Where should I 301 redirect my current domain to given this situation?
-
My company currently owns three apartment complexes. They are within blocks of each other. Only one of them has a website (believe it or not). The one that has the website ranks fairly well, but only because it has been around for a long time. There have not been any intentional SEO efforts. I have stumbled across a wonderful, keyword rich & location specific, domain name but I have a question. Here's the scenario:
We have:
Apartment Complex 1 - www.apartmentcomplex1.com (longstanding website)
Apartment Complex 2 - No website.
Apartment Complex 3 - No website.
We are considering buying the domain: www.KeywordRichDomain.com. The new URL structure would be:
www.KeywordRichDomain.com/apartment-complex-1
www.KeywordRichDomain.com/apartment-complex-2
www.KeywordRichDomain.com/apartment-complex-3
Should I 301 redirect www.apartmentcomplex1.com to the new root domain or should I redirect it to the appropriate sub-folder of the new domain?
Putting myself in the user's shoes, if I were expecting to go to the apartmentcomplex1.com domain, I would want to land on the sub-folder because it's relevant to what I was looking for. However, I don't think people will directly type in the old URL. I think people will be searching for apartments in the area and I want all three of our complexes to show up. By redirecting the good domain to this new root domain, it should help us start out life pretty well in the SERPS. (my assumption at least).
Thoughts?
-
George,
Thank you for your feedback. I agree with you that exact match domains are likely becoming less significant, but I thought I remembered from MozCon that case studies, as of that date (earlier this year), proved that EMDs were still resulting in clearly higher rankings. I'll have to go back to the videos.
I agree with you about the age assumption. I wasn't stating that the age, itself, was the ranking factor. I meant that because it had been around for so long that natural optimizations were occurring (natural linking, natural content, etc...). This wasn't intentional though. It just occurred through the normal course of business. According to the MozBar, while on the home page, it has a Domain Authority of 19 and a Page Authority of 31 with 266 links coming in from 13 root domains.
Thank you for sharing about the Google Webmaster tools restriction. I was unaware of that, but it makes sense. I could see why that would be abused, even though in this case I have a legitimate reason for doing so. I will ensure that clear navigation is in place on the home page.
Thanks again George!
-Alex
-
Hi,
I see a couple of assumptions in your question - I would say that having a "keyword rich domain" is becoming a less significant ranking factor in SERPs so I wouldn't base the migration of an existing website that performs pretty well on the potential of a new domain targetting certain KWs.
Secondl assumption is that your existing domain is ranking purely because it's older. There are likely to be other factors at play here - particularly backlinks.
However, I realise that you need to restructure the website and moving to a single domain with the complexes on subdirectories makes sense architecturally. You might well see a drop in rankings certainly in the meantime while you do this migration so if this is a key acquisiton channel, then investigate PPC options to bolster your traffic.
As for the 301 - I agree it makes sense to 301 to the complex subdirectory for a user, however in Webmaster Tools Google doesn't support the migration of one domain to the subdirectory of another domain. This means it won't be as seamless as if you migrate to the root of the new domain.
One way around this would be to redirect the old domain to the root domain, but provide very clear navigation on how to get to the relevant apartment complex to a user. As far as a user is concerned, I would see this as an acceptable solution.
George
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
-
What are SEO best practices for Java Language Redirections?
We would like to get some insight on what is the best practice of setting up canonical URLs in the below scenario. CMS used: Liferay – we believe they are using java. The URL structure at this stage can not be changed to best practices (/en/ and /ar/). Currently the language redirections works like this: English: https://www.website.com/page1?AF_language=en Arabic: https://www.website.com/page1?AF_language=ar Depending how you entered the website last time the root URL will show English or Arabic content without the ‘sufix’: https://www.website.com/page1 All 3 different URL’s are being indexed on Google - which is causing duplication and confusion. We have a few ideas: Have 2 main URLS: https://www.website.com/page1?AF_language=en and have the canonical set to https://www.website.com/page1?AF_language=en https://www.website.com/page1?AF_language=ar and have canonical set to https://www.website.com/page1?AF_language=ar However, how would you handle the root page which does not have a specific language attached. If we need to make a choice we would go with Arabic, as mainly Arabic pages are indexed on Google with the root domain. This way we would (hopefully) retain the rankings for this. Question: did anybody had to deal with a similar situation? What would you do in a similar situation and why? Thanks for all your input.
