Consolidating many external blogs onto main website: canonicals or 301s
-
Hi Everyone,
Presently I have many blogs across a range of domains, each one targeting the client/type of user interested in that product (or service in this case). I originally set up this strategy to use the content of each blog to create a "link juice farm" (our products are educational courses so have a COMPLETELY DIFFERENT target market depending on the course area), which in turn links to the related page/course on our main site.
My plan is to move all the content from those external blogs into subcategories on my main website blog in order to increase its traffic, authority etc.
Originally, I was going to cut and paste the content, then put in appropriate 301 redirects from the external blogs to the main site.
However, I then thought about copying all the content to my main site, setting it as the canonical version, and leaving all the external blogs intact and running. The idea being, I still get the benefit of all those external links pointing back at my main website.
Which would be the better strategy for me to pursue?
Thanks in advance for your insights, I really appreciate you taking the time to help me out with this question.
-
Whilst I do agree with Federico, it is also possible to 301 those old sites to the new one and enjoy about 85% of the linkjuice they had. There are perfectly legitimate reasons why one might do this - indeed I once closed 4 separate websites and 301'd them to my new site in order as the business we being consolidated. None of this was about building a private link network at the time...that's just how it worked out. Anyway, my new site went from PR0 to PR3 at the next toolbar PR update and has been fine for 3 years+
Just my 2 pence...
-
Based on what you said, you built a private link network, which is strongly forbidden by Google and even if you didn't get caught, you may in the future with that strategy.
If I were you, I would took down all those blogs and move only the good posts to the main one, if you fill your main blog with "crappy" or thin content, you could get that site penalized.
Move only those articles that are worth moving and then take out all those blogs, with no 301s or canonical, just kill them. If you use canonical, they still have links to your main website (link network - forbidden), if you setup 301, then you get hundreds of unnatural links, which again, results in a private link network. and I advise against both.
Hope that 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
-
How to Increase Website Visibility on Google and Bing?
I am working on an e-commerce niche website and I aim to rank higher on Google to drive more traffic to my website. Any suggestions?
Link Building | | digitalenginehub0 -
Website/blog list to get quality backlinks?
Hi Everyone says quality backlinks increase ranking of your website. Can you please suggest a list of good websites and blogs from where I can get quality backlinks and how to do that. I have one person at my disposal full time to do manual commenting or any manual tasks for getting backlinks but how should i approach this problem (of getting backlinks). Where do I start. For information, my website provides online services (its an ecommerce site) and also has a blog in subdirectory. refer to www.geekwik.com www.geekwik.com/blog Would like to become top ranker on search for these services (eg 'logo design services', 'website programming', 'content writing', 'hire virtual assistant' etc) Also anyone interested to become our SEO consultant or SEO service provider (of course paid) is most welcome 🙂 Thanks in Advance!
Link Building | | geekwik0 -
Linkbuilding without blogging?
I am looking at starting to do some link building for my site. I have already done directory listing. What are my options for link building without blogs? Things like Wikihow?
Link Building | | EcommerceSite0 -
SEO Submission Service or Ads on Blogs?
1. Can anyone recommend a good SEO Submission Service? Or do you not recommend using them? 2. What do you think is a better way to build links? Directory listings or place ads on blog sites? Each post a blogger post would have the ad link. Thoughts?
Link Building | | mof3kz0 -
Will redirecting 250 linking domains to a new website from an old website freak Google out?
Prior to my accepting a project, the client decided to change the name of their company and purchased a new domain name to match. They hired a designer to build their new company site which has now been up and running for a little under 12 months. Up to this point they have done a good job of slowly redirecting small handfuls of linking domains from the old site to the new. They want to make one last push and point the remaining 250 linking domains from their old site to their new site. Will redirecting 250 linking domains to a new website from an old website freak Google out? If so, how many domains should be redirected at one time? My main concern is not wanting to upset Google and see the floor fall out on current keyword rankings, domain authority and page rank, etc.
Link Building | | 5outhpaw0 -
Build links through blogging?
Although my site is a wordpress site it presently has about as many static pages as blog posts. The site has a lot of directory links and is doing pretty good with a PR3 after about a year. When I first put the site up I had a well known blogging expert help me with the permalinks and a couple of other things and he said that with a blog there is no need to build links, it can all be done through natural link acquisition off of the blog posts. I was skeptical at the time because it seemed that a lawyer's site was something not a lot of people would be interested enough in to link to it. Now I am thinking about trying his stragegy, as 1 of my blog posts that I put up on a very topical subject immediately got about 15 backlinks. My questions are: Is it reasonable to try to build links just by posting frequent topical blog posts? If yes, should I have links in the blog posts to my home page, to internal pages, or both? \ Paul
Link Building | | diogenes0 -
No-Follow links on clients blog?
I have a client who has a blog with a side bar on each page, in the sidebar there are various links to the site, as well as links to some of his partner sites. I was looking at the recently updated open site explorer, and noticing that their domain authority is way down, a good amount below their competitors as well. The total links compared to the linking root domains is ~3000 to 200. So my question is 1. How can I gain on the domain authority front? (more diverse links?) And if so, 2. Should I no-follow the links on their blog so they don't have hundreds of pages with the same links (most internal) on there site Thanks,
Link Building | | USHoleInOne
Nick0 -
Played Out ? about BLOG COMMENTING LINKS
Want to get some thoughts if some of you still see significant (or have ever) results from blog comment links. Heard them all about why it's worth it, people see you, click, etc etc etc... Want anyone to share experience with this type of link building and if you guys think its worth it and has seo value.
Link Building | | PaulDylan0