Changing Domains - 301 old https to new https
-
Brief History:
Our company made change to a new domain. Both domains had an SSL configured on it in which the old domain SSL was controlled and created by Shopify which gave us limited control. Because we couldn't redirect the old https:// to the new https:// So basically we duplicated our new HTML website and put canonical ref on all duplicate pages to the final domain to help get search to navigate to the newer domain.
Question:
In the near future I would like to take down the old domain and do a 301 domain forwarding. What is the correct course of action to complete this? Our old domain was indexed and SERP results were tied to it's https:// url's.
-
Hi
Cloudflare does not need to be added two times (or to each domain) to work or it would only be used on the old domain for an Automattic 301 redirect to the new site/ domain so I would only use it once to make sure I get the set of 301s for the old domain.
Does that make sense?
(The "yournewdomain.com" does not need to run on Cloudflare only the "yourolddomain.com" domain)
You will then want to see how this is used in the following pattern:
https://yourolddomain.com/*
Select “Forwarding URL” and “301 – Permanent Redirect” for the settings, and input the following rule:
https://newyourdomain.com/$1
The /$1 enables the wildcard part to function. Then click on “Save and Deploy.”
cite: https://woorkup.com/free-url-forwarding/
Let me know if I can be of any help,
Thomas Zickell
-
Thank you for the response Tom - This does make sense and I will implement and let you know how it works out. I have very limited experience with the free Cloudflare account so I do have one question. Does the domain I am forwarding everything need to be controlled by Cloudflare as well? Didn't know if that was needed for everything to play nice.
-
Thomas is right you IF YOU STILL HAVE THE DOMAIN you can use Cloudflare to do 100% Free URL Forwarding With HTTP & https 301 wildcard redirects with no server.
"Because we couldn't redirect the old https:// to the new https:// So basically we duplicated our new HTML website and put canonical ref on all duplicate pages to the final domain to help get search to navigate to the newer domain."
So the canonical ref on all duplicate pages to the new domain will help get Google to navigate to the newer domain but not like a 301 redirect will. So on Shopify, you are pointing the old URLs to the new domains URL's I hope if not please 301 use Cloudflare for 301 domain forwarding
- If so Follow the tutorial below on how setup free URL forwarding with Cloudflare, along with 301 wildcard redirects.
- https://woorkup.com/free-url-forwarding/
if you do change the URL's after the forward slash "/" or don't want Cloudflare to run your old domain so you can take down the old domain and do a 301 domain forwarding you should read the guides below.
- https://builtvisible.com/domain-migration/
- https://mza.bundledseo.com/blog/achieving-an-seo-friendly-domain-migration-the-infographic
- https://searchengineland.com/changing-domain-names-2016-10-easily-overlooked-steps-can-save-seo-248484
this setup, you don't want to duplicate your web site HTTP to HTTPS if needed.
If I where you I would just do what is in this guide the only cost is the cost of your old domain & it will auto line up urls (if you did not change them aside from the domain name.
- Read & use this https://woorkup.com/free-url-forwarding/
Hope this helps,
Tom
-
If I'm correct, you're no longer using the old domain and just redirecting to the new site?
If that's correct, why keep it with Shopify at all, you could instead point it to a different server (or to Cloudflare which'll be able to handle to redirects through page rules without you having to do any code).
The best course of action is to 301 redirect the site to the new site, then on the new site (after checking for issues) submit sitemaps/fetch as google. To speed up this process slightly you can also submit a sitemap for the old site, Google will see the redirect when they try to crawl any page.
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
-
Delete old blog posts after 301 redirects to new pages?
Hi Moz Community, I've recently created several new pages on my site using much of the same copy from blog posts on the same topics (we did this for design flexibility and a few other reasons). The blogs and pages aren't exactly identical, as the new pages have much more content, but I don't think there's a point to having both and I don't want to have duplicate content, so we've used 301 redirects from the old blog posts to the new pages of the same topic. My question is: can I go ahead and delete the old blog posts? (Or would there be any reasons I shouldn't delete them?) I'm guessing with the 301 redirects, all will be well in the world and I can just delete the old posts, but I wanted to triple check to make sure. Thanks so much for your feedback, I really appreciate it!
