301 from old site to new one , Should I point to home page or sub category page ?

[aus0007]

Hey Seo Experts,

I have a small website ranking for few terms like cabinets sale, buy  etc .

However what i have now decided is to launch a New website with more different products  like living room furniture, wardrobes etc . Out of all these categories on new website Cabinets is one of the SubCategory .

Now I do not want to have 2 websites . So wanted to 301 from small cabinets website to newly created website.

Some of the doubts I have at the moment is ?

1 Should I REDIRECT 301 to sub category (i,e cabinets)  which is purely related to Cabinets or Do a Redirect to HOME PAGE . As I also need more Authority to home page as well , as this is relatively new website ?

2 Second question related to this. If you have multiple sub domains does it divide the total authority & TF.Or it is just Ok to have multiple Sub domains if needed ?

Any advice appreciated !!

Thanks .

[Toddfoster]

Hi,

To answer your questions briefly:

1. Redirects should be made on the basis of relevancy. 301's should be made from Home Page to Home Page, Category Page to Category Page, Product Page to Product Page, and so on. You can push your page authority to your Home Page if you really want to, but you will likely see a loss in rankings for the keywords you are targeting. Better to retain that authority for your cabinet keywords and continue ranking with the new site structure while building up the other areas, products and categories. Redirecting to the Home Page will spread your current Authority thin across all aspects of your website, which will limit your rankings across the board.

2. Multiple sub domains will divide the authority of your website. If you can avoid this, do so. It is better to create multiple categories for different products on a single domain, and create relevant link profiles to each category than to create sub domains for each category or product you are providing. If needed, you can create sub domains for each category, but it is a very inefficient and problematic scenario for SEO. Set up your new site to have multiple categories in your Menu, create links to each category page, and only conduct 301 redirects to each category from a relevant category on the old website.

Hope this helps - let me know if you have further questions.

All the best,

Rob

[NachoRetta]

Hi, i think that you have to make a 301 redirection to the specific category and not to the homepage, because the traffic that arrives to the first site is waiting particular content and it would increase the user experience. I would make a section-to-section redirect when it is possible, and all the others redirect to the homepage. In this case prioritize the traffic will make you better on SEO.
2. Is OK to use multiple sub domains if it is really needed, the question is why you need it ? It isn't good have different categories on different subdomains..