Website Domain Redirection- Rebranding Issues
-
I have a website domain redirection query
At the moment because of rebranding and domain changes I havehttp://www.physioinqnepean.com.au redirecting to http://www.nepeanphysiohydro.com.au/.http://www.nepeanphysiohydro.com.au/ is the primary domain because at the time I wanted to appease any SEO ramifications that might’ve occurred if I had the new domain at the time “http://www.physioinqnepean.com.au” as the primary domain.Unfortunately, my client now wants to rebrand AGAIN with the new website domain being “http://www.physioinqpenrith.com.au”.I wanted to gauge what would be the best SEO practice in relation to what domain should be the “Primary domain"?
-
Hello,
Early I have the same issue with this post: https://instamama.net/blog/how-to-change-instagram-name/ - previously I have 4 different versions of this page
https://
https://www.
http://
http://www.and all of this was detected by google as different URLs until I`m using the 301 redirect
So just use 301 redirects if you would like to set the primary website or page.
-
In the event that the customer's webpage/brand is definitely not a notable family/high-road name, at that point I'd expect some reaction from Google regarding how far they will try to go for your customer's site. In the event that they have recently moved space and Google has gulped that, doing it again so rapidly may make Google disregard the new site somewhat regarding slither remittance. The explanation being, the customer ought to have made their psyche up which last area they needed to move to a whole lot sooner. Should Google's crawlers endure the weights of an (assumedly) little customer's uncertainty? I'm wagering that their response to that question, would be no.
-
What do you mean by "primary domain"? Are you talking Google Search Console or something else? I assume you are not using the other domains other than to redirect?
Let me know if the above is true. You can move to yet another domain, but it is advised against as EffectDigital said because everything has to be reindexed again. It's possible to do and they'll be fine in the future, but it is going to hurt for some time.
-
First of all, if this is all happening in very quick succession I'd put across to the client that the consequences of such regular major disruption could be a significant loss of rankings. They obviously have to accept the potential consequences before forging ahead. Some rankings can be lost even with a perfect migration project which has a perfect 301 redirect implementation
301 redirects can translate up to 100% of your SEO authority from one place to another, but they won't always. If there are too many links to redirects that can make them slightly less effective. If redirects begin to chain (redirects to redirects) or if the wrong type of redirect is used, that can drastically affect the transfer and you could see as little as 0% of the prior SEO equity on your new domain
Another thing, if content is relatively different (in machine terms, think Boolean string similarity comparison - NOT "oh yeah as a person it looks similar to me") on the old and new pages, that can directly obstruct 301 redirect SEO authority transfer. Google has chosen to rank X page, if you replace it with Y content then it becomes a risk to Google. If content is mostly new, it mostly has to prove itself again (and redirects become largely nullified). To some extent you can get around this by performing backlink amendments
In your particular situation, it seems likely that left to their own devices, developers would just chain the redirects from the oldest domain, through the more recent domain to the final destination of the new domain. Do not let that happen, do check up on implementation ASAP. Do use the change of address tool in Google Search Console
If the client's site / brand isn't a well-known household / high-street name, then I'd expect some backlash from Google in terms of how far they will bother to go for your client's website. If they have just moved domain and Google has swallowed that, doing it again so quickly might cause Google to neglect the new site slightly in terms of crawl allowance. The reason being, the client should have made their mind up which final domain they wanted to move to much earlier. Should Google's crawlers suffer the burdens of an (assumedly) small client's indecision? I'm betting that their answer to that question, would be no
Be careful how much disruption you cause if you're in the small-fry boat. Google obviously don't like to encourage smaller, less valuable (from Google's perspective) ranking resources to disrupt their crawling schedules in such a disorganized manner. There could be consequences for such rapid movements
In terms of which domain should be the primary domain, I'd say that the domain which holds the highest SEO authority should be the primary domain. The domain with the best links pointing to it. Why? Because with that choice, the best links will be hitting the site directly instead of being pumped through 301 redirects (which may or may not transfer all SEO equity)
Let's look at all 3 domains now for you...
