Redirect issue launching duplicate product categories on another TLD
-
Dear Mozzerz
We run this e-commerce website (superstar.dk) where we are selling all different kinds of wristwatches from different brand names (Casio, Garmin, Suunto etc). We just bought another website selling watches (xxx.com) and therefore we would like to move some of the content from superstar.dk to the new website xxx.com, making superstar.dk into a more niche website. So we are basically taking a brand with all the products in it and shutting it down on superstar.dk and instead launching it on xxx.com. Superstar.dk will still be running, just with a more niche product- and brand selection.
So my question is, should we redirect all the old product categories that we are shutting down to the new website on another TLD where we are opening them again and the same for the products (e.g. superstar.dk/garmin -> xxx.com/garmin)? Or would it be better to keep the redirects within the same website/TLD (e.g. superstar.dk/garmin -> superstar.dk)?
A few examples:
superstar.dk/garmin -> xxx.com/garmin
superstar.dk/suunto -> xxx.com/suunto
etc..
superstar.dk/product1 -> xxx.com/product1
superstar.dk/product2 -> xxx.com/product2
etc. -
That would point the most authority at the home page, but isn't the best user experience. Our concern is that Google monitors how people use 301s in terms of how it affects user experience and whether the redirection was done purely for SEO purposes. However, if you can do that without confusion, it would be a good option.
-
Wouldn't it be better to boost the frontpage of superstar.dk, redirecting all url's here (if we keep the confusion of our visitors out of the quation) ?
-
Hi Soren,
If I were going to redirect internally (i.e. remove the brands, sub-categories and products but not redirect those pages to xxx.com), I'd consider creating a page on a new URL on superstar.dk, explaining why the pages are gone and linking to xxx.com. This won't confuse users, but will keep the authority of those redirected pages within the old domain.
If I were going to redirect to the new site, I would clearly do as you've mentioned above, redirecting www.superstar.dk/product1.html to www.xxx.com/product1.html and so forth.
-
Thank you for your take Jane. We would like to keep superstar.dk as a well ranking website on all other categories (we are only removing 2-4 brand). Would you redirect the brand categories, sub-categories and product url's to the frontpage of superstar.dk or how would you do the redirects?
-
I would agree with Rishi that redirecting between domains can be a little bit troublesome - it should make a lot of sense, but it's a tactic that has been abused for spam / low quality purposes in the past, and any tactic that has been abused is likely to be scrutinised at some point.
Ignoring potential future issues for a second, I would also say that whether to redirect or not depends on your goals. If you wish to pass all the authority from a well-established, well-ranked existing site (superstar.dk) and move the brand (besides the small niche you'll keep), redirection could be very helpful. If you don't want to remove any equity from superstar.dk, redirection to the home page or to a page explaining the site's changes + linking to the new website, could be good too.
-
If the new website is really new I suggest testing to see what happens when you redirect from the older site. If the older site pages dont have rankings and or any authority, I wouldnt bother either way.
-
The new website has not even launched yet. We wan't to be sure how to handle this case before we launch. So what is your recommendation?
Anyone else who knows what best practice would be in our specific case?
-
So my question is, should we redirect all the old product categories that we are shutting down to the new website on another TLD where we are opening them again and the same for the products (e.g. superstar.dk/garmin -> xxx.com/garmin)? Or would it be better to keep the redirects within the same website/TLD (e.g. superstar.dk/garmin -> superstar.dk)?
Historically my answer would have been straightforward. Redirect to the new site. However with the changing rules in search engines I would advise caution. Does your new website have stable rankings? Is it worth the risk of 301's from another site?
My opinion is use of 301s for ranking cross domains may be a tactic that borders on the grey area and could lead to a penalty in the future.
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
-
How does product category description affect SEO?
Hi - we are a website that sells tours. We have category pages that list the tours in that category (by city, by length of time, theme, etc). At the top of each category page, before the buttons linking to the tours, there is a category description. It is a pretty long paragraph. We are redesigning the website and think it would look nicer to show 2-3 lines of text and then have a down arrow and 'read' more so people can click and it would expand to show the full category description if they want to read it and it won't take up so much room that way. My question is - will this affect SEA at all? Or because the text is still there, just hidden, it won't do anything? Our site ranks very high in organic searches on google and we do not want to do anything that will hurt SEO. thanks.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Shirapn0 -
Can't support IE 7,8,9, 10\. Can we redirect them to another page that's optimized for those browsers so that we can have our site work on modern browers while still providing a destination of IE browsers?
Hi, Our site can't support IE 7,8,9, 10. Can we redirect them to another page that's optimized for those browsers so that we can have our site work on modern broswers while still providing a destination of IE browsers? Would their be an SEO penalty? Thanks!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | dspete0 -
If you do 302 redirect then change to 301 redirect do you lose all link juice?
Hello everyone, I was wondering if you could help me with understanding the following story: A website has been moved from its HTTP version to a HTTPS version. The SEO manager has advised developers that they needed to do 301 redirects. However, in the end, 302 redirects have been put in place instead. Now, 301s should be put in place ASAP. The million dollar question is: has the website lost all of its link juice already given the nature of the redirects? Also, does it depend on whether Google has indexed the new 302 pages or does it depend on something else? Many thanks!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | MarketingGH0 -
Duplicate content - how to diagnose duplicate content from another domain before publishing pages?
Hi, 🙂 My company is having new distributor contract, and we are starting to sell products on our own webshop. Bio-technology is an industry in question and over 1.000 products. Writing product description from scratch would take many hours. The plan is to re-write it. With permission from our contractors we will import their 'product description' on our webshop. But, I am concerned being penalies from Google for duplicate content. If we re-write it we should be fine i guess. But, how can we be sure? Is there any good tool for comparing only text (because i don't want to publish the pages to compare URLs)? What else should we be aware off beside checking 'product description' for duplicate content? Duplicate content is big issue for all of us, i hope this answers will be helpful for many of us. Keep it hard work and thank you very much for your answers, Cheers, Dusan
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Chemometec0 -
Working to Start an Shopping Idea Site - Which Totally Based On Scraping product from Ecom. How Quickly I should Add products and categories in this new domain.
How Quickly I should Add products and categories in this new domain. We are going to start its promotional by google adwords and facebook. I worrying about 10000's of product pages. kindly guide me.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | innovatebizz0 -
Using Webmaster Tools to Redirect Domain to Specific Page on Another Domain
Hey Everyone, we redirected an entire domain to a specific URL on another domain (not the homepage). We used a 301 Redirect, but I'm also wondering if I should use the Google Webmaster Tools "Change of Address" section to redirect. There is no option to redirect the old domain to the specific URL on the new domain within the "Change of Address" section. Thoughts?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | M_D_Golden_Peak0 -
Category Pages up - Product Pages down... what would help?
Hi I mentioned yesterday how one of our sites was losing rank on product pages. What steps do you take to improve the SERPS of product pages, in this case home/category/product is the tree. There isn't really any internal linking, except one link from the category page to each product, would setting up a host of internal links perhaps "similar products" linking them together be a place to start? How can I improve my ranking of these more deeply internal pages? Not just internal links?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | xoffie0 -
Will an RSS feed help new product get indexed? How to create one for product?
Hi I've read that creating an RSS feed for one of our ecommerce sites will help the products get indexed faster. Currently it takes google 4-5 days to index our new products, we want to speed that up. Will an RSS feed of the new products we have help? How do you create an RSS feed for this? Our blog gets indexed within minutes, but our main website, 4 days. Help!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | xoffie0