Redirect Multiple Domains
-
This is a follow-up question from one posted earlier this month. I can't linked to that because it's a private question so I'm trying to summarize it below.
We have a number of domains – about 20 - (e.g. www.propertysharp.com) that point to our main domain ip adress (www.propertyshark.com) and share the same content. This is no black-hat strategy whatsoever, the domains were acquired several years ago in order to help people who mistyped the websites url to reach their desired destination.
The question was whether to redirect them to our main domain or not. Pros were the reportedly millions of incoming links from these domains - cons was the fact that lots of issues regarding duplicate content could arise and we actually saw lots of some pages from these domains ranking in the search engines.
We were recommended to redirect them, but to take it gradually. I have a simple question - what does gradually mean - one domain per week, per month?
-
We did not get more details on that - I assume it may raise some flags if you suddenly redirect 20 domains. I'm not sure if or why is that, that's why I decided to ask a follow-up question.
Btw, thank you both for your replies!
-
Definitely 301 redirecting them is the way to go. Make sure each page on the redirected domain maps to the corresponding page on your main domain.
It sounds like you know a few pages on these domains you want to redirect that rank well. I'd pick one of these domains to start with, and redirect all of its pages to the corresponding pages on your main domain. Wait until Google reindexes those pages that rank well, and try those searches again. That page on your main domain should rank at least as well as the page on the old domain, and hopefully even better since their link juices are consolidated.
If you're highly risk-averse, you can continue doing this domain by domain. Otherwise, you can batch them and do several at once, or just redirect the rest of them. Just make a note of the searches where pages on these other domains were doing well, and check that those pages on your main domain does just as well after those pages get reindexed. Personally, if it worked for one, I'd feel pretty safe doing all of them, and then keep checking the SERPs afterward to make sure nothing bad happened.
How gradual the process is will be determined by how quickly the pages are reindexed. If they're reindexed quickly, you'll be able to see if it's working and can keep moving forward.
-
What was the idea behind gradually redirecting the traffic? I am not aware of any harm with fully implementing the redirects right away.
You can also add the canonical tag to the duplicate pages indicating the URL of the page on your main site. This would allow you to keep your existing sites if you so desired, but only having your main site appear in the search index.
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
-
Redirect 410
I used http status code as 410 for some low quality pages in my site to Redirect to homepage. is this useful to improve my homepage authority?
Technical SEO | | ghorbanimahan
my website is: Nitamoshaver.com0 -
Are .clinic domains effective?
We acquired a .clinic domain for a client, they are right now running under a .ca and I was just wondering if there were any cons to making the switch. On the flip side are there any pros? I've tried to search for the answer but couldn't seem to come across anything, thank you if you have any knowledge or could point me to a resource.
Technical SEO | | webignite0 -
301 Redirect
Hello, On the 26.2.13 we changed domain names having followed the guidance of both Matt Cutts Youtube videos and googles own online documentation. We have a 301 redirect in place from our old domain ukmotorhomehirerental.com to our new site leisurerentalsdirect.com on a page to page basis. The site structure has not been altered in anyway. Google has been informed of the change of address. After the change the new domain transition was pretty seamless and ranked in the same postion in the SERPsThe one thing I've not done yet is tell all the webmasters who link to the old site that the address has changed (could this be it?)
Technical SEO | | Badapplemedia0 -
Do I need Redirects?
I've recently changed my old static website to a WordPress one. I'd like to know what do do (if anything) about my old links. For example a page on my old site was: www.iainmoran.com/corporate-magician.html - now I'm using WordPress, the url is:
Technical SEO | | iainmoran
www.iainmoran.com/corporate-magician/ My question is, do I need to set up redirects on these old pages (which no longer exist or will Google eventually re-crawl my site and update the links themselves? I'm using the Yoast SEO Plugin for WP and it creates a sitemap, which of course will have my new pages on. But don't want Google to penalise me for having broken links, etc. Many thanks, Iain.0 -
Preferred domain
In GWT it gives an option to do the following but which is best? and why? If you specify your preferred domain as http://www.example.com and we find a link to http://example.com, we'll consider both links the same. | <label for="no_assoc">Don't set a preferred domain</label> |
Technical SEO | | jwdl
| <label for="use_www">Display URLs as ** www.example.com**</label> |
| <label for="use_nowww">Display URLs as example**.com **</label> |0 -
Selling Domain,,,,, OOOOPPPPPPsssss!
Hey Everyone, I think I may have screwed up big time. I have an old 4 letter domain that I've been sitting on for many years. I had no idea what it was worth and ended up putting it up on ebay. I have since been told that it's quite valuable. I just tried to end the auction and ebay won't let me end it. My thinking is that someone here may want to take advantage of my mistake. Even better, let me know if there are any tricks to ending the auction. The domain is http://proa.com If for some reason it doesn't sell, where is a good place to sell it at a fair price? Have a good one. David
Technical SEO | | dmac0 -
Redirecting Root domain to subdirectory by IP addresses (country specific)
We are using Wordpress Multisite. so www.mysite.com is our English website and www.mysite.com/sub is our Chinese website Can I redirect Chinese visitors who type "www.mysite.com" to "www.mysite.com/sub" ? so we want to force redirection to www.mysite.com/sub if our website is visited by Chinese IP Address. I've realized that this is called GeoIP Redirection. and our hosting company already has those database, I guess my job is just to simply insert some code in .htacess My question is, would it affect our SEO later on? and what .htacess code is the best practice here?
Technical SEO | | joony20080 -
How do I resolve Twin domains? redirect website.com to www.website.com?
I am new to this website. Tried to run a campain and got a warning that website.com resolves to www.website.com which hinders SERP by competing for Keyword indexing!. (website is my domain name) Would appreciate help with this. Thanks. S.H. PS: here is the exact wording of error : We have detected that the domain www.yfvaccine.com and the domain yfvaccine.com both respond to web requests and do not redirect. Having two "twin" domains that both resolve forces them to battle for SERP positions, making your SEO efforts less effective. We suggest redirecting one, then entering the other here.
Technical SEO | | sherohass0