To redirect or not to redirect, that is the question
-
I work for a software company that is redeveloping the website (same domain.) We have tons of content in the form of articles and documents for support, how to use the product better, case studies, and blog posts. I've downloaded a landing page report and many of these have low impressions and little or no clicks (some ranked high other very low.) Should I redirect all this content to the new site where some of it won't exist or forget about it because of the lack of juice?
Is there a rule-of-thumb threshold for redirecting for content?
-
I would redirect if you can as there may be duplicate content issues if you simply republish without them...
I would also check that your content hasn't been copied by any external sites as well as we neglected this and lost rankings as Google thought we'd nicked the content when we redeveloped our websites. It all worked out OK in the end, we did the DMCA request, and sent letters to the people who copied us asking for removal but it was a pain in the proverbial - and entirely unnecessary if we'd have done this before we switched to a new site hierarchy.
-
Hi there
Based on your research, if you feel it's better to repurpose than to redirect, then go for it! Especially if you feel the content does have value and it's merely some on-site optimization and making sure your content / goals / on-site factors align with your audience goals.
Hope this helps! Good luck!
-
I've done all of that minus the Google resource. You'll notice I mentioned that most of the content ranks very low and has very low engagement. I'll take it that my research and intuition is that our site won't be harmed by merely re-purposing the content rather than using a redirect for each one.
-
Hi there
I would first run a content audit to see if pages are worth keeping, updating, consolidating, or eliminating.
From there, I would check out this migration resource from Moz to make sure you properly move your website.
Also, take a Google's move your site resource.
All of the above will take some research and conversations, so make sure that you take an inventory, vet it, and know what to do with that content once you do your research.
Hope this helps! 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
-
Ugly Redirect Chain
Hey everyone, Hoping to get your take on this: We have some very high demand products, they usually sell out in minutes (lucky us, eh?!) We are implementing a queue function on a product page - basically if too many people try to check out at the same time, we dump them in a queue The queue could kick in before or after search engines have indexed the product page The product page has markup and on-page content relating to the product. The queue page exists on an external (yes, external) site The queue page will not have any of the product info, markup, or optimised page title Product page will 302 to queue page and starts a series of 302 redirects! Here's the sequence when queue is active: CANONICAL product page (with markup, on-page product info, optimised page title, etc.)
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | TSEOTEAM
>> 302 >> queue page on external domain (ZERO markup, product info or page title)
>>302>> same queue page, but throwing a hashed queue ID into the URL (basically giving you your place in the queue)
HELD IN QUEUE FOR A FEW MINUTES
**>> 302> ** NON-CANONICAL product page (with markup, on-page product info, optimised page title, etc.) I can foresee two scenarios search engine has indexed product page prior to queue kicking in. Then queue kicks in 302ing search engine to queue page. because it's a 302 the crappy queue page content is indexed back to the originating product page. This causes search engines to drop the product page cos all the product-specific markup/content has been overwritten with crappy queue page content search engines don't manage to index product page before queue kicks in. They crawl product page URL, get 302 to queue page, index crappy queue page content and think the product page is crappy, so don't traffic it. They will recrawl the product page once the queue's turned off, only to discover the product has sold out - boo. I very much doubt the search engines will 'wait for a few minutes' so may never end up reaching the product page again. I'm trying to get the markup/product info and optimised meta data injected into the queue page, so that remains present at all points on the journey in the hope that this enables search engines to continue to rank and traffic the product page. What's your take on this? Any suggestions on how we might overcome the issues? (before you ask; avoiding using the queue system is impossible, sorry!) Thanks!1 -
SEO Menu Question
I have a question regarding to the SEO benefits of different types of menus. Recently, I have noticed an increasing number of websites with the sort of menu like at www.sportsdirect.com, where there is only one main dropdown and then everything is a sub-menu of the sub-menus if that makes sense. Is this approach more, less or equal beneficial to what you see at http://www.wiggle.co.uk/ where there are multiple initial dropdown menus? Appreciate the feedback.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | simonukss0 -
Migration Challenge Question
I work for a company that recently acquired another company and we are in the process of merging the brands. Right now we have two website, lets call them: www.parentcompanyalpha.com www.acquiredcompanyalpha.com We are working with a web development company who is designing our brand new site, which will launch at the end of September, we can call that www.parentacquired.com. Normally it would be simple enough to just 301 redirect all content from www.parentcompanyalpha.com and www.acquiredcompanyalpha.com to the mapped migrated content on www.parentacquired.com. But that would be too simple. The reality is that only 30% of www.acquiredcompanyalpha.com will be migrating over, as part of that acquired business is remaining independent of the merged brands, and might be sold off. So someone over there mirrored the www.acquiredcompanyalpha.com site and created an exact duplicate of www.acquiredcompanybravo.com. So now we have duplicate content for that site out there (I was unaware they were doing this now, we