Changing domain and transferring SEO power to new.
-
hi,
i have a website with some pages index in google on first page. i want to change the domain name but also want to keep the old domain. How can i transfer the index pages SEO power to new domains pages? So the new domain page can appear instead of old domain. 301 redirect will permanently redirect the user to new domain but i want to keep the old domain running for users only, not for Search engines. any idea. please share. thanks.
-
Hello!
Interesting question. I'd like to probe a little, but let's tackle the easy stuff first...
You can use a canonical URL tag in the header of each of your pages to reference which version you'd like Google to consider the 'correct' version of a page.
For example, on www.domain1.com/page/, you can set a canonical URL tag of www.domain2.com/page/. This acts as a 'strong hint' to Google that you consider these pages to be equivalent, and that you'd like the www.domain2.com version to inherit all of the signals from the www.domain1.com example.
This isn't a perfect solution, mind you. If you still have lots of links (internal or external), equity, coverage or other forms of attention pointing at the www.domain1.com example, this page might still have some of the authority and signals. You're essentially asking Google nicely to move the value, and hoping that they agree that that's OK / the right decision.
From a technical perspective, I'm assuming that your setup will involve serving a single site from both domains, and in which case, the content/tech/templates/URLs are the same, apart from the domain. Assuming that this is the case, you need to make sure that every page is a one-to-one, like-for-like match. You shouldn't point everything at the homepage, for example, and you should also make sure that things like category pages, listings, and other templated or procedurally generated pages also use canonical tagging.
If your tech setup is more complex than this, you'll need to do some thinking on how you 'map' canonical tags between the various versions of your pages and content - something which might require some planning and further investigation.
As an additional consideration, there's no guarantee that the www.domain1.com won't show up in search results if people search for it directly, or if that version of the page has disproportionately high amounts of authority (as I outlined above). And whilst you could use meta robots noindex tags on the www.domain1.com pages _and _canonical tags, there are mixed schools of thoughts on whether this is safe - it may be that Google interprets this as an instruction to inherit the noindex attribute on the www.domain2.com example.
As for your particular scenario, I'd be interested in understanding why you want to maintain the original/current version of the website 'for users'. If I can understand a bit more about the business requirements and what success looks like, it may be that I can refine your options a bit.
I note that some of the other answers have referenced domain forwarding/masking, and 301 redirects. I'd be hesitant to do anything with either, without a better understanding of your setup. Conditional and user-based 301 redirects can be risky if not implemented very carefully (and don't solve for your canonical / equity challenge), and domain forwarding is rarely an SEO-friendly solution (you're just making your website available from more/other domains).
Hopefully this is helpful; it'd be great to dig deeper.
-
Hi. You stated you did not care about SEO results but instead you want to maintain easy navigation and keeping your existing customers happy and with as little change as possible.I believe this is what you expressed above. If this is exactly what you mean then ,I would suggest not using a normal redirect permanent 301 redirect procedure. Instead you will need to go into your domain account ,If it is GoDaddy etc. When you begin the redirect procedure you will see the word MASKING. What Masking does for a redirect is it allows you to forward your current customer base to the new domain but the new website domain will be Masked with your original domain information including Title and Description of your choice during the Forwarding WITH masking procedure.You will have the option to enter this information.Simply use your original title and description during this . As for SEO issues there will be issues from this procedure. Unless the Page URLS are almost identical along with titles and descriptions as well as content, Then you probably will not recover your rankings ,But if you are not yet getting a ton of traffic then its still early enough to begin your SEO all over again and do your best to recover as much link juice as possible.
-
Hi Green.h,
If you are keeping the old website, what you want to do is tricky. To pass link juice to the new domain you need to 301 redirect the URLS. This is how google knows that the website has changed domains and that it should rank the new urls in place of the old. If you do not do a 301 redirect and keep the old site live, you basically have 2 websites. One website with ranking and a new website that you will now need to begin an SEO campaign.