Old Domain: physioinqnepean.com.au
- Moz: https://mz.bundledseo.com/pro/link-explorer/overview?site=physioinqnepean.com.au&target=domain
- Domain Authority: 1
- Linking Domains: 0
- Inbound Links: 0
- Ahrefs: https://ahrefs.com/site-explorer/overview/v2/subdomains/recent?target=physioinqnepean.com.au
- Domain Rating: 0
- Linking Domains: 0
- Inbound Links: 0
- Majestic SEO: https://majestic.com/reports/site-explorer?IndexDataSource=F&q=physioinqnepean.com.au&oq=physioinqnepean.com.au
- Trust Flow: 1
- Citation Flow: 4
- Linking Domains: 9
- Inbound Links: 2
Current (Newer) Domain: nepeanphysiohydro.com.au
- Moz: https://mz.bundledseo.com/pro/link-explorer/overview?site=nepeanphysiohydro.com.au&target=domain
- Domain Authority: 19
- Linking Domains: 63
- Inbound Links: 116
- Ahrefs: https://ahrefs.com/site-explorer/overview/v2/subdomains/recent?target=nepeanphysiohydro.com.au
- Domain Rating: 0.7
- Linking Domains: 22
- Inbound Links: 142
- Majestic SEO: https://majestic.com/reports/site-explorer?folder=&q=nepeanphysiohydro.com.au&IndexDataSource=F
- Trust Flow: 8
- Citation Flow: 15
- Linking Domains: 28
- Inbound Links: 266
Future (Proposed)** Domain: physioinqpenrith.com.au**
- Moz: https://mz.bundledseo.com/pro/link-explorer/overview?site=physioinqpenrith.com.au&target=domain
- Domain Authority: 1
- Linking Domains: 0
- Inbound Links: 0
- Ahrefs: https://ahrefs.com/site-explorer/overview/v2/subdomains/recent?target=physioinqpenrith.com.au
- Domain Rating: 0
- Linking Domains: 0
- Inbound Links: 0
- Majestic SEO: https://majestic.com/reports/site-explorer?folder=&q=physioinqpenrith.com.au&IndexDataSource=F
- Trust Flow: 0
- Citation Flow: 0
- Linking Domains: 0
- Inbound Links: 0
None of the domains are massively strong, but I'd say that the primary (active) domain (which the other domains redirect to) should be the current (Newer)** Domain: nepeanphysiohydro.com.au**
It has some kind of SEO authority. Not much, but a little. It's out of Google's sandbox (unlike the proposed new domain) and it has some rankings. If you could keep this as the main domain and redirect the client's idea for a new one, then you wouldn't actually have to move address - right? That would cut SERP disruption down to a minimum. That would mean you wouldn't have to pester Google again, with yet another migration request which could easily piss them off at this point
Just to be sure, let's check the estimated search traffic for all three domains using Ahrefs and SEMRush
Old Domain: physioinqnepean.com.au
- (Global) Ahrefs search traffic estimate chart (download) - no real performance
- (Global) Ahrefs estimated ranking keywords: 5
- (USA database) SEMRush search traffic estimate chart (download) - no real performance
- (USA database) SEMRush estimated ranking keywords: 2
Current (Newer)** Domain: nepeanphysiohydro.com.au**
- (Global) Ahrefs search traffic estimate chart (download) - some performance, surprisingly good
- (Global) Ahrefs estimated ranking keywords: 411
- (USA database) SEMRush search traffic estimate chart (download) - some performance
- (USA database) SEMRush estimated ranking keywords: 50
Future (Proposed)** Domain: physioinqpenrith.com.au**
- (Global) Ahrefs search traffic estimate chart (download) - no real performance
- (Global) Ahrefs estimated ranking keywords: 0
- (USA database) SEMRush search traffic estimate chart (download) - no real performance
- (USA database) SEMRush estimated ranking keywords: 0
This confirmed exactly what I said through link data. Estimated traffic data shows that, yes - you should stick with your current domain instead of moving anything around (bad idea!)
