Moz Q&A is closed.
After more than 13 years, and tens of thousands of questions, Moz Q&A closed on 12th December 2024. Whilst we’re not completely removing the content - many posts will still be possible to view - we have locked both new posts and new replies. More details here.
Moving pages to new domain
-
Hello,
Our product pages are ranked #1 on google for our target keywords using our domain e.g. www.olddomain.com/cases/productxyz and sell about 20 products all ranked #1.
We have a new company called www.newco.com/case/product1, 2, 3 etc.
We use woocommerce e-commerce for both old and new sites.
What is the best way to list our old co-products on our new site and move over the #1 rankings?
Do we create new products (using our new nice design) in the newco.com woo commerce and then redirect old co links? do we copy and paste all that old content into the newco.com?
Totally confused. Thank you!
-
Hello James,
I would advise you to make the new pages as close to the old ones as you can, meaning that you would use the same content and try to keep a similar file structure, including product names. Then make sure every one of your old product URLs has a 301 redirect to the new one on the new site. Also redirect the home page, category pages, and other indexed pages of the old site to their corresponding pages on the new site. Follow that up with some sort of catch-all redirect that ensures every other possible URL someone might end up on from the old site goes to the new site.
How to do a successful domain migration is beyond the scope of this Q&A format. You should read the following, which will give you a better understanding of the process and things to look out for. And yes, despite what Kevin said, you can move rankings from one domain to another. I've done it many times. There will be a lag of a few weeks to a month, even if you do it right, but eventually Google figures out what has happened.
https://moz.com/blog/website-migration-guide
https://searchengineland.com/site-migration-seo-checklist-dont-lose-traffic-286880
http://www.seerinteractive.com/blog/website-migration-seo-checklist/
-
I don't think it's possible to move rank from one URL to another.
I have similar experience and I created new pages under the new domain, populated with relevant content; pictures, text, Q&A, videos, etc. Optimize the pages and build links to them. You can 301 your ranking page to the new one, but I believe you would lose your rank. Get your new pages relevant before redirecting your old domain ranking pages.
Hope that helps
KJr
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
-
Subdomain or Country Code Top Level Domain
Hello Friends, I am planning to develop my website for other languages. which one is best for SEO? (The main English website is well ranked in google) 1. de.example.com (subdomain may obtain rank faster as it is part of the main website?)
Web Design | | Bold
2. example.de (this is a completely new one; so not easy to get rank?) thank you
Barsbold0 -
Https pages indexed but all web pages are http - please can you offer some help?
Dear Moz Community, Please could you see what you think and offer some definite steps or advice.. I contacted the host provider and his initial thought was that WordPress was causing the https problem ?: eg when an https version of a page is called, things like videos and media don't always show up. A SSL certificate that is attached to a website, can allow pages to load over https. The host said that there is no active configured SSL it's just waiting as part of the hosting package just in case, but I found that the SSL certificate is still showing up during a crawl.It's important to eliminate the https problem before external backlinks link to any of the unwanted https pages that are currently indexed. Luckily I haven't started any intense backlinking work yet, and any links I have posted in search land have all been http version.I checked a few more url's to see if it’s necessary to create a permanent redirect from https to http. For example, I tried requesting domain.co.uk using the https:// and the https:// page loaded instead of redirecting automatically to http prefix version. I know that if I am automatically redirected to the http:// version of the page, then that is the way it should be. Search engines and visitors will stay on the http version of the site and not get lost anywhere in https. This also helps to eliminate duplicate content and to preserve link juice. What are your thoughts regarding that?As I understand it, most server configurations should redirect by default when https isn’t configured, and from my experience I’ve seen cases where pages requested via https return the default server page, a 404 error, or duplicate content. So I'm confused as to where to take this.One suggestion would be to disable all https since there is no need to have any traces to SSL when the site is even crawled ?. I don't want to enable https in the htaccess only to then create a https to http rewrite rule; https shouldn't even be a crawlable function of the site at all.RewriteEngine OnRewriteCond %{HTTPS} offor to disable the SSL completely for now until it becomes a necessity for the website.I would really welcome your thoughts as I'm really stuck as to what to do for the best, short term and long term.Kind Regards
Web Design | | SEOguy10 -
Body of text on category pages
Hello everyone, wonder if I can pick your brains about our company's website. We are a tea company - Canton Tea Co. We have been advised that it is really important to get more text onto the category pages on our website, as otherwise the page just consists of a list of products, and therefore provides Google with a ton of headers, tiny descriptions, and not enough text to allow the page to being easily indexed, therefore hurting our Google ranking for key search terms like 'Green Tea' which should lead to the Green Tea category page. So we decided to add some text to the category page. The only place for this text to go was laid over the category header image. However, it looks pretty awful and unsophisticated having this text on top of the image - please see an example, our Green Tea category page, via this link: http://www.cantonteaco.com/loose-leaf-tea-1/type/green-tea.html So I have three questions: How significant is the text on a category page such as this to that page's Google ranking? If we moved the text to an area that was hidden until clicked on, for example the 'Filter by' section that opens up when you click on it (see via URL above), would that negate the SEO benefit? Do you have any other ideas or opinions on how to resolve this? Thank you! Louise, Canton Tea Co.
Web Design | | Cantonteaco0 -
How long should an old site redirecting to a new site remain activated on a server?
Once I switch a site to a new domain (with links to corresponding/relative pages), will I have to keep the old site live forever for those links to work, or how long should I wait before I inactivate the old site on our server?
Web Design | | jwanner0 -
How to bounce back after a new url & new site design?
About a month ago, my company changed domains (from the long-established www.imageworksstudio.com to the new www.imageworkscreative.com) and also did a complete overhaul of our site. We tried to do everything necessary to keep Google happy as we went through this change, but we've suffered a drastic loss of both rankings and traffic. I know that can happen as a result of a redesign AND as a result of a new domain, but I'm wondering how long you would expect it to take before we bounced back and also, what can we do in the meantime to improve?
Web Design | | ScottImageWorks0 -
One Page Guide vs. Multiple Individual Pages
Howdy, Mozzers! I am having a battle with my inner-self regarding how to structure a resources section for our website. We're building out several pieces of content that are meant to be educational for our clients and I'm having trouble deciding how to layout the content structure. We could either layout all eight short sections on a single page, or create individual pages for each section. The goal is obviously to attract new potential clients by targeting these terms that they may be searching for in an information gathering stage. Here's my dilemma...
Web Design | | jpretz
With the single page guide, it would be nice because it will have a lot of content (and of course, keywords) to be picked up by the SERPS but I worry that it is going to be a bit crammed (because of eight sections) for the user. The individual pages would be much better organized and you can target more specific keywords, but I worry that it may get flagged for light content as some pages may have as little as a 150 word description. I have always been mindful of writing copy for searchers over spiders, but now I'm at a more technical crossroads as far as potentially getting dinged for not having robust content on each page. Here's where you come in...
What do you think is the better of the two options? I like the idea of having the multiple pages because of the ability to hone-in on a keyword and the clean, organized feel, but I worry about the lack of content (and possibly losing out on long-tail opportunities). I'd love to hear your thoughts. Please and thank you. Ready annnnnnnnnnnnd GO!0 -
Does it do harm if you add a rel="canonical" tag on a page that doesn't need it?
If a page is clearly unique and there is obviously no canonical tag needed, does it hurt anything if one has been added?
Web Design | | jaychow0 -
Is it necessary to redirect every Error page (404 or 500) found?
If I have Hundreds of pages with 404 and 500 erros should set up 301 redirects for all of them? Some of the pages have external links, some don't.
Web Design | | jmansd0