Technical SEO | | TaraLP1 -
Help: domain name change and Google News
Hi. I work for a regional news source, and our (separate) Spanish-language news publication recently changed its domain name. The publication lost its Google News inclusion. Most of their traffic came from Google News, so traffic tanked. They're trying to get back in. They reapplied but didn't get approved. They're now in the 30-day waiting period to reapply again. The website is run by a third-party company, which handled the domain name change in April (2015). That company has been running their site for a couple of years. Our in-house devs' hands are tied on helping, because we (at the mother company) don't manage their site. This third party has not been responsive. The Spanish pub folks have reached out to me to help them prepare for Round 2 of reapplication. I'm the mothership in-house SEO, but I've never experienced this situation before. Because everything seems to be in order besides the ham-handed changes, my best advice to them so far is: You'll have to wait until Google gets to know you again, unfortunately. Does that sound right? Any pointers out there for bringing their best possible A-game to the next round?
Technical SEO | | christyrobinson1 -
When you change your domain, How much time do I have to wait for google to return the traffic used to have?
Hello. 20 days ago, I changed my domain from uclasificados.net to uclasificados.com doing redirect 301 to all urls, and I started to loose rankings since that moment. I was wondering if changing it back could be the solutions, but some experts recommend me not to do that, because it could be worse. Right now I receave almost 50% of traffic I used to receave before, and I have done a lot of linkbuilding strategies to recover but nothing have worked until now. Even though I notified google of this change and I send again my new sitemap, I don't see that have improve my situation in any aspects, and I still see in webmastertools search stats from my last website (the website who used to be uclasificados.com before the change). What should I do to recover faster?
Technical SEO | | capmartin850 -
Moving from www.domain.com/nameofblog to www.domain.com/blog
Describe your question in detail. The more information you give, the better! It helps give context for a great answer I have had my blog located at www.legacytravel.com/ramblings for a while. I now believe that, from an SEO perspective, it would be preferable to move it to www.legacytravel.com/blog. So, I want to be able to not lose any links (few though they may be) with the move. I believe I would need to do a 301 redirect in the htaccess file of www.legacytravel.com that will tell anyone who comes knocking on the door of www.legacytravel.com/ramblings/blah blah blah that now what they want is at www.legacytravel.com/blog/blah blah blah Is that correct? What would the entry look like in the htaccess? Thank you in advance.
Technical SEO | | cathibanks0 -
Should I make a new URL just so it can include a target keyword, then 301 redirect the old URL?
This is for an ecommerce site, and the company I'm working with has started selling a new line of products they want to promote.Should I make a new URL just so it can include a target keyword, then 301 redirect the old URL? One of my concerns is losing a little bit of link value from redirecting. Thank you for reading!
Technical SEO | | DA20130 -
Old domain vs. New keyword domain - Thoughts?
Okay. I'd like to get opinions as to what everyone thinks about domains lately. Here is any example: The current domain is general in nature, in fact, it's a persons name because they are a real estate agent. So the domain is something like JohnDoe.com. Current stats: Has approx. 130 linking domains pointing to it. Has over 300 incoming links from these linking domains. The link profile is clean and not spammy (not to say there are not a few that might be here and there) Was bough in 1994 The new domain would have very little value except it would be keyword rich such as PortlandHomesForSale.com (just an example). What are your thoughts. Thank you.
Technical SEO | | JordanRussell0 -
Should I change my host
Have a feeling that the answer will be obvious here but more opinions are always good... I own a number of domains, mainly com, which are targeted at the UK but hosted in the netherlands. I have noticed a very high number of dutch hits to my sites. Lower than UK but takings population into account it works out to be higher. I fear my decision to renew my dutch server instead of going for a UK one is helping me rank in the wrong part of the world. I have paid a couple of months ahead for the dutch server but am wondering if the cost of writing off a couple of hundred pounds will be less than I'm losing due to my location. Should I take the financial hit on the server in the hope that buying a UK one will increase my relevant traffic?
Technical SEO | | Grumpy_Carl0 -
Redirecting a old aged site to a new exact match site?
Hi All, I have a question. I have 2 sites with me in the same sector and want some help. site 1 is a old site started back in 2003 and has some amount of links to it and has a pr 3 with some good links to it but doesn't rank much for any keywords for the timing. site 2 is a aged domain but newly developed with unique content and has a good amount of exact match with a .com version. so will there be any benefit by redirecting site 1 to site 2 to get the seo benefits and a start for link bulding? or is it best to develop and work on each site? the sector is health insurance. Thanks
Technical SEO | | macky71