Considering Moving to New Domain and SEO
-
Hello,
One of our sites has been using a domain since 2005 and is shown below. The domain is terrible for multiple reasons, hyphens and doesn't even reflect our actual company name. Not to mention its embarrassing when telling a customer to email us at support @ pro "dash, yes the hyphen" gift.... I wanted to change it long ago but feared it would hurt my SEO rankings. After taking Bruce Clay's training class back in 2004, we managed to rank top 10 for most targeted keywords. My ranking have slowly dropped over time due to neglect and decaying IBL's. We still rank for a few targeted keywords but it was just August of 2017 we were still top 10 but something happened and we dropped out of the top 100 right before our holiday season. We had to run Adwords and BingAds to supplement traffic this holiday season. So I am wondering before I restart my SEO efforts should I move the domain now before trying to build new content, IBL's, etc?
I was always under the impression Google used domain trust a major factor which wasnt only IBL but also domain age. Our preferred domain I purchased from another owner and it has ZERO links to it. It was basically a parked domain with the "domain for sale" stuff. I am a little nervous about moving it over because Google didnt even have it in its index. I put up a coming soon page and hosted it on my server, same C Block, and requested a crawl from my webmaster console. I added some text to the new domain index page and it appears Google is showing results for our old domain! At first I thought it was duplicate content but its not Google obviously has deciphered current site is my old domain and is displaying the title and meta data from the old domain. I have never seen this before. Google cache shows the current domain the new domain url.
A few questions:
Will my site get sandboxed after 301 redirecting and going webmaster console move features etc?
Does this reset the trust factors? I have read examples in my research where some people say it only took a few weeks and everything was back to normal and others that have said it took years.
Any experience or insight is greatly appreciated. I am currently relearning SEO and going over the SEO tutorial articles provided on moz. Thanks again!
New Domain - matches our company name, no hyphens, better branding
http://www.giftbasketpros.com/
Google index
https://www.google.com/search?q=site%3Awww.giftbasketpros.com
Current Domain, since 2005, has ranked well for years until this summer
-
Isn't done yet. It takes much time to get you back to the old ranking but not sure to be said. It will return 100%. Its same thing I did try on Branches You can check also.
-
I think the miscommunication was from my original post where I posted "Does domain trust reset" I can see how someone would read that as trying to circumvent a penalty. I meant on a new domain with no history and no index. My current domain whether its penalized or not has ranked for years so I am very confident this issue can be resolved.
My first step is learning about the disavow tool. I have never used it but did notice a big quantity of links which according aHrefs was discovered in August. 691 to be exact on August 17th by some spam blog. I did not buy or ask for those links. I am assuming the disavow tool was made for this type of spam. I will review my Google backlinks first and disavow any garbage then update my content and try to build good links to it.
There are many things I need to do, years behind. My site isnt even mobile ready yet. That project is slated to be finished by March.
-
Hi,
I am so sorry that a general advice was offensive for you.
You know best what caused what.
I apologize too, on regard a quote I did not translate properly for you. -
Thanks for the response.
I was not saying I wanted to move the domain to somehow circumvent some penalty. When I asked about trust I was referring to the new domain with zero history not some bad link scheme on my current site.
My drop in rankings has been a slow and gradual drop from #1 to #18ish over the last 8 years. The recent blackhole drop could be anything but I think I would remember some shady link scheme you are insinuating. No, I didnt participate in link schemes in the past nor in the current. I havent kept up to date with the current SEO stuff but I highly doubt sites with such bad link schemes would have survived penguin years ago. This drop is just a couple months ago well beyond the big algo changes so I highly doubt its some bad stuff coming home to roost as you suggest.
Also I am not sure what you are talking about with regards to water under the bridge and the whole flood???
If anything my IBL have decayed over time by the apparent Ahrefs chart. The sudden drop, I will figure out what it is but its not what you are suggesting.
-
Hi,
As you already noticed on regard SEO, it is not water which passed under the bridge, since 2004, it was a whole flood!
Said that, I strongly recommend that you update the SEO of your old domain before consider a migration or a redirect.
Nowadays, Google knows a lot about the owner of any domain. That is a factor too.All succesfull migrations bring almost all the SEO rank, whether is a good or a bad one. If your website is now having a penalization due to old back links, link schemes from the past that you might have forgotten or you do not know about, lack of h1: the best option is to fix up all the SEO issues, accordingly to SEO 2018 best practices, before the migration or redirect.
