Domain Change, loss of inbound links ...
-
We're strongly considering a domain name change; this is purely for marketing reasons. We think in the long term, this will be a good thing. I believe we can mitigate the page redirection, branding changes, etc.
My concern are the inbound links: from 200+ domains, 3,000+ links.
So, I guess we can contact each of the top sites linking to us and hope they update our links. I'm not hopeful. I believe we'll loose must of the links.
Has anyone been down this road and have experience to share?
What should I expect, worst case? Is there a way to mitigate?Thanks much.
Jim -
We just went through this exact same change for marketing reasons. With a combination of 301 redirects and a ton of new content we found our organic dropped significantly on day one but after a period of about two weeks now things have bounced back and in some cases the new content has allowed us to rank better.
Our previous site had tons of outdated code and was not particularly clean. Pages now load much faster, the new look seems to have increased the number of pages per visit as well as time on site. If we had to do it over again tomorrow we certainly would. Sometimes not renovating the site I think costs you more in the long run.
Hope this helps.
Gary
-
Hi Jim,
Yes you actually have to do quite a bit to keep your site from losing its traction. You will most likely see a drop in rank regardless of how well you do it. The amount of time could be a day to a week if you do it right if you do it wrong it could be until you fix it or regain the links
It is not wise to lose that amount of links it will be like your site is committing suicide. Simply 301 redirect them using the information below if you cannot get the original owner of the site who links to you to link to your new domain.
When done properly you must use all the tools at your disposal to find your back links
Moz open site Explorer
http://www.opensiteexplorer.org/
MajesticSEO
Ahrefs
if I were you I would subscribe to the other 2 for one month in order to get the data I needed. Some people use Raven tools because it incorporates MajesticSEO for back links however I do not believe it is as good as actually using MajesticSEO
http://raventools.com/marketing-tools/seo-software/
Sost of what you need is answered in this question below.
http://moz.com/community/q/how-to-keep-old-url-juice-during-site-switch
here is a bigger version of the and photograph if it cannot be seen very well.
http://www.aleydasolis.com/images/seo-website-domain-migration.gif
I strongly recommend buying the tool called screaming frog SEO spider if you're going to be the one doing this
http://www.screamingfrog.co.uk/seo-spider/
combine that with the SEER interactive guide on screaming frog and the information in the URL above and you will be in good shape.
http://www.seerinteractive.com/blog/screaming-frog-guide
Sincerely,
Thomas
-
Hi Jim-
If there are any links in your control or from places you have a close relationship with, I would recommend updating those. However, you don't need to worry about updating the rest of the external links.
You simply need to set-up 301 redirects from the old website to the corresponding page on the new website.
oldsite.com/blue-widgets.html-> 301 to newsite.com/blue-widgets
Make sure a 301 redirect is used. Read more about redirects here: http://moz.com/learn/seo/redirection
After making the updates, you will usually see a slight loss in organic traffic that tends to recover after time. Changing websites, replacing old pages with new pages, etc are all common practices on the web. In general the search engines handle them really well when a 301 is in place.
Good luck!
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
-
Moz bot not discovering important links (high DA sites link)
Moz bot is unable to crawl and discover my links on the high authority websites like microsoft, linkedin, pinterest, etc. Where is the problem?
Link Building | | TechG0 -
Are Millions of back links from 3 domains bad?
I have a client that has 4 individual domains with duplicate content mirroring certain sections of the main site as well as the home page. I understand the duplicate content issues but have a different question that I would like advice on. I am seeing 3 of these domains back linking to the main domain causing over 5 million backlinks. Is this bad and can it hurt rankings? One domain has 3,215,658 backlinks and another has 1,553,947 backlinks. I have experienced this in the past with a different client, where sister companies back linked using the exact same anchor text caused over 5 million back links. This client experienced a drop of their top 2 keywords where they dropped from # 1 & 2 positions in Google SERPs to the 82nd position. Appreciate feedback
Link Building | | dctomten0 -
Spammy Links in MOZ but when I go to the external link I can't find a link to us
I was going to try to contact webmasters to see if they would remove some of our spammy links. I see alot of them in MOZ but when you go to the site our anchor text is not there. Is this good? How often does MOZ refresh external links. Please see: http://www.opensiteexplorer.org/anchors?site=www.totalvac.com None of the links for the anchor text <a class="clickable title link-pivot" title="See top linking pages that use this anchor text." data-text="vacuum cleaner parts vacuum parts vacuum bags vacuum cleaner bags" data-id="46391436859">vacuum cleaner parts vacuum part...</a> in MOZ exist? We got hit extremely hard by Penguin in May
Link Building | | totalvac0 -
Do footer links pass less link juice?
One of my best inbound links for PA and DA happens to be a footer link, curious if it's less valuable or has any value at all.
Link Building | | Theskimonster0 -
"Activating" Links - Do External Links Have to Be Clicked On to Really Have Value?
I heard an SEO talk about the concept of "activating" a link - meaning that if an external link to your site exists, but google doesn't detect that it has gotten any actual clicks, they will significantly discount or ignore the value of the link. Obviously between Chrome, toolbars, and GA, google does have a lot of ways to detect whether a link has gotten clicks. What is the SEOmoz take on this issue?
Link Building | | kbrake0 -
Publish content on current domain for content boost or new domain for links?
I have about 1000 unique and organically generated articles. My quote compare business has had briefs submitted by clients for over two years. The content has only been accessible to registered members. I want to polish it ASAP. Is it better to publish the content on the existing website in a sub folder or set up a new website to publish the content and have every article link back to the main website? Content is around 300 words x 1000.
Link Building | | designquotes0 -
How long does it take for crawlers to update links? As in number of back links
How long does it take for crawlers to update links? As in number of back links
Link Building | | tom14cat140