Merging 4 websites into one for a new site release (301 question)
-
Hi guys and girls, I have a client that has 4 very outdated websites with about 50 pages on each. They are made up like: 1 brand group and 3 for each individual key service they offer, so let's call them: brand.com (A) brand-service-1.com (B) brand-service-2.com (C) brand-service-3.com (D) We've rebuilt the main site and aggregated all the content from the others (99% re-written). Am I correct in thinking the process for the new lauch would be: 1. Launch the new site on brand.com (A) and 301 all the old brand.com (A) pages to the related pages on the new site. 2. Redirect the other websites (B,C,D) on a domain level to the new site on the brand.com (A) domain. 3. Clean up the old URL's, sitemaps, errors in Google WMT Is this right? Anything I missed/better practices? I was also wondering if I should redirect B,C,D in stages, or use page level redirects.
-
Only do 301 if the other sites have great value, you say that you have merged all content on 1 site an rewritten it? Google will automatic see the new content, the only reason i think you should do a 301 is if the other sites have a PR higher than 3 or 4, pr 2 and 1 are EASY to get. So take the new uniq content your wrote, combine each site with your different keywords. More on same page are good for results. You dont need a landing page for each keyword.
I would do this:
Check the PR and Alexa for all the sites, figure out if the traffic is real customers or just scans. There is no point in redirecting scan bots to new site, they will come automatic.
Then i would do the 301 from Google Webmaster Tools and make sure that they all go to front site of brand.com site. But only if they have anything to offer for your new site.
-
Link related items and pages from the old sites to related items or pages on the new site. If there are no pages on the new site related to an old topic, redirect them to the home page of the new site if they have pagerank and weight. Do a URL removal in GWT if they do not.
-
I use page-level redirects whenever possible. Better for Google and better for users. Besides that, sounds like you have a pretty sound strategy there.
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 Old domain with HTTPS to new domain with HTTPS
I am a bit boggled about https to https we redirected olddomain.com to https://www.newdomain.com, but redirecting https://www.olddomain.com or non-www is not possible. because the certificate does not exist on a level where you are redirecting. only if I setup a new host and add a htaccess file will this work. What should I do? just redirect the rest and hope for the best?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | waqid0 -
Can I define that one area of my website is a regualr news (no subscription) and the other part of the website is news that only subscribers can read?
Hi I have a client that have a news website, he asked me if he can define one area of his website to be a regular news that google can show on google news search results (no subscription) and the other part of the website is news that only subscribers can read? Thanks Roy
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | kadut1 -
Moving multiple Sites to One Site and SEO Impact/Ideas
Hi there, We are in the process of moving 2 sites with higher page authority to another site we own (that is our company brand), so essentially 3 sites into one. We're at risk of losing a lot of SEO from the original 2 sites that have all the product information. We are doing this since we merged companies a couple years back and need one web precense. Anyhow, the site launch date is in 3 months and the recommendation is to start moving content over prior to that for top pages, which is a big undertaking when we are launching all the pages again with new content, redeisgn and moving sites in 3 months. If it's the right move, we should do it, but I just wanted to get opinions on how others have handled something similiar when moving to a site with lower site authority and trying not to lose rankings.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | lauramrobinson320 -
Google Panda question Category Pages on e-commerce site
Dear Mates, Could you check this category page of our e-commerce site: http://tinyurl.com/zqjalng and give me your opinion about, this is a Panda safe page or not? Actually I have this as NOINDEX preventing any Panda hit, but I'm in doubt. My Question is "Can I index this page again in peace?" Thank you Clay
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | ClayRey0 -
New site causes massive drop off in ranking, old site restored how long to recover?
Hello, We launched and updated version of our site, mainly design changes and some functionality. 3 days after the launch we vanished from the rankings, previous page one results were now out of the top 100. We have identified some of the issues with the new site and chose to restore the old well ranking site. My question is how long might it take for the ranking to come back, if at all? The drop happened on the third day and the site was restored on the third day. We are now on day 6. Using GWT with have used fetch as Google and resubmitted the site map. Any help would be gladly received. Thanks James
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | JamesBryant0 -
When migrating website platforms but keeping the domain name how best do we add the new site to google webmaster tools? Best redirect practices?
We are moving from BigCommerce to Shopify but maintaining our domain name and need to make sure that all links redirect to their corresponding links. We understand the nature of 301s and are fine with that, but when it comes to adding the site to google webmaster tools, not losing link juice and the change of address tool we are kind of lost. Any advice would be most welcome. Thank you so much in advance!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | WNL0 -
A First For Me: Client Wants New Website & Completely Updated Content
A client that I worked with on another project has approached me asking if I can handle the transition from his old website to his new website. He already had the new website designed and the URL structure is completely different than the old one. Normally this would not be a problem, just 301 redirect each page to the new page. However, this client has COMPLETELY redone his website from the ground up including navigation, pages and page content. The old website has been around for 8 years and is ranking for some good keywords. The reason he decided to build the new site is because the URL of his old domain is very long and for whatever reason he didn't like it (I'm assuming this would be misspellings of people trying to get back to his website and long email addresses, but he didn't clarify). I have never dealt with such a drastic change before and wanted the SEOMoz community input on the best way to pass authority/link juice from the old domain to the new one. Thanks in advance for your help.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Bo-Jangles0 -
Content Marketing: Should we build a separate website or built in site within the Website itself?
Hi Mozzers, Client: Big carpet cleaner player in the carpet cleaning industry Main Goal: Creating good content to Get more organic traffic to our main site Structure of the extra content: It will act like a blog but will be differentiated from the regular site by not selling anything but just creating good content. The look and design will be different from the client's site. SEO question: In terms of SEO, what would be the most beneficial for us to do, should we built in this new section/site outside or inside the client's site? I personally think that it should be separated from the main site because of the main reasons: A followed link to the main site Anchor texts implementation linking back to our service pages If we would to choose to build in this content, it would be highly beneficial for getting organic traffic within the main site but I am afraid this will not provide us any link juice since anchor texts won't be accounted the same since all of those would be located in the Nav bar of the main site. Can someone tell me what would be the best in terms of SEO? P.S: My boss doesn't agree with me and would rather go the second option (build in within the main site) that's why i am asking you guys what would be the most beneficial? Thank you Guys
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Ideas-Money-Art0