I want to use a domain that has previously been forwarded elsewhere. Any considerations?
-
There's a domain name (we will call it A) with no domain authority that is currently forwarded to a domain with 36 DA (we will call this domain B). B has been dormant for about two years. I am getting both domains, but domain A works better for what I will be using it for. So basically, I want to swap things around so B forwards to A, instead of A forwarding to B. Any dangers here or things to consider that I may be overlooking?
-
Yes, analyze the links pointing to that domain and verify there arent many SPAM links.
Also, a link reclamation campaign will most likely be needed for brand mentions, which can be very time consuming.
-
The main danger will be, which domain holds the majority of your quality backlinks? A link which hits a page directly, usually contributes more to the associated website's SEO authority, than a hyperlink which hits a page through a redirect (even the mighty 301)
Google have at times, stated that 301 redirects do or do not transfer 100% of a page's SEO authority to the destination URL. So which is it!? Do they or don't they!?
What we have found is that the content similarity seems to make a big difference. A 301 redirect can transfer 100% of the SEO equity, or it can transfer as little as 0%. If the content on the page which is sending the redirect was similar to the content on the resultant page (destination URL) then a lot of the authority seems to slide over. If the content is very different then not much does. This includes site-theme similarity (using the same or a similar) logo to some degree, but the impact of those alterations is lower than alterations of the core content
I personally reckon' that Google thematically categorise sites and, that does impact the equity flow of links and redirects. A site which is a dog hotel, could redirect all its pages to a car garage - but guess what? The axiom of relevance along which the SEO authority travels is too tenuous, so one site is thrown away and the gains on the new site are minimal
It's possible that Google sometimes takes things a step further and compares the similarity of the content (included images, text, everything) on their cache of the old page to the content on the new page. This would obviously be done mathematically using something like Boolean string-similarity comparison (or similar)
Some sites even lose a chunk of their SEO authority during redesign-oriented migrations, because the strength of their content similarity is too low. If anything it's best to keep things isolated, move an exact replica of the site to the new domain first - then change the design later. SEO is marketing. Marketing is money. Money comes first
If you are moving one site to another domain, then you are embarking upon a migration project. They can be really complex with many factors to consider. I wish you the best of 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
-
Can I use a 301 redirect to pass 'back link' juice to a different domain?
Hi, I have a backlink from a high DA/PA Government Website pointing to www.domainA.com which I own and can setup 301 redirects on if necessary. However my www.domainA.com is not used and has no active website (but has hosting available which can 301 redirect). www.domainA.com is also contextually irrelevant to the backlink. I want the Government Website link to go to www.domainB.com - which is both the relevant site and which also should be benefiting from from the seo juice from the backlink. So far I have had no luck to get the Government Website's administrators to change the URL on the link to point to www.domainB.com. Q1: If i use a 301 redirect on www.domainA.com to redirect to www.domainB.com will most of the backlink's SEO juice still be passed on to www.domainB.com? Q2: If the answer to the above is yes - would there be benefit to taking this a step further and redirect www.domainA.com to a deeper directory on www.domianB.com which is even more relevant?
Technical SEO | | DGAU
ie. redirect www.domainA.com to www.domainB.com/categoryB - passing the link juice deeper.0 -
Moving content to a new domain
I need to move a lot of content with podcasts and show notes to a new domain. Instead of doing redirects, we want to keep some content on the current domain to retain the link value. There are business reason to keep content on both websites but the new website will primarily be used for SEO moving forward.If we keep the audio portion of the podcast on the old website and move the show notes and the audio portion of the podcast to the new website, is there any issues with duplicate content?Long-term, I presume Google will re-index the old and the new pages, thus no duplicate content, but I want to make sure I'm not missing anything. I was planning to fetch pages in Search Console as we migrate content.Thanks for your help!
Technical SEO | | JimmyFritz0 -
Which url should i use? Thanks!
I have a question regarding how to use my url, we are a Swedish-based website which have the url, http://interimslösning.se/ (that contains the Swedish letter “ö”) so the url can also be written as http://xn--interimslsning-3pb.se/. Which of the following url should I use for my backlinks, http://interimslösning.se/ or http://xn--interimslsning-3pb.se/ ? What is the difference between them regarding SEO? And is it good or bad to use letter like "ö" or other characters like that in your url? I was thinking that maybe it is good to use the letter "ö" for local search optimization in sweden, but i don't know.. Thanks in advance! Greetings,
Technical SEO | | Kiwibananlime
Paul Linderoth0 -
I have a sub domain that has live content on it but the root domain redirects to another URL. I know this is not great but what are the implications?
