Rebranding & Minimizing SEO impact
-
Hello everyone,
One of my clients is undergoing a major rebrand, which will require some substantial changes to their domain / URL structure. Primarily, we're going to:
- Move from a high-ish DA site to a low DA site
- Change the subdomain URL structure (more on that below)
- Update the content (copy, design, structure) on www. site to match the new brand
- The content on the subdomains should remain the same
- 301 redirect all pages from old site to new site where applicable
The current site architecture makes great use of subdomains, which are also going to be changing in terms of name. So, we're moving from oldsubdomain.olddomain.com to newsubdomain.newdomain.com (and not oldsubdomian.olddomain.com to oldsubdomain.olddomain.com). The content / structure of these pages is going to change minimally.
We understand that we're going to take an SEO hit overall, but are there things we can do to minimize this hit? Anyway we can 'estimate' the hit? Anyway we can educate our client to as to what to expect beyond (it is going to be bad…).
Please let me know.
Thanks!
-
I can understand your situation Josh..!!
But, as per my opinion, You should show the clear picture to your client. Be frank with your client. Tell him statistics that If we do this kind of things then it will be resulted in this.
Make your client aware about how big changes you are going to do. OR You can give recent example of Moz.com. They have done something similar things. They have made 301 redirects for all seomoz.com URLs on Moz.com. You can see its current PR and DA and all kind of things. So, Collect such data and show your client the realistic view.
-
Hi Josh,
I'm doing a similar thing - not exactly the same as we are merging 2 websites into one and then just for the fun of it putting the whole lot onto a new domain...
We've not done this yet as our new site is being built. Anyway, I found this webinar really useful: http://moz.com/webinars/domain-migrations-lessons-from-the-moz-transition and this blog post: http://moz.com/blog/domain-migration-lessons
I hope they help!
All the best,
Amelia
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 Measure Impact and Potential Strategies for Competitors with Similar Brand Name in the Same Industry
Hello Everyone, So we have a site (brand1.com) but one of our competitors has a very similar brand name and domain (brand2.org). They’re similar enough that could be confused by users and search engines and target the same topics. When you do a manual brand search they would come up and both have about the same Domain Authority. Assuming we can’t have them take their site down do any of you have any thoughts on how we could potentially measure potential impact they might be having or ideas on how best to approach this? Our thought was to track what they are and are not doing so we could do it at a higher level or fill in what’s missing. We would also emphasize differences with an emphasis on local optimization (they’re in a different area). We would love to be able to have some concrete data on whether they’re having an impact so thought we would find out if any of you have any experience or insight? Any help would be very much appreciated. Please let us know if there’s any further details we could provide that might help. Looking forward to hearing from all of you! Thanks in advance. Best,
Branding | | Ben-R0 -
Google Analytics During Rebranding
Our organization is rebranding, should I start a new analytics property or change the domain in the old one?
Branding | | sdaily0 -
Community Discussion: Do you agree that brand recognition has an empirical impact on organic search rankings?
And could hard metrics — such as search queries, citations, traffic, and click-through rates — influence organic search rankings? Tom Coad “StickyEyes” tackles both these questions in this post for YouMoz. Take a peek at his research, and let us know how it compares to your own findings. If you haven't done any research yourself along these lines, I'd love to hear your answers to these same questions based on your more casual observations and analysis of the brands you monitor in the SERPs.
Branding | | Christy-Correll6 -
If other people copy your content, is really GOOD or BAD for SEO ?
Hi MOZ friends. Last week, when i was following up the backlinks linking to my domain, i detect that a new website from an unknown administrator copies the content of an entire section of my website. The administrator of that webpage did not remove the internal links on the post, so i could find.