-
This link i think will help you
https://www.hobo-web.co.uk/how-to-change-domain-names-keep-your-rankings-in-google/
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
-
Building new site on new web host with concerns
Hello, I have a domain with GoDaddy and current site is hosted there as well. I want to leave my domain with GoDaddy and build a brand new site on HostGator. The current website was designed to get us started. Not any significant traffic, backlinks, or SEO. The domain is not really what I want. There are 80 pages including those that are no longer in service. The keywords are not as relevant today. Current site domain is whiterocktech.net The new site will be very much different with SEO leading the way. We have designed it yet have not opened an account yet with HostGator. In addition, we have found a shorter more appropriate domain name. Not ideal but easy to type in yet it has a dash. This site is wr-crm.com. Questions: Does it make sense to "cut bait" from the current site given the lack use? Does it make sense to build the site and still set redirects from the old domain pages to a new one? Given so little traffic, is there really an effect on SEO if we sunset the old domain? Could I strip out the old domain website and just post a message on one page to come to our new site until old domain expires? I appreciate any insights on helping me with this decision. Mike
Technical SEO | | mmcgibbony0 -
Menu impact on SEO
we have a single page web application for an ecommerce website. I think it is built in angular. One UX features we are exploring is the use of a "Products" Item on the menu with the categories showing on a menu rather than directly present on the header. The aim being to keep the header nice and clean. The result of this is that the categories which would typically sit in the header will now not be immediately visible until the menu is opened. Let's say I want to rank well for "building materials". Traditionally the view would be that this word would need to be in the header and marked up with the appropriate h tag. Will moving "building materials" into a product menu be detrimental for SEO? My initial thought is that as long as it is coded correctly there shouldn't be any impact on SEO. Can anyone give me their expert SEO view?
Technical SEO | | built_bot0 -
Canonicals & 301 Redirects to new Domain
We will be changing our domain name soon and I want to make sure I'm not painting myself into a corner. Of course, I want to transfer as much link equity as possible. Question #1: Do I need to define a canonical from the old domain to the new domain? Question #2: Do I also need to put 301s in place on the pages with link equity, or is there a way to apply 301s across the entire site on all pages? Any input would be appreciated greatly! Thanks!
Technical SEO | | BVREID0 -
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 -
SEO changing from Wix Flash too Wix HTML
I have a Wix flash website www.theonlinefloorwarehouse.com.au which is number one in Google search for most of our main products Due to having a large number of changes and the draw backs with flash I pads etc I have rebuilt it in Wix HTML temporarily under this URL www.laminateflooringperth.net.au/ Now I find out Wix uses Ajax technology which most people say is useless for SEO after months of work I do not know weather to switch to the HTML site or not perhaps I should use both sites ? Has any one switched to HTML from Flash, was there a drop in or higher rankings ? Any advice would be greatly appreciated Regards John
Technical SEO | | johnnewson0 -
If the order of products on a page changes each time the page is loaded, does this have a negative effect on the SEO of those pages?
Hello, a client of mine has a number of category pages that each have a list of products. Each time the page is reloaded the order of those products changes. Does this have a negative effect on the pages' rankings? Thank you
Technical SEO | | Kerry_Jones2 -
Two blogs on the same domain
I have had two blogs on the same domain for a while now, and it just occurred to me that no one else seems to do this and maybe it's even weird. http://www.stadriemblems.com/blog/
Technical SEO | | UnderRugSwept
http://www.stadriemblems.com/scouting/blog/ One is our main blog, and one is for a very concentrated niche of customers. What are your opinions on this? Everything from SEO to best practices, to overall unusual-ness?0 -
Redirect Multiple Domains
This is a follow-up question from one posted earlier this month. I can't linked to that because it's a private question so I'm trying to summarize it below. We have a number of domains – about 20 - (e.g. www.propertysharp.com) that point to our main domain ip adress (www.propertyshark.com) and share the same content. This is no black-hat strategy whatsoever, the domains were acquired several years ago in order to help people who mistyped the websites url to reach their desired destination. The question was whether to redirect them to our main domain or not. Pros were the reportedly millions of incoming links from these domains - cons was the fact that lots of issues regarding duplicate content could arise and we actually saw lots of some pages from these domains ranking in the search engines. We were recommended to redirect them, but to take it gradually. I have a simple question - what does gradually mean - one domain per week, per month?
Technical SEO | | propertyshark0