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
-
Title and Description for blog pages
Hello, Could you please help me figure out how to create title and description for my website blog's pages? And for projects' pagination (third example below): https://www.titanpavers.com/blog/page/3/
Technical SEO | | VELV
https://www.titanpavers.com/blog/page/4/
https://www.titanpavers.com/projects/page/2/ Thank you!0 -
Is having the same title tag on a blog listing page and blog date archives an SEO issue?
Hi there, Can anyone answer whether having duplicate title tags on the blog listing page (e.g.https://blog.companyname.com/) and the blog date archive pages (e.g.https://blog.companyname.com/archive/2017/10) is an issue? If so why is it an issue and what are the best practices of dealing with this? Thanks! John
Technical SEO | | SEOCT1 -
Bulk redirection of blogs
Hi all, we're going to changing the url structure of our website. Moving from: /news-and-views/blog/thisistheblogpost to /blog/thisistheblogpost (ie removing the /news-and-views/ portion of the url). There's approximately 300 posts. I have 2 questions - will this have an impact on domain wide authority? and is bulk 301 redirects the best solution? The blogs themselves don't get a huge amount of traffic but we just want to make sure we don't do something that will be penalized by search engines.
Technical SEO | | francisclark2 -
Small blog needs paid SEO help
I looked at Moz's recommended companies but they are all for huge blogs and websites. I cannot afford those fees. My blog is small but growing and was hit by a Google Panda tweak back in July. My organic traffic disappeared overnight and although I've been working hard to improve my blog, I still get no organic traffic after being on the first page. I would like to pay someone to look at my site and give me help but I cannot pay what these huge companies are asking for. Any advice?
Technical SEO | | blogger20130 -
How should we setup of a side (slightly off-topic) blog?
Our web application targets small business owners and entrepreneurs. However, the developers at our company have a lot of great content to offer the web development community and so we want to start a "behind the scenes" blog where we can discuss technical topics... JavaScript performance, web accessibility, etc. Our customers and the visitors of our website would probably not be interested this new content... So we want to be careful not to cannibalize or damage our current SEO. What are some of the major risks we should watch out for? If we put it on a subdomain, is that enough to not impact our main site SEO or introduce keyword confusion? Conversely, are there opportunities for this side blog to help the SEO and authority of our main website/domain? Thanks for the help!
Technical SEO | | Bill4Time0 -
Blog article URL - with or without date?
Quick question to all you folks: does including the date in a blog article's permalink affect rankings? For example, here's an article with the month and year, as well as the blog title: http://www.ayzanyc.com/blog/2012/12/difference-between-hot-chocolate-hot-cocoa/ Is it better to omit the date and just put the blog title? Also, if is better to avoid using the date, is it worth it to change the link structure of our previous articles (given that the URL will now be different), or should we just focus on future articles? Thanks ahead of time for your advice.
Technical SEO | | onurkiyak0 -
Does Having Links on this blog Hurt or Help?
Hello, I created a wordpress blog a while back, http://plastic-bins.com/ If you go into one of the pages on the blog (for example: http://plastic-bins.com/plastic-shelf-bins/ ) you will notice a link after the text/content telling you where you can purchase the stuff that is talked about on that page. There is one link back to the e-commerce site on every category page on the blog. Does anyone know if these links will help me or hurt me in terms of ranking in the SERPS? Thanks
Technical SEO | | Prime850 -
What is the best way to close my blog?
I have a blog on a separate address to my website. http://cheshireweddingphotographyblog.co.uk/ and http://celynnenphotography.co.uk Now I'm going to have a new website which is going to be wordpress based and it will sit on the main website (http://celynnenphotography.co.uk ) and include both gallery and blog. now the blog does well enough on google, etc.. so i wanted to mix their SEO juju and all that, but what happens with my blog? Do i: Stop paying for hosting, nice and simple. OR Do I need to do something?
Technical SEO | | IoanSaid0