Is there a way to tell which redirect - from another domain - is driving traffic to your website?
-
My company acquired another domain/website several year's ago. We want to see - for accounting purposes, how much traffic/revenue that site's REDIRECTS are driving to our website now. Is there any way to pull this information?
I thought of comparing when the site was originally redirected to our traffic/revenue changes - but so much has changed from the acquisition that I wouldn't have faith in this value. Thanks for any assistance you can provide.
-
Doubtful - since you've had redirects in place for so long, Google most likely dropped the old domain(s) from the index long ago.
-
Nice. My last question, if you don't mind is - do you feel there would be an impact to rankings/traffic if we went back - a year and a half later - to edit the redirect file?
-
That's correct. I started doing this as a way to determine which 301s can be removed over time, but I come across new uses for it all the time!
-
Thanks Logan -
Just to be clear - in the redirect file then, we'd have a setup which is basically (old domain url) directed to (new domain url+utm parameters?).
That's interesting. I'd never heard of using the UTM codes in a redirect file.
-
Hi,
You're probably seeing this as direct traffic in Google Analytics - which is totally useless. The only way around this is to append UTMs with source/medium information to the end of the resolving URL. For example:
theDomainYouBought.com >>> yourCurrentDomain.com/?utm_source=theDomainYouBought.com&utm_medium=301
You can replace '301' and the source info with whatever you want, but the more specific you are, the easier it will be to go back and look at the data months/years from now.
-
Thanks Peter.
The source does not show up in our analytics. To be clear, the site is no longer active, we just redirected its major URL's to appropriate locations of our website.
We can definitely try to take a look at the server logs though, - thanks!
-
You can see this from Google Analytics. Should be in referral traffic as traffic source.
Another way to check this is from web server logs. You should see all referral traffic from specific URL/pattern.
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
-
Does the domain extension effect domain authority and ranking
We have produces a website on a .company domain extension. We have produced a good sized website with unique content. However the DA remains at 1. There are no high priority issues in the page crawl. We suspect that the domain extension may be causing a lower DA. Is this a ranking factor?
Technical SEO | | easydomains0 -
PR 6 Redirect to a brand new domain name
Hello all, I checked a lot fo blog posts about 301 redirects but wanted to double check with you all. I got an email from a potential client who want to do a re-brand of his business and decided to buy a new domain name.
Technical SEO | | artdivision
His old domain name is PR 6 and his new domain obviously PR 0. I tried to check his old web site but it is too late as he has redirected everything to the new one. What it seems he has done though is redirect everything from his old domain (whether it is a sub category link, a blog link or a specific product) to the new domain index page. So for example if someone linked to his old product page www.xxxxxx.com/product/product_1 or his blog post www.xxxxxx.com/blog/11-21-2013/xxxxxxxxx.com in both cases it will take em to the new domain index page www.xxxxxx.com as he has not created product pages, blogs or anything than just a 4 page web site. I know that ideally he should have created same folders/subfolders, get his blog posts up and set up proper re-directs to the new pages but as I was not in charge of this process nor know if he has kept the old web site yet I wanted to know how bad is this for SEO and if his old PR 6 will pass value to his new domain. Yiannis0 -
301 redirect + new website copy
Hi There, We are currently redeveloping our website and we're rewriting and optimising our many of our service pages. I think I may already know the answer but should we apply 301 redirects from our old services pages to the new versions? The content subject matter will be the same on the new versions, they will just be completely reworded. I would be interested to hear your views. Thanks, Stu
Technical SEO | | Stuart260 -
Moving a website from one domain to another
Hi Guys, I figured I'd investigate this fully before potentially ruining a client's traffic. The rundown:Two websites; one is an ecommerce store and the other is just a brochure website which has references to the ecommerce store. The ecommerce store is hosted on a server we control whereas the brochure one isn't, the URL for the brochure store is nice and simple which is the reason for the switch, as the ecommerce URL is very long and hard to remember. Now from an SEO point of view will it be a case of 301 redirecting every URL from the old domain name to the new one one or is there an easier option? Any tips or links to more information would be much appreciated. Thanks, Dan
Technical SEO | | Sparkstone0 -
How to prevent duplicat content issue and indexing sub domain [ CDN sub domain]?
Hello! I wish to use CDN server to optimize my page loading time ( MaxCDN). I have to use a custom CDN sub domain to use these services. If I added a sub domain, then my blog has two URL (http://www.example.com and http://cdn.example.com) for the same content. I have more than 450 blog posts. I think it will cause duplicate content issues. In this situation, what is the best method (rel=canonical or no-indexing) to prevent duplicate content issue and prevent indexing sub domain? And take the optimum service of the CDN. Thanks!
Technical SEO | | Godad0 -
Best way to manage SEO for a massive events listing website.
I run a website that tracks entertainment for the entire state of South Dakota. While I've made some fantastic strides in gaining traffic, I feel lost on how to manage all those entries in an SEO friendly manner. I have a TON of errors showing on my crawl diagnostics and I just don't know what to do. The nature of the website is such that there are going to be duplications all over the place. I know that I can help some of this by getting my canonical links setup properly (that's coming in my next version of the site's theme), but what else should I do to make those event listings friendly for the SE's?? http://www.entertainsd.com
Technical SEO | | jcherland0 -
Is a 302 redirect the correct redirect from a root URL to a detail page?
Hi guys The widely followed SEO best practice is that 301 redirects should be used instead of 302 redirects when it is a permanent redirect that is required. Matt Cutts said last year that 302 redirects should "only" be used for temporary redirects. http://www.seomoz.org/blog/whiteboard-interview-googles-matt-cutts-on-redirects-trust-more For a site that I am looking at the SEO Moz Crawll Diagnostics tool lists as an issue that the URL / redirects to www.abc.com/Pages/default.aspx with a 302 redirect. On further searching I found that on a Google Support forum (http://www.google.com/support/forum/p/Webmasters/thread?tid=276539078ba67f48&hl=en) that a Google Employee had said "For what it's worth, a 302 redirect is the correct redirect from a root URL to a detail page (such as from "/" to "/sites/bursa/"). This is one of the few situations where a 302 redirect is preferred over a 301 redirect." Can anyone confirm if it is the case that "a 302 redirect is the correct redirect from a root URL to a detail page"? And if so why as I haven't found an explanation. If it is the correct best practice then should redirects of this nature be removed from displaying as issues in the SEO Moz Crawll Diagnostics tool Thanks for your help
Technical SEO | | CPU0 -
When moving my ecommerce website from one host to another should I also 301 all my image urls?
I'm going to be 301'ing a lot of pages, but should i also 301 my image URLS? Any other helpful hints would be awesome too, as this will be my first move online ever. We've been with our host 3 years. Thanks! Paul Serra STbands.com, Owner
Technical SEO | | Hyrule0