301 Redirect Only Home Page/Root Domain via Domain Registrar Only
-
Hi All,
I am really concerned about doing a 301 redirect. This is my situation:
-
Both Current and New Domain is registered with a local domain registrar (similar to GoDaddy but a local version)
-
Current Domain: Servers are pointing to Wix servers and the website is built and hosted with Wix
-
I would like to do a 301 redirect but would like to do it in the following way with a couple of factors to keep in mind:
-
99% of my link are only pointed to the home page/root domain only. Not to subdirectories.
-
New Domain: I will register this with wix with a new plan but keep the exact sitemap and composition of current website and launch with new domain.
-
Current Domain: I want to change server pointing to wix to point to local domain registrar servers. Then do a 301 redirect for only the home page/root domain to point to the new domain listed with wix. So 301 is done via local registrar and not via Wix.
-
Another point to mention is it will also change from Http to Https as well as a name change.
Your comments on the above will be greatly appreciated and as to whether there is risk in trying to do a 301 redirect as above. Doing it as above it also cheaper if I do the 301 via the wix platform I will need to register a full new premium plan and run it concurrently to the old plan whereas if I do it as mentioned above will only have the additional domain annual fee.
Look forward to your comments.
Mike
-
-
What are the risks involved? Lose Traffic and Rank you will found much information out there about that. In my own experience, you will have a drop in traffic that you will recover in time-frame 3-6 months. No matter how well you made the migration
What are the risks involved? In your case, I would be building links to your site even before running the migration also creating social signals in order to avoid the Google sand box
-
Hi Roman,
Thanks for the detailed explanation.
If I only move from Http to Https (No 301 redirect, no name change).
What are the risks involved? Will I lose page rank while my website updates? Given that all the correct steps/measures are taken?
Will my current backlinks become ineffective do to the switch over?
Regards
Michael
-
Based on what you mentioned this will be your new path
- old domain --> domain register --> new domain ( too many redirections)
All redirects carry risk. While it’s super awesome that Google is no longer “penalizing” 301 redirects through loss of PageRank, keep in mind that PageRank is only one signal out of hundreds that Google uses to rank pages.
So your domain age is a factor that should keep in mind. Ideally, if you 301 redirect a page to an exact copy of that page, and the only thing that changes is the URL, then, in theory, you may expect no traffic loss.
There is evidence that Google treats redirects to irrelevant pages as soft 404s. In other words, it's a redirect that loses both link equity and relevance.
How to Completely Ruin (or Save) Your Website With Redirects
There are a few salient points to keep in mind about Google’s change to how PageRank passes through 3xx redirects.
- All redirects carry a degree of SEO risk.
- While 3xx redirects preserve PageRank, 301s remain the preferred method of choice for permanent redirects.
- keep in mind that PageRank — and other link equity signals — are only a portion of the factors used by Google in ranking web pages.
- Beyond PageRank, all other rules about redirection remain. If you redirect to a non-relevant page, you likely won’t see much of a boost.
- The best redirect is where every other element stays the same, as much as possible, except for the URL.
- Successful migrations to HTTPS are now less prone to lose PageRank, but there are many other crawling and indexing issues that may negatively impact traffic+rankings.
Happy redirecting!
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
-
Incomplete Redirect for Domain Migration?
One year ago we migrated domain "X" to domain "Y". We did the proper redirects and used Google Search Console. Everything was done by the book. Now when we enter "Site: X" in Google about 650 results listing the old domain still come up. When clicked these redirect to the new domain. My SEO says that the old domain should not be indexed by Google, that these pages with the old domain should not appear. Is this in fact an incomplete domain migration? Our search traffic dropped considerably when we migrated the domain a year ago. My SEO thinks this may explain the drop. Thanks,
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Kingalan1
Alan0 -
Sub-domain vs Root domain
I have recently taken over a website (website A) that has a domain authority of 33/100 and is linked to from 39 root domains. I have not yet selected any keywords to target so am currently unsure of ranking positions. However, website A is for a division of a company that has its own separate website (website B) which has a domain authority of 58/100 and over 1000 legitimate linking root domains. I have the option of moving website A to a sub-domain of website B. I also have the option of having website B provide a followed link to website A. So, my question is, for SEO purposes, is my website better off remaining on its own existing domain or is it likely to rank higher as a sub-domain of website B? I am sure there are pros and cons for both options but some opinions would be much appreciated.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | BallyhooLtd0 -
Domain forward or 301 redirect
My company recently acquired another company including their web presence. We are soon ending their website and will be either 301 redirecting their domain to our domain or pointing their domain to our nameservers. Their domain authority is only 25 while our domain authority is 32. Their domain was created in 1998 while ours was created in 1999. So to keep our domain authority up or enhance it, should we do a 301 redirect or a domain forward. And that is if there is any difference? Thanks Chris
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | topsailislander0 -
301 Redirect from now defunct website?
Hi guys Quick question about 301 redirection between domains. I currently manage a website, lets call it website A. Website A sells a particular product range, however the decision has been made by the powers that be to pull the plug on the business and sell the products previously sold via Website A via another website within the parent companies control.....lets call it Website B. I need to make it clear to customers of Website A that the company no longer operates but want to pass the SEO equity that has been built up over time to the relevant pages on Website B. My plan was to 1. 301 Redirect all key landing pages on Website A to the most relevant pages on Website B 2. Initially keep the website A homepage live but change the message to say "Website A no longer operates, but Website B can help etc. etc." Remove all sub links from navigation. 3. Monitor referral and direct traffic levels and consider 301 redirecting website A homepage to Website B homepage in the long term. My questions: Does this sound like the best approach? If not, what alternatives are there? Will Website A look like a link farm for Website B? I dont want this obviously!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | DHS_SH0 -
Circular Canonical/Redirect
My client's site has an issue (see below) and I'm wondering how much it could be affecting crawlability. Has anyone seen a major rankings bump after fixing something like this? 1. In each page the rel=canonical is pointing to the http version of the page while the http version is redirecting to the https version. Basically, a circular redirect-canonical loop is occurring.2. The sitemap.xml is also referring to the http version of the pages rather than the https.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | elenaroi0 -
Duplicate Content / 301 redirect Ariticle issue
Hello, We've got some articles floating around on our site nlpca(dot)com like this article: http://www.nlpca.com/what-is-dynamic-spin-release.html that's is not linked to from anywhere else. The article exists how it's supposed to be here: http://www.dynamicspinrelease.com/what-is-dsr/ (our other website) Would it be safe in eyes of both google's algorithm (as much as you know) and with Panda to just 301 redirect from http://www.nlpca.com/what-is-dynamic-spin-release.html to http://www.dynamicspinrelease.com/what-is-dsr/ or would no-indexing be better? Thank you!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | BobGW0 -
Our site is recieving traffic for both .com/page and .com/page/ with the trailing slash.
Our site is recieving traffic for both .com/page and .com/page/ with the trailing slash. Should we rewrite to just the trailing slash or without because of duplicates. The other question is, if we do a rewrite, google has indexed some pages with the slash and some without - i am assuming we will lose rank for one of them once we do the rewrite, correct?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Profero0 -
Is it better to link to the root domain or to the language home page?
Hi guys! When dealing with linkbuilding for a multi language page such as www.inmonova.com is it better to get external links pointing at inmonova.com or is it better to point: English links to inmonova.com/en Spanish links to inmonova.com/es German links to inmonova.com/de What is your opinion?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | inmonova0