Branding | | NachoRetta
My website has a better domain and page authority and we focus every day on create new content, but when we found people that only copy content from another, i feel disappointed. But then I got to thinking that could be good that people copy our content, although they did not quote us. If they do not remove the links either by mistake or on purpose, we receive new backlinks. ¿What do you think about this? ¿Is really good that a website copy our content? If they remove all backlinks, Is risky that Google detects that the content owner is another? ¿What do you do in this cases?1 -
What To Do With Content From SEO Perspective
With all the SEO focus now on creating and sharing unique and high quality content I ensure that is exactly what we do, however... All we seem to do is add this content to our blog with some good quality images to break up the text. Our articles are at least 800 words in length and they are always informative... Once added to our blog we share the content across the 'big 3' social platforms (Facebook, Twitter & Google+) I also do a little bit of 'internal linking' from the blog post to a relevant page on the main website - the blog is actually part of the website! So, my question is... in light of the recent 'guest post' scaremongering and the fact that every blog owner I seem to 'reach out' wants payment should I look at Web2.0 platforms such as; Squidoo Hubpages Quora Triberr ...and the many other similar sites that exist to add some of our content to? Also what about Article Directories? Ezinearticles GoArticles I know this seems like a 'throwback' to 2-3 years ago but I just wondered whether the above still have any credence? Obviously I would be very selective with regard to 'back linking' and would ensure that I vary the anchor text - to be honest, as much as a link would be useful, it's more about brand exposure ... Any advice \ recommendations would be greatly appreciated! Andy
Branding | | TomKing0 -
Big Problems Using &'s in Business Name?
One of my clients is a law firm with a Business name like the following:
Branding | | gbkevin
Rosenberg & Dalgren, LLP They get A TON of organic search traffic on their brand name above, but most people (95%) search "Rosenberg and Dalgren" instead of "Rosenberg & Dalgren". **Notice use of ampersand being used and alternatively, the word "and" being used. ** Currently, their local citations across the Internet (G+, YP, Yelp, etc) use the business name, "Rosenberg & Dalgren, LLP" (with ampersand). Here is the dilemma we are in... When someone searches "Rosenberg and Dalgren" in Google (which the majority of our search traffic does), Google does NOT show our local one-box on the right hand side of the SERPs (see example of a one-box I am referring to here http://blumenthals.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/Screen-Shot-2013-09-28-at-9.59.58-AM.png). But when someone searches "Rosenberg & Dalgren" in Google, it does trigger our local one-box with photos, review ratings, links to our Google+ Local page, etc. WHICH IS GREAT! They have AWESOME reviews that command powerful social proof. We want that local one-box to show up! So my question is, what can I do to trigger that local one-box for both brand name searches for "Rosenberg & Dalgren" as well as "Rosenberg and Dalgren"? I am considering changing our NAP citations to have the business name be "Rosenberg and Dalgren" since that is what 95% of people search in Google to find them. I am guessing Google doesn't quite understand that "Rosenberg and Dalgren" is linked to "Rosenberg & Dalgren" via what it sees in the knowledge graph of the Internet (citations, website, etc). So how best should I handle this and get that local one-box triggering for the majority of our branded search traffic? Lastly, what is the best advice for including company/corporate designations in the NAP citations? (ie. LLP, LLC, Inc, etc) Thank you for any help and guidance! We appreciate it!0 -
Law Practice SEO with Multiple Lawyers
I am working with a friend of mine who is a lawyer. He has one partner and a couple of other lawyers at the firm. The attorneys each have their own Twitter, Facebook, Linkedin ,Youtube and other social media accounts. I am trying to create one brand, which is the name of the law firm. Question 1: It would make sense to me to create all social media accounts under the law firm name. Would you agree on this? I'm worried that users wouldn't use the company facebook page if they are used to communicating to the attorney through their personal accounts. Maybe I should put the social media links for the firm on the home page only and then put the individual social media links next to the attorney profile page? Question 2: The firm has been posting Youtube videos but under one of the attorney's names. I have 16 new videos they want posted and they asked me if they should be posted to a new company name channel (yet to be created) or post them under one of the attorneys accounts? I think that most attorneys might look out for themselves ahead of the Firm. If they ever change jobs, they don't have a built up social profile if everything is listed under the firm name. Maybe the way to go would be to help optimize both the attorneys personal profiles and then the firm? Thoughts?
Branding | | Czubmeister0 -
Brand & engagement study?
I believe I saw a study put out one time that showed that recognized brands have higher engagement metrics than non-branded sites, but I can't seem to find it. Can anyone point me in the direction of such a study?
Branding | | nicole.healthline0