Domain Change, loss of inbound links ...
-
We're strongly considering a domain name change; this is purely for marketing reasons. We think in the long term, this will be a good thing. I believe we can mitigate the page redirection, branding changes, etc.
My concern are the inbound links: from 200+ domains, 3,000+ links.
So, I guess we can contact each of the top sites linking to us and hope they update our links. I'm not hopeful. I believe we'll loose must of the links.
Has anyone been down this road and have experience to share?
What should I expect, worst case? Is there a way to mitigate?Thanks much.
Jim -
We just went through this exact same change for marketing reasons. With a combination of 301 redirects and a ton of new content we found our organic dropped significantly on day one but after a period of about two weeks now things have bounced back and in some cases the new content has allowed us to rank better.
Our previous site had tons of outdated code and was not particularly clean. Pages now load much faster, the new look seems to have increased the number of pages per visit as well as time on site. If we had to do it over again tomorrow we certainly would. Sometimes not renovating the site I think costs you more in the long run.
Hope this helps.
Gary
-
Hi Jim,
Yes you actually have to do quite a bit to keep your site from losing its traction. You will most likely see a drop in rank regardless of how well you do it. The amount of time could be a day to a week if you do it right if you do it wrong it could be until you fix it or regain the links
It is not wise to lose that amount of links it will be like your site is committing suicide. Simply 301 redirect them using the information below if you cannot get the original owner of the site who links to you to link to your new domain.
When done properly you must use all the tools at your disposal to find your back links
Moz open site Explorer
http://www.opensiteexplorer.org/
MajesticSEO
Ahrefs
if I were you I would subscribe to the other 2 for one month in order to get the data I needed. Some people use Raven tools because it incorporates MajesticSEO for back links however I do not believe it is as good as actually using MajesticSEO
http://raventools.com/marketing-tools/seo-software/
Sost of what you need is answered in this question below.
http://moz.com/community/q/how-to-keep-old-url-juice-during-site-switch
here is a bigger version of the and photograph if it cannot be seen very well.
http://www.aleydasolis.com/images/seo-website-domain-migration.gif
I strongly recommend buying the tool called screaming frog SEO spider if you're going to be the one doing this
http://www.screamingfrog.co.uk/seo-spider/
combine that with the SEER interactive guide on screaming frog and the information in the URL above and you will be in good shape.
http://www.seerinteractive.com/blog/screaming-frog-guide
Sincerely,
Thomas
-
Hi Jim-
If there are any links in your control or from places you have a close relationship with, I would recommend updating those. However, you don't need to worry about updating the rest of the external links.
You simply need to set-up 301 redirects from the old website to the corresponding page on the new website.
oldsite.com/blue-widgets.html-> 301 to newsite.com/blue-widgets
Make sure a 301 redirect is used. Read more about redirects here: http://moz.com/learn/seo/redirection
After making the updates, you will usually see a slight loss in organic traffic that tends to recover after time. Changing websites, replacing old pages with new pages, etc are all common practices on the web. In general the search engines handle them really well when a 301 is in place.
Good luck!
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
-
When conducting a link building strategy does it matter the country the link is from?
We are a UK business and if we have links mostly from US based blogs and websites does this penalise us. The links are from relevant websites and topics. Should we be focusing on .co.uk sites
Link Building | | Caffeine_Marketing1 -
How do the powerful links of an old domain help my new domain?
I recently purchased a domain with over twenty years age, a few .gov links and A LOT of .edu links. Of course, the domain is relevant to my site's content. I'm hosting the domain on my shared server and have setup 301 redirects for each page that had external links pointing to it via the htaccess file within the domain's root directory. These 301 redirects, of course, point to my new domain, which is on a dedicated server. Specifically, they point to a directory on my new domain. I've also verified the purchased domain and my new domain on Google Search Console/Webmaster Tools. Finally, I've completed a google site change request for the old site to point to my new site. My questions: Should I also list my old domain on the dedicated server over the shared server or does it matter? Will the backlinks of the old site show up in my new site's links via Google's search console, Open Site Explorer, etc.? Will the backlinks of the old site improve the authority of my domain? Also, keep in mind that I have the 301 redirects pointing to a directory on my new site, not the root page of the new domain. Will the backlinks of the old site help my new domain's authority? In the eyes of Moz I've read, NO. I understand it's just a MOZ metric but from what I understand it also correlates with Google's actual 'authority' metric/method of giving value to a particular domain over another based on the backlinks. How exactly do the backlinks of the old domain benefit my new domain and is there a way to measure this/see the relationship? Thank you for any help you're willing to give!
Link Building | | ninel_P0 -
Do footer links pass less link juice?
One of my best inbound links for PA and DA happens to be a footer link, curious if it's less valuable or has any value at all.
Link Building | | Theskimonster0 -
Links from erotic domains
hi.. I have purchased several domains which have had a lot of backlinks.. a lot of these backlinks are still active but mainly from pornsites.. do those backlinks affect the websites i links to from the domain? fx. lets say i have the domain abc.com which has a link from sex.com.. Now i want to link from abc.com to def.com - will the link from sex.com affect def.com in any way?
Link Building | | AdForce10 -
Back Link: Is LinkedIn keywords in profile good Link building strategy?
I distribute industrial products B2B with e commerce. I have a personal profile on LinkedIn. I listed the products I sell and I could have all my partners and associates list my web site on their profiles. Do search engines review LinkedIn personal profiles or company profiles and is it a good marketing strategy to have my web site, keywords, and my two largest selling products on LinkedIn?
Link Building | | Wales0 -
Recommended number of links on a single page to a different domain?
Hello fine SEOMOZ people, I have looked around and hope I have not missed an answer to this. The big picture: I know that when multiple links on a page point to the same external page, only the first link is considered for ranking purposes (at least for moz rank). What about multiple links on a page to (different) pages on the same external domain? The task: Using a client's network of sites to help build links (and advertise features) to the site they need optimised. The emphasis is on the usefulness of the info the the respective site's user but I am using the opportunity to create some meaningful anchor text links.The target site is feature rich and I could conceivavbly link to all the key site features (top level pages). However, my SEO spidey senses flagged the possibility that a few links on a page to the target domain (though to different pages on that domain), may carry more weight than many links on the page. I am talking about whether I can go ahead and put 10-15 links on a page to the key site features or whether I am (significantly) better off just selecting 2-5 key target feature pages and using other domains to link to the other features. Caveat: I think I am aware of all the peripheral concerns - not duplicating the page on other sites, varying the anchor text, not implementing the links all at once etc, etc.. Am I overthinking this?
Link Building | | LoweProfero-AU0 -
Linking to root domain or specific sub-site
Hello, When optimizing for multiple keywords, should I try to get links back to the root domain of the company I work with, or would it be better to link back to sub-sites specific to the keyword I am optimizing for? Does 'getting the root up' help all keywords I work with? Cheers, Mike
Link Building | | Malarowski0 -
Linking from Blogs
Hi I like to link from blogs on similar keywords on a regular basis but I am thinking about changing tactics as it can appear monotonous and un natural. What are peoples experiences in linking from blogs ?
Link Building | | onlinemediadirect0