New domain purchase 301 and 404 issues. Please help!
-
We recently purchased www.carwow.com and 301 redirected the site to www.carwow.co.uk (our main domain). The problem is that carwow.com had URLs indexed like www.carwow.com/a-b-c the 301 sends them to carwow.co.uk/a-b-c which obviously doesn't exist so is a 404!
What should be done in this situation? Should it be ignored and not re-directed at all, or is there a way to delete/disavow these dead pages? An SEO has advised we redirect all pages to the homepage, but won't that mess up the link profile?
Any advice would be great!
-
This is what scares me about some 'SEO's'...
"An SEO has advised we redirect all pages to the homepage, but won't that mess up the link profile?"
Terrible advice!
I hope you have all sorted out now James.
-Andy
-
Essentially you would be which is the problem, you could redirect homepage links and go through some of the sub pages find any that may be helpful to your new site but 404 may be better for keeping a high quality site, you could also disavow links from the old domain if you're worried about the cost but Google will remove 404 after a period of time anyhow.
I hope you know have a good idea and can make a better choice now anyway.
-
Hi Chris,
Not really bothered with a BR as you'd expect that to be high given traffic would be expecting a completely different site.
I can't help but feel that redirecting thousands of pages to the homepage would incredibly counteractive to SEO, isn't that the equivalent of 4,000 really low quality rubbish irrelevant links?
-
Hi James,
A homepage redirection would best. If you don't have similar content you would loose a lot of the link juice though and users looking for older content may end up as a bounce on your site so it may be worth letting them 404 depending on what you want from the redirect.
You may find the following blog post helpful -
-
Hi Chris,
Thanks for the rapid response!
The problem is that the URLs are related to the old domain, we recently purchased it so the content is completely irrelevant to all carwow content! There simply isn't a 'nearest case' scenario.
-
301 them to the nearest page not the homepage.
If you don't have a page that matches try to do the best you can - e.g if its a eCommerce you could 301 it to a similar product.
301 everything to a home page will not only loose a lot of link juice, it will annoy any users trying to find a product via old links and Google isn't keen on a 301 to a homepage if its not necessary.
Take the time to 301 all the links to the nearest page to what the old link used to point to and it will save you time in the long run.
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
-
Move a blog from a domain to a new domain in the same hosting server
I have the need to find the best solution to move my viverezen.org blog on new domain naturazen.org because somebody stolen my brand. Now I registererd brand NaturaZen and I am going to use this website as main and have the old viverezen just to point in the new website I dont want lose autority and more important I dont want lose the 500 visits I have everyday. Both domain are under same hosting company What is best SEO solution you can give me to help? I thought to point the hosting on new domain naturazen and put all link with redirect 301 on viverezen but probably I am wrong stuck_out_tongue thanks for your help
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | VivereZen0 -
Help with 404 pages
Hello everyone, A few days back, we have permanently removed 3 main categories from our E-commerce website and because of that our more than 50k URLs are showing 404 error (according to Google Search Console). What are the good practices to handle such extensively 404 pages? Please help!!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Obbserv0 -
Please help with some content ideas
I was reading this post http://www.clambr.com/link-building-tools/ about how he had basically outreached to experts in the field and each one had shared this post with their followers. I am wondering how this could translate to our small business marketing and design blog I am really struggling for content ideas that will work in regards to popularity and link building.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | BobAnderson0 -
Please help with page
We used to use this page http://www.discountbannerprinting.co.uk/banners/vinyl-pvc-banners.html to rank for the words vinyl banner and PVC banner but we have tried to focus the page only on PVC banners and move the vinyl banners word to http://www.discountbannerprinting.co.uk/ yet for some reason even though they have both been spidered google has now chosen to rank this page http://www.discountbannerprinting.co.uk/stickers/vinyl-stickers.html for the vinyl banner words- how do I stop this from happening I thought the home page would be powerful enough to rank for the word with a title inclusion and a spread of the word on the page. Also if anyone can give their opinion on why they thinkhttp://www.discountbannerprinting.co.uk/banners/vinyl-pvc-banners.html does not rank very well I would be truly appreciative.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | BobAnderson0 -
Old links showing on new domain
Last year we incurred a Google penalty and after months of trying the clean up the link profile with no joy we relaunched the site with a .org rather than .co.uk Now the issue is that 2 weeks after the launch GWMT is showing all the old links pointing to the new url. We didn't do a redirect of any kind, just changed the url Why is this????
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | jj34340 -
Redirect old .net domain to new .com domain
I have a quick question that I think I know the answer to but I wanted to get some feedback to make sure or see if there's additional feedback. The long and short of it is that I'm working with a site that currently has a .net domain that they've been running for 6 years. They've recently bought a .com of the same name as well. So the question is: I think it's obviously preferable to keep the .net and just direct the .com to it. However, if they would prefer to have the .com domain, is 301'ing the .net to the .com going to lose a lot of the equity they've built up in the site over the past years? And are there any steps that would make such a move easier? Also, if you have any tips or insight just into a general transition of this nature it would be much appreciated. Thanks!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | BrandLabs0 -
301 redirect or Link back from old to new pages
Hi all, We run a ticket agent, and have multiple events that occur year after year, for example a festival. The festival has a main page with each event having a different page for each year like the below: Main page
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | gigantictickets
http://www.gigantic.com/leefest-tickets (main page) Event pages:
http://www.gigantic.com/leefest-2010-tickets/hawksbrook-lane-beckenham/2009-08-15-13-00-gce/11246a
http://www.gigantic.com/leefest-2010-tickets/highhams-hill-farm-warlingham/2010-08-14-13-00-gce/19044a
http://www.gigantic.com/leefest-2011-tickets/highhams-hill-farm-warlingham/2011-08-13-13-00-gce/26204a
http://www.gigantic.com/leefest-2012-tickets/highhams-hill-farm-warlingham/2012-06-29-12-00-gce/32168a
http://www.gigantic.com/leefest-2013/highhams-hill-farm/2013-07-12-12-00 my question is: Is it better to leave the old event pages active and link them back to the main page, or 301 redirect these pages once they're out of date? (leave them there until there is a new event page to replace it for this year) If the best answer is to leave the page there, should i use a canonical tag back to the main page? and what would be the best way to link back? there is a breadcrumb there now, but it doesn't seem to obvious for users to click this. Keywords we're aming for on this example are 'Leefest Tickets', which has good ranking now, the main page and 2012 page is listed. Thanks in advance for your help.0 -
Domain Issue
Starting a new local travel guide site. Would like to buy a domain and have found one with decent Domain Authority and Trust, but they want $2500 for the domain which I feel is a bit steep since I will be not using any of the content and it is generating hardly any revenue now. . I would rather not start from scratch with no links and no trust. I have a few questions.... -Any suggestions on sites to look for domains or strategy for finding and offering to buy? Any guidelines on how to value domains? If I but it and change registration do I risk losing all the value? Cold I just change technical contact info? Any other suggestions are welcome. Thanks.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Reportcard0