What is the best practice for redirecting a lower authority TLD to a high authority TLD?

[Smithsonian]

Hi there moz community! My organization is blessed with an extremely high authority TLD (91). Powers-that-be want to start using a lesser authority (though still a respectable 62) TLD in marketing materials because they think it's more memorable/less confusing for users.

We currently have a 302 redirect in place from score-62 to score-91, and our situation relative to the engines is strong. However, if they ramp-up a branding campaign using the 62-score TLD, should we change the 302 to a 301? I don't want to risk infecting that 91 score with any juice relative to the score-62 TLD.

There isn't a lot written for the best practice in redirecting a lower-authority TLD to a high authority TLD - almost all the literature is about preserving your score/juice when redirecting an old TLD to a new TLD.

Thanks for anyone/everyone's help!

Brian Alpert; Smithsonian Institution

[Smithsonian]

Actually, the 62 domain has no content directly associated with it, it has only ever been used to redirect to the 91-score (it's actually 92, I see now) domain. It's function is purely marketing, as it is a more momorable word than the 92 domain. Thanks for your answer!

[EGOL]

If the 62 domain has valuable content, move it to the 91 and do 301 redirects page-by-page.  That will keep the search traffic for those pages flowing.  And, since those page will be on a more powerful domain, the rankings might go up.

The 62 domain should be left on hosting with the 301 redirects permanently in place.  Let everyone know that that hosting and the redirects should always be left live.  If you don't do that then the flow of clickthrough traffic will be lost and the ranking value will be cut off.

Don't expect the 91 to get a big rankings boost.  Since the metrics are logarithmic it is small in comparison (about 1/1000th).

[LoganRay]

Always glad to help!

[Smithsonian]

Thanks Logan; much appreciated!

[LoganRay]

Hi Brian,

If this change is going to be permanent, I would recommend using a 301 redirect. You'll find information on the web elsewhere (even quotes from Google employees) saying that either will pass the same authority, but you should still stick with the best-practices of using a permanent (301) redirect anytime you know the redirect is going to be long-term.

I wouldn't worry too much about losing authority from your TLD, you're clearly not using this redirect for malicious or deceptive reasons. Plus, the brand power of the Smithsonian is such that it would take a LOT of really bad content and/or links to bring that down.

Hope that helps answer your question!