thought they were waiting until our new site was launched). Eventually we will want some of the content from acquiredcompanyalpha.com to redirect to acquiredcompanybravo.com and the remainder to parentacquired.com. What is the best interim solution to maintain as much of the domain values as possible? The new site won't launch until end of September, and it could fall into October. I have two sites that are mirrors of each other, one with a domain value of 67 and the new one a lowly 17. I am concerned about the duplicate site dragging down that 67 score. I can ask them to use rel=canonical tags temporarily if both sites are going to remain until Sept/Oct timeframe, but which way should they go? I am inclined to think the best result would be to have acquiredcompanybravo.com rel=canonical back to acquiredcompanyalpha.com for now, and when the new site launches, remove those and redirect as appropriate. But will that have long term negative impact on acquiredcomapnybravo.com? Sorry, if this is convoluted, it is a little crazy with people in different companies doing different things that are not coordinated.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Kenn_Gold0 -
SEO for a redirected domain name
Our client is a law firm with a name that is challenging to spell. We have procured a domain name for them that is catchy, easy to spell, and plays well into their brand, or at least the current campaign. We're using the campaign domain to direct traffic to their website with a 301 redirect. We have placed the campaign domain in a variety of offline mediums including print and outdoor. The client is currently in the number 1 spot for a good number of our highest priority keywords, so I do not want to do anything to jeopardize that. I'm also not sure this campaign will be their "brand" long-term so I don't want to risk making a switch and making it back. So for now, I'm most comfortable leaving the campaign domain as a redirect to their primary domain. Recently, the client approached me complaining (legitimately) that when people google the campaign domain, they are brought to search results for an entirely different domain because Google "corrects" the domain name for them. This is obviously a bad thing, with many users defaulting to entering urls into Google instead of the address bar. If you tell Google that it was wrong about the autocorrection, our site is in the number 1 position. I liken the situation to Overstock.com using O.co as their offline domain, but overstock.com as their online domain. But imagine if you googled o.co and google brought you to a list of results for "on.co" because it assumed you fat-fingered it. Is there anything I can do to prevent the domain name from getting corrected by Google?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | steverobinson0 -
301 Redirection problems
A couple of days ago we did a restructure of our e-commerce site (wordpress + woocomerce) where some product categories needed to change names. I used Yoast SEO plugin to do 301 redirects in the .htaccess file.Today I noticed that we had two hits in the SERP on the phrase "dildos med vibrator". See the attached screenshot (first two results).One goes to http://www.oliverocheva.se/kategori/sexleksaker/dildos/dildos-med-vibrator/ which is the right URL. One goes to http://www.oliverocheva.se/kategori/sexleksaker/dildosdildos-med-vibrator-dildos-for-honom/ which is a corrupt URL that has never been in use. The old one we did a redirect from was /kategori/for-honom/dildos-for-honom/dildos-med-vibrator-dildos-for-honom/The command in the .htaccess file was: Redirect 301 /kategori/for-honom/dildos-for-honom/dildos-med-vibrator-dildos-for-honom/ http://www.oliverocheva.se/kategori/sexleksaker/dildos/dildos-med-vibratorWhat has happened here? Why does the 301 create entirely new URL:s in the SERP?Tz0TULT.png
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | kisen0 -
Login redirect 302
Ok - anyone knows what to do with the temporary redirect to the login page? In our e-commerce system we have a checkout page, which requires user to be logged in - if they are not, we redirect them to the login page using simple php header("Locaiton: url"). This however has been found as a Warning as it's a temporary redirect. I can't really put there permanent redirect for obvious reasons so if someone could give me some clue on this situation that would be much appreciated.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | coremediadesign0 -
301 redirect help
Hey guys, I normally work in WordPress and just use a 301 redirect plugin. I bought a site and rather than maintain two similar ones have decided to redirect one to the other. I am having trouble with the .htaccess file. Here is an example. These are two redirects: redirect 301 /category/models/next/2
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | DanDeceuster
redirect 301 /category/models I want both of these URLs to redirect to the same URL of the new site. However, the /category/models is the only one working. It redirects to the new page just fine. The /category/models/next/2 is redirecting to nearly the same URL on the new site, only it is adding /next/2 to the end and that is bringing up a 404. Why is it adding /next/2 to the new URL? How can I fix this? There are several doing this. Help appreciated!0 -
Keyword-Rich Domains - Redirect?
Hi, Mozzers- I have a client that has a bunch of pretty nice keyword-rich domain names. Their traffic and rankings are good. They provide legal services in the Chicago area. I have lots of good content that I could use to start a blog using a domain like keyword,keyword-blog.com. Good idea? Currently I have a resources area on their website but feel like this area could be getting a little bloated and some news-related stuff isn't really appropriate. 2 Questions: Should I use one of the decent domains for a blog and build up the rankings, traffic, and link to the main site? Or is this lots of work for little payout? Both sites would be hosted in the cloud. Some of the domain names are related to their name, others are keyword or geo-targeted. Would it be wise to setup 301 redirects going to their website? Pros/cons? If you need additional info, please PM me for details. Thank you, friends! LHC
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | lhc670