New domain's Sitemap.xml file loaded to old domain - how does this effect SEO?
-
I have a client who recently changed their domain when they redesigned their site. The client wanted the old site to remain live for existing customers with links to the new domain. I guess as a workaround, the developer loaded the new domain's sitemap.xml file to the old domain. What SEO ramifications would this have if any on the primary (new) domain?
-
I don't believe any. Like Jesse said, change it and move on (Google is fairly forgiving).
-
That is a great point. I've just never seen something like that before - questionable, very very questionable.
-
Whatever ramifications it had, nothing a sitemap reports is permanent. So just fix it and move on and it will quickly refresh. Be sure and submit it in GWMT just to be extra sure.
-
Chances are the client didn't have the foresight to match URL's, which means the sitemap contains many invalid URL's. I do not know what exact effect this will have, but it can't be good.
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
-
Godaddy and Soft 404's
Hello, We've found that a website we manage has a list of not-found URLS in Google webmaster tools which are "soft 404's " according to Google. I went to the hosting company GoDaddy to explain and to see what they could do. As far as I can see GoDaddy's server are responding with a 200 HTTP error code - meaning that the page exists and was served properly. They have sort of disowned this as their problem. Their server is not serving up a true 404 response. This is a WordPress site. 1) Has anyone seen this problem before with GoDaddy?Is it a GoDaddy problem?2) Do you know a way to sort this issue? When I use the command site:mydomain.co.uk the number of URLs indexed is about right except for 2 or 3 "soft URLs" . So I wonder why webmaster tools report so many yet I can't see them all in the index?
Technical SEO | | AL123al0 -
Moving to New Domain - Ranking impact
I understand that when migrating to a new site, even if done perfectly (page level 301s etc) that rankings will drop in the short term and each site will be impacted differently. I picked up the following comment and was wanting to get a few experts thoughts on whether I can quote this to my client: "In our experience, even when 301's are correctly executed, we see a short term fall back (7-30) days and then about a 90% carry through after that period for about 90 days and then back to full strength. "
Technical SEO | | steermoz80 -
PR 6 Redirect to a brand new domain name
Hello all, I checked a lot fo blog posts about 301 redirects but wanted to double check with you all. I got an email from a potential client who want to do a re-brand of his business and decided to buy a new domain name.
Technical SEO | | artdivision
His old domain name is PR 6 and his new domain obviously PR 0. I tried to check his old web site but it is too late as he has redirected everything to the new one. What it seems he has done though is redirect everything from his old domain (whether it is a sub category link, a blog link or a specific product) to the new domain index page. So for example if someone linked to his old product page www.xxxxxx.com/product/product_1 or his blog post www.xxxxxx.com/blog/11-21-2013/xxxxxxxxx.com in both cases it will take em to the new domain index page www.xxxxxx.com as he has not created product pages, blogs or anything than just a 4 page web site. I know that ideally he should have created same folders/subfolders, get his blog posts up and set up proper re-directs to the new pages but as I was not in charge of this process nor know if he has kept the old web site yet I wanted to know how bad is this for SEO and if his old PR 6 will pass value to his new domain. Yiannis0 -
Unfindable 404's
So I have noticed that my site has some really strange 404's that are only being linked to from internal links from the site.
Technical SEO | | Adamshowbiz
When I go to the pages that Web master tools suggests I can't actaully find the link which is pointing to the 404. In that instance what do you do? Any help would be much appreciated 🙂0 -
Moz Reporting Incorrect 404's
Hi Guys SEOMoz is telling me that we have 191 404 errors f. I have checked this with several other crawlers and this not the case. For example, http://www.opticalexpress.co.uk/eyecare/corporate-savings.html%0D%0A2027 But correct links its http://www.opticalexpress.co.uk/eyecare/corporate-savings.html which is fine... We have no record of these links so why is it appending these characters at the end of the URL which is causing the 404's....
Technical SEO | | EwanFisher0 -
Negative effect on google SEO with 301's?
Cleaning up the website by consolidating pages - each with a little bit of useful info - into one definitive page that is really useful and full of good content. Doing 301's from the many old pages to the one new really good one. Didn't want to do rel canonicals because I don't want the old pages around, I want to get rid of them. Will google see the 301s and go nuts or see that there is one definitive, really good page with no duplicate content? The change is very good from a user perspective. Also, On-Page Report Cards on SEOMoz suggests that you put a rel canonical on a page to itself to tell google that this page is the definitive page. What do you think? Thanks so much for anyone who has time to answer - so many gurus - this is a great forum. - jean
Technical SEO | | JeanYates0 -
New Forum: SEO considerations.
We're going to add a new forum to our website. We don't anticipate very large volumes of users. I read somewhere in The Art of SEO that forums should be 'built in bbPress'. I'm very much a programming novice so I'm still trying to get to grip with the basics of forums. I'd be grateful to know the main SEO considerations (however basic) that I should tell my web developer who is building the new forum.
Technical SEO | | JacobFunnell0 -
Changing CMS, are there SEO effects?
We want to change our cms from typo3 to CMS made Simple. We have done this already for another site and it effected the rankings. Have you got experience with this? What factors are important for SEO to consider? Is it normal when you change from cms the rankings will drop?
Technical SEO | | PlusPort0