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
-
International SEO - Domains or Folders?
Hi, We have been approached by a potential client. They are a UK company whose website is hosted on a .com domain (the .co.uk forwards to the .com). They also have a German website hosted on a .de domain. Both the .com and the .de are hosted in the UK. We believe that the .de website should be hosted in Germany. You agree? Anyway, they now need to target the US market. They are planning on duplicating the UK (.com) website and creating a US version of the site on a .us domain. They would rewrite the content for the US site to avoid duplications, and add Href Lang attributes etc. They are also debating whether the new US site should be hosted in the US or the UK. We don't think this is the best strategy. Would it not be better to host both the UK and US website on the .com domain. using reginal folders? i.e. example.com/uk, and example.com/us. Obviously we would setup Href Lang accordingly and change the Google Search Console geo targeting options for each of the sub-sites (/uk and /us). Or we could suggest hosting the UK site on the .co.uk domain, and the US on the .com domain. So, what is the best strategy to target the US audience, whilst maintaining UK rankings? Many thanks for your time, hope to hear from you soon 🙂 Lee.
Branding | | Webpresence1 -
Pros/Cons on Where to Host Stores for Ecommerce Solution Provider (subdomain vs. throwaway domain, etc)
Hello! Does anyone have any experience with the pros/cons for where to host storefronts as an ecommerce solution provider. I'm looking for a recommendation on where to house the stores/websites people create with our software (think of us like a shopify/squarespace). What are the pros & cons of creating stores on the main domain name “brand.com” versus buying a new top level domain name who’s only purpose will be to hold all the subdomains, such as “mybrand.com”, or even “.my.brand.com”. store.brand.com <— subdomain our our primary domain
Branding | | andrewmeyer
store.my.brand.com <— subdomain of a subdomain
store.mybrand.com <— subdomain of a throw-away domain Weebly/Squarespace/Tictail go with the first option (store**.weebly.com** and store.squarespace.com). Shopify goes with the 3rd option (store.myshopify.com) Are there any advantages or disadvantages to one or the other? Am I missing any other options? Thanks in advance!0 -
Getting Traffic to a New Website - Looking for Ideas
I am working with a company that is launching a brand new website (for a new business they are creating). I am wondering what things people have done to try to start building traffic and/or awareness for the site.
Branding | | TopFloor0 -
I want to forward/redirect users from domain.us to domain.com.us (preferred domain)
Let me know where should I start. I heard this is something you can do in your domain name or hosting service. Thanks in advance!
Branding | | esiow20130 -
Moving to new domain - Social and Branding Questions?
Hi, We are moving to a new domain because our rankings drastically dropped and we want to "start over". For example - If my company is called Joes Computers and the domain was JoesComputers.com and the new domain which will hold our e-commerce website will be completely different for example - BestComputers.com - which do I brand? Which do I put as suffix in all titles?
Branding | | BeytzNet
COOL TITLE FOR PRODUCTS | Best Computers
or
COOL TITLE FOR PRODUCTS | Joes Computers Which name do I take for social profiles? Company or Domain?
(We currently have for the company since it was the same). Please note that our company name is already a little bit known... and therefore inside the website it will be labeled in Logos etc. We would also state "Best Computers by Joes Computers" (as if it is a sub brand or daughter company). Thanks,0 -
Is this the current recommendation for hyphen(s) in domain name?
Let's say your customers company name in the real world is "Foo Bar Baz Inc." and if it is read (and understood) as "foobarbaz inc." by someone hearing the name it does also make semantically sense (like "Dog Food Market"). Customer owns a lot of domain combinations, but notably foobarbaz.com foo-bar-baz.com Would you recommend to dedicate "foobarbaz.com" as main brand and domain for all SEO efforts and do the proper redirects from the other domains? Or would you do it the other way around, redirecting to the foo-bar-baz.com domain? Thanks!
Branding | | kqkq0 -
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 -
Blog - separate domain or current website?
I have created a business blog purely to gain higher rankings for particular keywords which then has links pointing to the product that I am trying to sell. My question... Is it better to have this blog hosted on the same domain or shall I move it to a separate domain which will help with backlinks? Any advice would be appreciated?
Branding | | petewinter0