When to break a universal 301
-
Hi all
IN Jan of this year our company re-branded and in doing so we changed the domain of our website. So as to transfer the domain authority from the old site to the new we implemented a global 301 from the old domain. So far our old domain still ranks as 41 but new domain as 38.
Unfortunately due to old SEO agencies black hat activities we received a Google penalty on the old domain. We managed to remove the penalty after removing as many spammy links as possible and we also submitted a disvow notice for links we couldn't remove.
My question is, is the new domain being harmed by the global 301 from the old domain? And if I remove the 301 from the old domain and let the new site stand on its own could i be faced with rankings disaster?
All thoughts welcome!
Thanks
Gavin -
Hi,Gavin,
Why you're still using 301 redirect to redirect the authority from the old domain to the new domain, you should start building links for the new domain and possibility reach out to those people that linked to the old domain to link to your new domain so that your new site can stand on its own. If you're only relying on the authority from the old domain and not build any new back links, I'm not sure if it can ever stand on it's own.
Keep working hard on building links
my 2 cents.
Thank you!
-
The 301 from the old domain is going to carry good and bad juice over to your new URL, consequently I think your doing the logical thing by trying to eliminate as many of the bad links as possible. If you remove, the 301's, you'd be starting from scratch. Since you've initiated 301's I'd hold your course, and start building new links to the current url.
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
-
301 a whole subdomain to main domain
Hello, we have our website in two languages. The subdomain cs. for czech and main domain for english. Somehow this has caused google not to rank our main domain in local CZ SERP for many english keywords and we have not found out a reason other than it might think of them as duplicates or that we at the start had put targeting for the cs. domain to CZECH. (Its been 4 months, english keywords in Czech serp are easier and still it ranks them on the very last place, yet for example.com ranks them in google.com co.uk, fr etc in top 10) We will close our cs.example.com subdomain and use only example.com hoping this will not cause google to display only one domain and raise it in CZECH rankings. **Can i 301 redirect cs.example.com to example.com and all the categories of cs.example.com to relevant english categories. This should be ok? **
Technical SEO | | advertisingtech0 -
Ranking for non-existing content which is 301 redirected
Hey there, In the beginning of this year I've made complete site migration from Dutch language to English. All the old Dutch URL's were 301 redirected to the English versions. I naturally lost rankings for all Dutch keywords during the next month. On the website there is no Dutch content anymore. But what happened now is that five months later the website started to rank for the Dutch keywords again. The page snippets in SERP are in English but the URL's shown are in Dutch (ending with .nl) and whenever a user clicks on the snippet he/she gets 301 to the correct English version. Any ideas what could be the reason for re-ranking of non-existing pages which gets 301 in SERP?
Technical SEO | | benesmartin0 -
To 301 or not to 301?
So, to cut a long story short, on our website we have a /product page that is very similar to our homepage and doesn't really serve much of a purpose. It doesn't really fit in with the rest of the website and our directors want to get rid of it and focus our efforts on our homepage. Problem is, the /product page has a little bit of PA and links to other important pages on the website. I personally don't want to completely cut this page off. Would a 301 redirect to the homepage be a good option or would I be better off redirecting users to our course library page (Our course pages are what bring in most of our organic traffic)? Any help or other suggestions would be appreciated here! http://www.ihasco.co.uk/
Technical SEO | | iHasco1 -
Best Place to Redirect 301 to?
Hey Everyone! I have an old site with hundreds of blog posts that are very spammy (duplicate content, keyword stuffed, and just plain bad content). I am going to redirect them and delete them from WordPress but I'm wondering where is the best place to redirect them to? Home page, other posts, other pages...? Any thoughts would be appreciated! Thanks!
Technical SEO | | adamxj21 -
Best Way to Break Down Paginated Content?
(Sorry for my english) I have lots of user reviews on my website and in some cases, there are more than a thousand reviews for a single product/service. I am looking for the best way to break down these reviews in several sub-pages. Here are the options I thought of: 1. Break down reviews into multiple pages / URL http://www.mysite.com/blue-widget-review-page1
Technical SEO | | sbrault74
http://www.mysite.com/blue-widget-review-page2
etc... In this case, each page would be indexed by search engines. Pros: all the reviews are getting indexed Cons: It will be harder to rank for "blue widget review" as their will be many similar pages 2. Break down reviews into multiple pages / URL with noindex + canonical tag http://www.mysite.com/blue-widget-review-page1
http://www.mysite.com/blue-widget-review-page2
etc... In this case, each page would be set to noindex and the canonical tag would point to the first review page. Pros: only one URL can potentially rank for "blue widget review" Cons: Subpages are not indexed 3. Load all the reviews into one page and handle pagination using Javascript reviews, reviews, reviews
more reviews, more reviews, more reviews
etc... Each page would be loaded in a different which would be shown or hidden using Javascript when browsing through the pages. Could that be considered as cloaking?!? Pros: all the reviews are getting indexed Cons: large page size (kb) - maybe too large for search engines? 4. Load only the first page and load sub-pages dynamically using AJAX Display only the first review page on initial load. I would use AJAX to load additional reviews into the . It would be similar to some blog commenting systems where you have to click on "Load more comments" to see all the comments. Pros: Fast initial loading time + faster loading time for subpages = better user experience Cons: Only the first review page is indexed by search engines ========================================================= My main competitor who's achieving great rankings (no black hat of course) is using technique #3. What's your opinion?0 -
Does 301 redirect of old filenames still work?
I have gone through several revisions of my site. We used to have only static pages in HTML. I had search-engine-optimization.html changed to seo-philippines.html changed to /seo-philippines/ I 301 redirected all of them whenever I change the filenames. This is in the course of 6 years worth of link building and I'm wondering if this has an effect because our rankings go down everytime we do this.
Technical SEO | | optimind0 -
What if my host doesn't have the 301 redirect feature?
Ok, So i need to do a 301 redirect but my host doesn't have the feature with htaccess. I currently use yahoo. What are my options?
Technical SEO | | bronxpad0 -
301 Single Page Redirects in IIS7?
Hey all -- I am working with a client, getting ready to make a full domain level change to a brand new domain. The existing domain has solid domain importance and trust, and the home page has a 5/10 GPR, so the transfer of all existing link juice is very important. Of course, I will be utilizing 301's to permanently redirect all existing pages to their new permanent homes. It will be a 1-1 structure, which I know is also best when possible. My question comes in specific to IIS. There is a wealth of information out there on the net regarding implementing permanent 301's using Apache and .htaccess, but nada when it comes to doing it in IIS7, which is what the client is using. For instance, today I am seeking to help them redirect 2 single pages to new destinations within the same domain, just diffferent folders. When you open up the IIS7 Control Panel (yes, with full Admin access), you can navigate to the directory, but the individual pages that I am looking to redirect with 301's do not show in IIS7, so you can't just right click on each page and choose "A redirection to a URL," etc. Any help on exactly how to redirect a single page using a permanent 301 in IIS 7 would be huge! Thanks guys!
Technical SEO | | Bandicoot0