Merging Domains
-
Up until last week, we had separate domains for each of our 3 products. We've now merged two products to sit under one URL.
The merge coincided with a CMS upgrade which effectively killed all of our old URLs save for the homepage.
Is it best for me to 301 the old homepage to it's new place, as well as the rest of the old site's top pages to according pages on the new site? Or is there a better solution?
-
Right on.
Whenever you make big changes to the structure of your site (or in the case, completely taking your site down), you can choose to submit a new sitemap to Google. This is more or less a "heads-up" to Google that things have changed on your site and to recrawl/index it when available. It does not mean that Google will go ahead and crawl/index things right away, more of a "friendly reminder".
Your 301 redirects will immediately work if someone sees your old site in the SERPs and clicks on it, so you will be safe there. Once Google recrawls your site, it will see the 301 and take note that it is a permanent redirect and slowly remove your old site from the SERPs.
You definitely can submit a sitemap listing all of the URLs that now have 301 redirects, omitting any of the URLs that are now "broken" or you are not 301-ing to the new site (if that makes sense).
Hope this helps.
Mike
-
Ah, thank you! We're merging one website into another. I didn't think about the sitemap. Should I submit a new sitemap for the site that's about to be absorbed?
-
Sounds like you have the right idea.
I am a little uncertain as to whether you are saying you are merging one website into another or merging 2 websites into a brand new URL - but essentially you will do the same thing - 301 redirect any of the old URLs that were driving traffic to your site OR were linked to by many other sites to the new URL.
You can use Open Site Explorer to find all of your highly linked to URLs on your old site and redirect those to the applicable pages on the new site.
Make sure to submit a new sitemap in Google Webmaster Tools once you have everything setup.
Hope this helps.
Mike
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
-
Shopify Site with Multiple Domains?
Hey there! My client has a website on Shopify. I don't even know how to open this can of worms, but let me try. The site URL is: https://mobilityequipmentforless.com/ However, there is another (older?) URL that gets updated as the main site gets updated and shows the exact same content. It's a straight duplicate, but is it's own URL and doesn't redirect to the main site. https://www.powerchairrecyclers.com/ And this isn't the SITE.Shopify back-end site name that was used for set up initially. I just have no idea what's going on here. Not sure if it's a serious error that needs to be fixed, or if it's something weird with how Shopify work. Any insight would be immensely helpful. Thanks! Mike
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | naturalsociety0 -
New Domain, No 301 Possible - Any Advice
A client of mine lost their domain when an ex business partner sold it out from under them. They've filed with WIPO, but in the meantime we're trying to figure out how to help them out. They had two really excellent links - one from the NY Times and one from a .edu website. I'm going to reach out to the authors of those articles (the articles are pretty old, so I doubt they'll change the links), but does anyone have any advice on how to let search engines know the new domain replaces the old without having the ability to do redirects? The content on the site is exactly the same - we were able to get the files over, happily. I've re-submitted the site for indexing, changed the domain links in Moz Local, changed in Analytics, and on all their social sites. Is there anything I'm not thinking of that can be done to let Google know that this new domain replaces the old? Thank you!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | newwhy0 -
Lower quality new domain link vs higher quality repeat domain link
First time poster here with a dilemma that head scratching and spreadsheets can't solve! I'm trying to work out whether to focus on getting links from new domains or to nurture relationships with the bigger sites in our business and get more links. Of the two links below which does the community here think would be more valuable a signal to Google? Both would be links from within relevant text/post copy. Link 1. Site DA 30. No links currently from this domain. Link 2. Site DA 60. Many links over last 12 months already from this domain. I suspect link 1 but given the enormous disparity in ranking power am I correct?! Thanks for any considered opinions out there! Matthew
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | mat20150 -
301 Redirect from unused domain
Hi All First question here so go easy.. I have a property site which is working well so far considering it;s early days, unfortunately some of my earlier efforts did not go so well and one in particular I pretty much destroyed in my attempts to improve the site SEO. Lucky enough my SEO skills have improved quite a bit lately, largely thanks to the great tools, tutorials and experts here at Moz 🙂 My question is whether I can use a 301 redirect to pass the domain authority and any link equity from an unused site to the one that ive done a better job on? it would seem a little sketchy to me and I would prefer not to get slapped and penalized "again" for doing something dodgy... Thanks everyone and thanks for all the help over the last 6 months or so.. Wes Dunn
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | wesdunn19771 -
Should sub domains to organise content and directories?
I'm working on a site that has directories for service providers and content about those services. My idea is to organise the services into groups, e.g. Web, Graphic, Software Development since they are different topics. Each sub domain (hub) has it's own sales pages, directory of services providers and blog content. E.g. the web hub has web.servicecrowd.com.au (hub home) web.servicecrowd.com.au/blog (hub blog) http://web.servicecrowd.com.au/dir/p (hub directory) Is this overkill or will it help in the long run when there are hundreds of services like dog grooming and DJing? Seems better to have separate sub domains and unique blogs for groups of services and content topics.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | ServiceCrowd_AU0 -
Page and Domain Authority
How much Page and Domain Authority we need to look for to secure a backlink.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | ross254sidney0 -
Help understanding 301 domain redirect
Can anyone help me understand a specific process of a 301 redirecting a domain. Here is what I would like to know.... When you 301 redirect a site, most if not all the links follow to your new site. But how does this process happen? 1.When Google sees the new domain does it simply apply the backlink profile of the old site to the new one? 2. Does it have to re-crawl all the links one by one and apply them to the new domain? 3. or something else?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | gazzerman10 -
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