SEO Considerations for merging two brand website into one

[TimHolmes]

Hello fellow Mozzers,

We have two websites for two similar brands at my place of employment, the two brands currently serve slighly different products but could be held quite happily under one branded site. As part of a potential group merger into one sole brand, we will have to create one joined up website which will then feature all our products. The newly merged site will also have more scope to allow us to expand our product range where as currently one brand is kind of specific to a particular market due to its name.

So as part of the Merge, I have to consider the potential implications for our search traffic, as this is an integral part of our business.

Brand A - older, more authorative, great content, good organic positions - top 10 for pretty much all terms we favour.

Brand B - younger, but has more marketing scope due to name, still good site and lots of content.

Unfortunately Brand B has more in terms of potential lifespan, but is currently the less authorative of the two sites we run. it has lower DA and PR according to my Moz Analytics, a lower number of quality links and less content. In order to give the Brand B website the boost that is needed and in effect replace Brand A in the serps which has great organic positions, I need to make sure all bases are ticked for an action plan.

So far this is what I have.

1. Transfer all exisiting Brand A web pages to Brand B website.
2. Rel canonical all Brand A pages to now point to Brand B websites new pages.
3. 301 redirect all pages on Brand A to Brand B during the transfer.
4. Once 301 redirects are in place then request external sites to actually repoint to Brand B website for any links.
5. Update xml Sitemaps
6. Update any content that mentions Brand B to now be Brand A.
7. resubmit sitemaps to Webmaster tools
8. Update all social profiles
9. Update all local search profiles and listings
10. Update all review sites with new brand name / merge any with both brands

On a supplementary note for customer information, looking to also keep the older Brand A Home page up for a short time to help people understand the transition rather than a complete redirect which to our demographic could confuse and alienate people. Will also look to send a mass email to roughly 400K people informing them of the move abd how it affects them.

I have no doubt there will be some glaringly obvious additions, any further advice would be much appreciated.

Hope you are all well.

Tim

[BlueprintMarketing]

hi Tim,

if you have anything that gets a lot of traffic you could move that to the new site like moz.com/rand/ this would help get the crawlers going. I will give you a full crawl and also I am sorry I just  Getting back to you.

I am so sorry I did not mean to take this on and I will check your private message I've been so busy.

This is something to hold onto download it and keep it fill it out keep it somewhere safe

http://netdna.copyblogger.com/documents/WordPress-Emergency-Checklist.pdf

SEO gadget change their name recently to builtvisible and made awesome post about how to keep link juice

http://builtvisible.com/surviving-seo-site-migration/

http://builtvisible.com/domain-migration/

http://builtvisible.com/change-of-address/

https://www.distilled.net/blog/seo/7-technical-seo-wins-for-web-developers/

https://www.distilled.net/blog/seo/a-wordpress-theme-change-seo-checklist/

Sean Anderson at hobo SEO to let the name fool you has a great article

http://www.hobo-web.co.uk/how-to-change-domain-names-keep-your-rankings-in-google/

http://www.searchenginepeople.com/blog/can-you-avoid-losing-google-rankings-when-moving-your-site-to-a-new-domain.html

http://moz.com/blog/seo-guide-how-to-properly-move-domains

http://mysiteauditor.com/blog/changing-your-domain-name-without-losing-your-rankings-a-12-step-guide/

http://www.webseoanalytics.com/blog/seo-guide-how-to-change-your-domain-name-without-losing-your-rankings/

I will reply and I strongly recommend running screaming frog SEO spider or deep crawl in fact I will go into your private message right now and start a deep crawl on your site. This will give you everything. http://deepcrawl.co.uk  I will also of course run screaming frog and send you the archives.

Sorry it took so long to respond,

Tom

[TimHolmes]

Are there any other considerations I may be missing when moving website?

[TimHolmes]

These are great links and tips Thomas.

I particularly liked the infographic from Aleydasolis.

Thanks for the help!

[TimHolmes]

Thank you Thomas, I am glad it was understandable, I have a habit of waffling on a bit when trying to explain things

What is your username so I can DM you the two domains privately.

Cheers in advance Tim.

[BlueprintMarketing]

Hi Tim,

I think you did a great job of writing everything out. Would you mind sharing your URL's with me via private message if you are uncomfortable sharing it here?

I would be very hesitant to tell you to merge sites without knowing what type of content they have.

However having said that Granger.com is a good example of a site that sells just about everything. The only common theme is industrial products. But those range so vastly that you can understand what I mean.

as far as the best way to do it take the domain with the most authority and keep that domain 301 redirect the other domain page by page to it.

Here is some information

• http://moz.com/community/q/how-to-keep-old-url-juice-during-site-switch
• http://moz.com/community/q/301-redirect-subdirectory-to-new-domain
• http://moz.com/community/q/which-page-should-i-301-redirect-to-the-other

let me know if this is enough information I'd be happy to field any questions.

All the best,

Thomas