I have a subdomain that is populated and has content. The root domain that the sub lives on redirects to an entirely different URL. I am trying to make a case as to why this isn't great besides the fact that it is just weird user experiences. What are the SEO implications etc. Would any equity that gets built up on the subdomain get passed along in the redirect? Or will there be indexation issues with Google? Cheers, Mark
Technical SEO | | mjsikorsky0 -
Is Buying Domains Good For SEO? Can I 301 redirect domains to an Original website?
I have a friend that purchased multiple domains related to their website. Each of these domains have the back ground of the original website and irrelevant content on them. Is is possible to redirect the various domains to certain pages on the original website. For example if the website is www.shoes.com and they purchased domains such as www.leathermensshoes.com and a few others related to the website. Is it SEO friendly to link the domains purchased to the original website?
Technical SEO | | TSpike10 -
Domain Transfer Process / Bulk 301's Using IIS
Hi guys - I am getting ready to do a complete domain transfer from one domain to another completely different domain for a client due to a branding/name change. 2 things - first, I wanted to lay out a summary of my process and see if everyone agrees that its a good approach, and second, my client is using IIS, so I wanted to see if anyone out there knows a bulk tool that can be used to implement 301's on the hundreds of pages that the site contains? I have found the process to redirect each individual page, but over hundreds its a daunting task to look at. The nice thing about the domain transfer is that it is going to be a literal 1:1 transfer, with the only things changing being the logo and the name mentions. Everything else is going to stay exactly the same, for the most part. I will use dummy domain names in the explanation to keep things easy to follow: www.old-domain.com and www.new-domain.com. The client's existing home page has a 5/10 GPR, so of course, transferring Mojo is very important. The process: Clean up existing site 404's, duplicate tags and titles, etc. (good time to clean house). Create identical domain structure tree, changing all URL's (for instance) from www.old-domain.com/freestuff to www.newdomain.com/freestuff. Push several pages to a dev environment to test (dev.new-domain.com). Also, replace all instances of old brand name (images and text) with new brand name. Set up 301 redirects (here is where my IIS question comes in below). Each page will be set up to redirect to the new permanent destination with a 301. TEST a few. Choose lowest traffic time of week (from analytics data) to make the transfer ALL AT ONCE, including pushing new content live to the server for www.new-domain.com and implementing the 301's. As opposed to moving over parts of the site in chunks, moving the site over in one swoop avoids potential duplicate content issues, since the content on the new domain is essentially exactly the same as the old domain. Of course, all of the steps so far would apply to the existing sub-domains as well, IE video.new-domain.com. Check for errors and problems with resolution issues. Check again. Check again. Write to (as many as possible) link partners and inform them of new domain and ask links to be switched (for existing links) and updated (for future links) to the new domain. Even though 301's will redirect link juice, the actual link to the new domain page without the redirect is preferred. Track rank of targeted keywords, overall domain importance and GPR over time to ensure that you re-establish your Mojo quickly. That's it! Ok, so everyone, please give me your feedback on that process!! Secondly, as you can see in the middle of that process, the "implement 301's" section seems easier said than done, especially when you are redirecting each page individually (would take days). So, the question here is, does anyone know of a way to implement bulk 301's for each individual page using IIS? From what I understand, in an Apache environment .htaccess can be used, but I really have not been able to find any info regarding how to do this in bulk using IIS. Any help here would be GREATLY APPRECIATED!!
Technical SEO | | Bandicoot0 -
Buying a new domain
Hello guys! We are in process of buying a new domain. How can we be sure that this domain is not blacklisted and are there any steps to take in order to be sure that whatever we are buying is actually in "good shape"? Thanks much!
Technical SEO | | echo10 -
Using the Canonical Tag
Hi, I have an issue that can be solve with a canonical tag, but I am not sure yet, we are developing a page full of statistics, like this: www.url.com/stats/ But filled with hundreds of stats, so users can come and select only the stats they want to see and share with their friends, so it becomes like a new page with their slected stats: www.url.com/stats/?id=mystats The problems I see on this is: All pages will be have a part of the content from the main page 1) and many of them will be exactly the same, so: duplicate content. My idea was to add the canonical tag of "www.url.com/stats/" to all pages, similar as how Rand does it here: http://www.seomoz.org/blog/canonical-url-tag-the-most-important-advancement-in-seo-practices-since-sitemaps But I am not sure of this solution because the content is not exactly the same, page 2) will only have a part of the content that page 1) has, and in some cases just a very small part. Is the canonical tag useful in this case? Thank you!
Technical SEO | | andresgmontero0
