301 many smaller domains to a new, large domain
-
Hi all,
I have a question regarding permanently redirecting many small websites into one, large new one.
During the past 9 years I have created many small websites, all focusing on hotel reservations in one specific city. This has served me beautifully in the past, but I have come to the conclusion that it is no longer a sustainable model and therefore I am in the process of creating one large, worldwide hotel reservations website.
To not loose any benefit of my hard work the past 9 years, I want to permanently redirect the smaller websites to the correct section of my new website. I know that if it is only a few websites, that this strategy is perfectly acceptable, but since I am talking about 50 to 100 websites, I am not so sure and would like to have your input.
Here is what I would like to do: (the domain names are not mine, just an example)
Old website: londonhotels.com 301 to newdomain.com/london/
Old website: berlinhotels.com 301 to newdomain.com/berlin/
Old website: amsterdamhotels.com 301 to newdomain.com/amsterdam/
Etc., etc.
My plan is to do this for 50 to 100 websites and would like to have your thoughts on if this is an acceptable strategy or not.
Just to be clear, I am talking about redirecting only my websites that are in good standing, i.e. none of the websites I am thinking about 301'ing have been penalized.
Thanks for your thoughts on this.
-
Thank you, tfpa. I really appreciate that.
lol.... lots of people don't like my advice... and I have to say that it isn't good for everybody everytime.
Instead of advice, most of the time, these days, I try to say "what I do" and people can decide if they want to do the same.
-
Thanks EGOL, sound advice as always.
I don't think I have ever expressed my gratitude to you, but you are amongst a very small group of people who I think has never given bad or even wrong advice for as long as I can remember. I learned a whole lot from you the past 10 years and partly because of you I am were I am today and for that I am extremely thankful.
Sorry for going off topic, but now I finally had the opportunity to thank you, I just had to.
-
This has served me beautifully in the past, but I have come to the conclusion that it is no longer a sustainable model and therefore I am in the process of creating one large, worldwide hotel reservations website.
I really agree with this concept.
I know that if it is only a few websites, that this strategy is perfectly acceptable, but since I am talking about 50 to 100 websites,
Like you, I have never seen it done on such a massive scale.
I hope someone who has done this will share their experience.
If you don't get a good response here, I would post the same question on a few other busy SEO forums.
If still no response, I might redirect a couple... see how it goes, redirect a couple more... take it gently and continue as long as desired result is obtained.
-
To me, your approach seems like a sound strategy, assuming that none of your present sites are suffering any penalties which could be transmitted back to the new site.Sure, you'll lose a small amount of equity in the redirects, but compared to starting over from scratch, that's negligible.
The consideration, I think, would be in ensuring that the new folders for individual countries/cities are afforded the optimal opportunity to rank in their respective regions. Utilizing hreflang attributes is probably sufficient to accomplish that.
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
-
Moving to a new domain for second time - critical, help needed fast!
Hello, Important: please do not ask why we need to change the domain, its not the matter at all, thank you for understanding. Over a month ago we successfully changed our domain name, 301 redirected, did GWT 'change of address' and all. The old domain was 2 years old, ranking very well, the new domain change of address was a success and traffic back on the new domain after a week. Today we need to change the domain name again, unfortunately, for some reasons, we have to, however we are not sure what to do in GWT, when I went to 'change of address' in the domain (the new first domain), i saw the following message (screenshot attached too): This site is undergoing a move Old URL | New URL If any URL on the left should not be moved, you can withdraw its move request. To do this, click the URL and then Withdraw. Now our questions: 1. For second time moving to a new domain, we should move from the old first domain (301 from the first old domain) or from the second domain (301 from the second domain)? 2. If from the old first domain, should we Withdraw from the first domain (lift up the first change of address in GWT) and then redirect the old first domain to the second new domain (the one we want to move now)? If yes, what to do with the first new domain (the one which we moved to a month ago) 3. If we should move from the first new domain, then what to do? The situation is clear but confusing what to do? It's just that we need to change the domain name again, move to a new one, for the second time, now we should redirect from the first old domain or first new domain? I purchased MOZ just to get help from you guys here, the only place i thought I could be helped. Of course gonna use Moz service too now that i have puurchased it 🙂 Awaiting your quick help guys. Thank you! 8csVpOZ2QoiYCoTR1t_SnQ.png
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | mdmoz0 -
'?q=:new&sort=new' URL parameters help...
Hey guys, I have these types of URLs being crawled and picked up on by MOZ but they are not visible to my users. The URLs are all 'hidden' from users as they are basically category pages that have no stock, however MOZ is crawling them and I dont understand how they are getting picked up as 'duplicate content'. Anyone have any info on this? http://www.example.ch/de/example/marken/brand/make-up/c/Cat_Perso_Brand_3?q=:new&sort=new Even if I understood the technicality behind it then I could try and fix it if need be. Thanks Guys Kay
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | eLab_London0 -
Weird Google SERPs after New Domain Transfer 301
Hi, I have some very weird results in the SERPS - We did not do a complete 301 of the entire domain, but rather individual pages. We did the transfer back on 10th of June, and I was checking to see if there were any results on old domain of pages that were transferred to new domain via 301. There were, but... Now I have the following occurring in the search results: Title of Page (Links to old domain!! )
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | bjs2010
www.oldomain.com › ... › Figures & Sculptures › Tall Sculptures (these last 2 breadcrumbs link to NEW domain??!!)
Bla bla bla (meta description from new domain meta description I know it's Monday, but this one has got me quite concerned! - Any insight appreciated! Am I going nuts?0 -
Php 301 redirect
Hi I am migrating an old wordpress site to a custom PHP site and the URL profiles will be different, so want to retain all link profiles and more importantly if a user visits the old urls via search then they are seamlessly transferred to the new equivalent page For example www.domain.com/about-us is going to need to redirect to www.domain.com/aboutus.php www.domain.com/furniture is going to need to redirect to www.domain.com/furniture-collections.php etc What is the best way of achieving this apart from .htaccess as not 100% confident of doing this. Could it be done via PHP or using meta tags?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | ocelot0 -
How much is the effect of redirecting an old URL to another URL under a new domain?
Example: http://www.olddomain.com/buy/product-type/region/city/area http://www.newdomain.com/product-type-for-sale/city/area Thanks in advance!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | esiow20130 -
301 redirects
Hello, I want to ditch about 1000 pages of a 2000+ page site. I believe the 301 redirect thing is the way to go but my expertise is limited. Is there a way to do a blanket redirect ie if a user or search engine looks for a page thats not there it all gets redirected to the index page or do I have to do each one manually? Thanks Ian
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | jwdl0 -
Domain authority imrpovement
Hi all, I'm trying to increase the domain authority of the www.gpmsummit.com. Is there any advice to improve it efficiently? Many thanks
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | WTGEvents0 -
Multiple domains expiring that have 301 redirects to my primary domain. Am I in trouble?
I recently took on the SEO of a large website with http://example.com. My predecessor bought 40 plus domains for specific cities like Jacksonvilleexample.com, Miamiexample.com, etc. ZERO of the additional domains linked to our main website. The domains that were bought basically had our exact same website in terms of content, links etc that mirrored our main http://example.com. I added 301 redirects to help problems that may be a result of this type of structure. Some of the additional domains were indexed and some were not but all have 301's and as far as traffic is concerned I'm not worried about loosing short term traffic. My question: All the domains are set to expire in June and I don't want to continue to have them 301 redirected to my main domain (example.com). I'm not trying to avoid the additional cost of all the domains but I don't see an advantage to having them so CAN letting all these domains expire hurt me from a long term SEO position if I don't renew them?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | ballanrk0