgoing links no follow, will this harm our page authority, reputation with SE's or pose any other risk for our site. The other question is, do you think that this will dilute the context of our content - as its slightly different in context to the rest of our site content. Are we better to set up a separate site for this purpose.
Technical SEO | | activenz1 -
Website not ranking but the blog is!
I am hoping someone might be able to help me, I am doing some work on a website. A new version of the site was recently launched and since then rankings have plummeted and the new blog pages are ranking better! When the new version of the site went live, the domain changed to the non-www version, plus an incorrect robots.txt file and we have never really been able to fully recover (both of these things were beyond my control!). The robots.txt file was corrected and some of the external links links changed to the non-www but there is a 301 redirect in place so changing to the non-www shouldn't have been the reason to drop the site out completely. Before the launch of the new website, the site was ranking on the front page of Google for a lot of relevant keywords such as outdoor blinds, outdoor blinds Perth, cafe blinds, patio blinds, etc. The quality of the links is pretty bad and I am attempting to remove them before doing a disavow of all the really bad quality links but unless we were really unlucky I don't think it's the links right now that are causing the problem. I have ran the site through numerous crawl tests, checked the robots.txt, there are no messages in GWMT, the pages are indexed but I have a feeling there is something wrong with the site that is stopping this site from ranking well. If anyone could give me any insights I would be really grateful. I know the site could be better structured from a keyword/ structure perspective but the site was ranking fine!
Technical SEO | | Karen_Dauncey0 -
Moving Blog and 301 Redirect Advice
Hello Moz Community, We recently moved our blog from its own domain to a directory on our website. We do not plan on moving over all the old blog posts because a majority most of them are based on events or time-sensitive information that has passed. We need advice on what to do with all of the old blog URL's? Should we just 301 all of them to the new blog directory on our website (www.domain.com/blog)? Should we take the time to move over all the old blog content and put the appropriate 301's in place? Any and all advice would be greatly appreciated. Thank you in advance.
Technical SEO | | All-Star-Vacation-Homes
Best,
Rich0 -
Google ranks my sitemap.xml instead of blog post
Hello, For some reason Google shows sitemap results when i search for my blog url website.com/blog/postwhy is Google ranking my sitemap but not a post, especially when i search for full URL? Thanks
Technical SEO | | KentR0 -
Blog Ranking NOT home page main website?!
Hi, Our Blog (http://blog.thailand-investigation.com) is ranking for some of our major keywords but not our home page (http://www.thailand-investigation.com)!? Our blog is WordPress and our main website is HTML. It seems like the search engines consider that they are 2 separate websites!? When I check the incoming links to our website, I get also the blog links!!!??? Is it normal? Do I have to build a relation of some kind or write some code saying that it is our Blog... I don't know! I'm not a SEO specialist or even a webmaster. I'm a small business owner and take care on my website. I created by myself but never learned! So, please help! Thanks
Technical SEO | | MichelMauquoi0 -
Accessing a pool of blog review sites
Good afternoon, from "yes Andy Murray is into the semi finals" Wetherby Uk 🙂 "Is there an easier way to access a pool of blog writters who speacilasie in reviewing products rather that than the invevitable grunt work of searching through Google." Thanks in advance,
Technical SEO | | Nightwing
David0