Sadly, Google has long term excelent memory and great data bank. Good luck and Happy New Year!
Mª Verónica
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
-
Cleaning up citations from a retail store that moved online only
Hey Mozzers! We're working with a client that has closed it's home theater store and moved online. Both the online store and the retail location operated under the same name, but we've now launched a new site and rebranded the name and look. When I search the old business name, it shows the Google local business as permanently deleted, and also shows deleted Yelp profile and other directory listings. The first organic result is the new site, which catches the footer that reads a trademark of (old business name). How can I clean up the citations for the previous business? Also, I'd like to have more control over the old business SERP page. My idea was to create a press release addressing the new business change in name and branding. Any other ideas? Lastly, the new business name SERP is completely bare. The second organic result is the new site, but the remaining listings are confusing and unrelated. The press release should help here. Other than that, should I build out new directories for the ecommerce site? Maybe start building profiles and participating in related forums to show traction in SERPs? Thanks for your help!
Branding | | localwork0 -
Mentions if domain slightly different to brand name
Hi, Just a question/discussion regarding mentions. I have read for the last few years that Google is able to give credit to websites who get mentioned without a link. Even a few months ago there was a big article on the Google update at the end of last year saying how mentions would become an even stronger signal than a link. My question is, if anyone knows, is there any evidence that Google and other search engines are able to give ranking credit to websites whose brand name is slightly different from the domain? Can the search engines figure out that it is the same thing? If not, then there must be a lot of brands missing out. Thanks.
Branding | | Brian_Dowd0 -
If other people copy your content, is really GOOD or BAD for SEO ?
Hi MOZ friends. Last week, when i was following up the backlinks linking to my domain, i detect that a new website from an unknown administrator copies the content of an entire section of my website. The administrator of that webpage did not remove the internal links on the post, so i could find.
Branding | | NachoRetta
My website has a better domain and page authority and we focus every day on create new content, but when we found people that only copy content from another, i feel disappointed. But then I got to thinking that could be good that people copy our content, although they did not quote us. If they do not remove the links either by mistake or on purpose, we receive new backlinks. ¿What do you think about this? ¿Is really good that a website copy our content? If they remove all backlinks, Is risky that Google detects that the content owner is another? ¿What do you do in this cases?1 -
SEO for franchises
I'm working with a client that's a franchise owner. His website is strictly controlled by the parent company, so no room to add unique content or optimize it for the area. I'm getting stumped for link building options. Anybody ran into this before? If so, any suggestions?
Branding | | mtwelves0 -
Branded Domain Names - Keep or Sell?
Hey guys! My company is sitting on a number of branded domains to ensure we have control over the URL in case we ever want to do anything with them and/or to protect brand integrity. However, we are sitting on a total of 24 domains, which seems somewhat excessive. What are you thoughts about .info and .net domains? Or keeping branded domains in general? Is there a good rule of thumb to follow? We have a few up for renewal soon, so it'd be terrific to get your thoughts! Thanks much, Clarissa
Branding | | okatieo0 -
Merging domains will sum the authority?
Hi guys, I have two websites that are almost the same, I am working to merge them. One domain have authority 44 and other 24... After I merge I will have authority 68? Should I keep the older domain or the newer? The newer has my keyword in the URL but the older have 10 years. Thank you
Branding | | Felip30 -
What do search engines consider brand signals?
After being hit by the Penguin stick, like good content marketers we are trying to focus on improving brand signals for our site. But I keep coming up against what exactly brand signals are. I can understand that if you are called 'Ziggle' and someone links to you with that in anchor text or mentions that name, that would be a brand signal. But we're on a generic domain (descriptive of the produt type), so what would constitute brand signals in our case?
Branding | | RogerElliott1 -
Russian and Arabic SEO and Translation
Hi guys, We've a small 15 page site in English for renting out our own boat to tourists which seems to be especially popular with Russian and Arab visitors, so they are our priority languages for translation right now. We would like to translate our site into a condensed single page summary for each language of the services we offer for now and trying to make it rank in Russian/Arab serarch engines. I do some seo in English on our site and it's starting to rank well, but that's my only language, so I would definitely need to hire someone to do it for us in Russian and Arabic translation and related keyword phrases and how to rank in the search engines those countries most use etc. Can you recommend any companies for doing this russian-seo or arabic-seo stuff? Or any other advice.. Thanks!
Branding | | emerald0