Local Website Optimization | | skrauss0 -
What's the current best practice for URL structure?
We’re really confused about the current best practice of URL structure. For example what would anyone advise to rank for luxury hotel rooms? name.com/luxury-hotel-rooms/
Local Website Optimization | | SolveWebMedia
name.com/hotel/luxury-hotel-rooms/
name.com/hotel/luxury-rooms/
name.com/hotel/luxury/
name.com/luxury-rooms/ Or do we add location? name.com/luxury-hotel-rooms-location/
name.com/hotel/luxury-hotel-rooms-location/ name.com/hotel/luxury-rooms-location/ They also do cottages name.com/cottages/sea-view-holiday-cottages/0 -
Redirecting to HTTPS for web design companies
Hello, We redirected our website about 3 months ago to https from http and noticed a drop in rankings after about 2 weeks. Unfortunately, our rankings have not yet recovered. Can anyone recommend a solutions? The website is https://www.web3.ca/ Do we have to build a lot of new links to https if we currently have links that are pointing to http, for the most part? Also, could the switch effect anchor text links? For example, if we have a link to web design, but the links is pointing to http, instead of https, would that link have less value now? Thanks, Anton Vasiliv
Local Website Optimization | | Web3
Creative Director
Web30 -
Current advice or best practice for personalization by geolocation?
What is the current advice for displaying content based on a user's geolocation? On the one hand, I know the rule of thumb is that you are not supposed to treat googlebot any different than any other user to your site and shouldn't show different content than what you would show a regular user, however on the other hand, if we personalize the content based on the geography, it means that the content that is indexed would be specific to Mt. View, CA in Google's index, correct? I know I heard years ago that the best practice was to use javascript to personalize the content client side, and block the js with robots.txt so that google indexes a default page and not a geo-specific page. Any insights or advice appreciated.
Local Website Optimization | | IrvCo_Interactive0 -
Any idea how to solve sub domain tracking using GTMv2?
my traffic goes to referral if visitors visits in my subdomain page. i have tried adding my subdomain in referral exclusion list and other ways via GTM posted in some articles, nothing seems to be working for me. any suggestions how to solve this issue
Local Website Optimization | | Jenifer300 -
Landing page, or redirect? Looking for feedback.
If we have a section of our site that we have branded separately from the rest of the site, does it make sense to provide a landing page on our current, high authority site that has content and links off to the separate site, or would just a domain.com/keyword redirect to the page be a better route? Does it matter? I have an idea, but I'd like to get feedback on this. We are a newspaper, http://billingsgazette.com and we have an auto branded site called http://montanawheelsforyou.com. The URL and branding is fubar. We're wondering if we can increase the ranking if we swapped out the http://billingsgazette.com/autos from a redirect to http://montanawheelsforyou.com to a landing page with content and a link to http://montanawheelsforyou.com.
Local Website Optimization | | rachaelpracht0 -
Whats in a domain name (tld)
So we are setting up a new site for a Business Improvement District (BID) for our local town. So initially we would name the new site TownNameBID.co.uk (or .com) . However with the new domain tld out we are thinking of getting TownName.BID using the new BID tld. .BID is meant to be reserved for sites such as auction sites, however this will actually be more of a community support site. I would have thought that technically it should not really make much difference particularly once all the appropriate Local Business is placed on the site. But what is the possibility that by search engines it may perceive this a an auction site as opposed to a community site. as well as technical issues are there any anecdotal issues where the wrong tld may put people off. Thoughts
Local Website Optimization | | smartcow0 -
2 Relevant local websites but closing one and redirecting it to an older site
We have 2 websites, 1 domain is about 10 years old and another is about 4 years old, the 4 yr old domain we are thinking of shutting down since its the same type of service we run but it was a 'keyword domain' that used to rank on 1st page but now its 4th page back. If we put the blog posts and other content + setup re-directs from the 4yr old domain to the 10 yr old domain, would this help the 10 yr old domain with more link juice that it might need for the extra boost? There isnt really any point having both websites up since both are about the same content and targeting the same local market.
Local Website Optimization | | surfsup0