Hope that helps
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
-
2 Websites Targeting Similar Keywords
One of my clients is set on setting up another website targeting some of the keywords/services on the main site. One of the services they offer gets traffic from natural search and also Adwords but doesn't convert well for this service. For other services (which are often utilized at the same time by the customers) the site converts well. My client feels that... "people are not converting on the main site because they click on the page and realise that we are a wider company. From this they probably work out that we don’t actually produce Green Widgets and we just buy them in. Therefore we will be more expensive than a company who does manufacture Green Widgets (although there are only a few in the country who actually make them)." The new site "...will have more of a manufacturer and specialist feel. There will be a small mention of other services. People visiting will think we are specialists and that we make them, whereas at the moment they may feel that they are just being cross sold a product. We have also noticed that we are not being found earlier enough and we are contacted to do other work only to find that another company is providing the Green Widgets." I did something similar back in the day, but here we ran a local website and a national website covering the same products. We tried hard not to duplicate the keywords we targeted minimising this as much as possible. I don't think we cared much about the local site as the national one went crazy busy. In essence, my client wants to do the following: Main Site...
Local SEO | | GrouchyKids
Blue Widgets Bristol
Red Widgets Bristol
Green Widgets Bristol (This would be retained) New Site...
The new site would focus on Green Widgets In time the new site would include content for...
Green Widgets
Green Widgets Bristol (As per the main site)
Green Widgets Cardiff It would also make mention of Blue Widgets and Red Widgets as possible addons. The new site would be at the same address but have its own companies house registration, emails and phone numbers. My feeling is that we should take an above-board, risk-free approach and remove the Green Widgets service from the main site to ensure it doesn't upset Google. In other words go out of our way to minimise targeting of similar/same keywords across the 2 sites. My client strongly disagrees showing evidence of others using similar tactics (we have had the EMD debate as well). I am also concerned about Google Places and how this might be viewed here. Opinions please, also any idea of what if any action Google would take if we push forwards?0 -
Keyword rich domain names -> Point to sales funnel sites or to landing pages on primary domain?
Hey everyone,
Local SEO | | Transpera
We have a tonne of old domains we have done nothing with. All of them are keyword-rich domains.
Things like "[City]SEOPro" or "[City]DigitalMarketing" where [city] is a city that we are already targeting services in. So all of these domains will be targeted for local cities as keywords. We have been having an internal debate about whether or not we should just host sales funnel pages on these domains, that are rich in keywords and content......... ... Or ... ... Should we point these domains to landing pages on our existing domain that are basically the same as what we would do with the sales funnel pages, but are on our primary site? (keyword rich, with good and plentiful content) Then, as a follow-up question... Should these be set as just 301 redirects on these domains to our actual primary domain so the browser sees the landing page domain instead of the actual keyword-rich domain? ( [city]seopro.com ) Thanks guys. I know for some, the response will be an obvious one. However; we have probably way over thought this and have arguments for almost every scenario. We think we have an answer but wanted to send this out to the community first. I won't post what we are thinking yet, so that the answers can remain unbiased for now and we can have a conversation without it being swayed any one way. We understand that 301 redirects would be seen as a doorway page.
We are also only discussing in the context of organic search only.
If we ran the domains as their own sites, they would be about 3 pages of content only. Pretty static, but good content. Think of a PAS style sales funnel. Problem -> Acknowledgement -> Solution.0 -
We're merging 2 separate websites into 1 but need to ideally rank service pages for both locations
I have a dilemma, we're merging 2 websites, one an Australian branch and one a UK one. We've decided to have a UK page and a AUS page so agency.site/uk/ agency.site/aus/ but what is the best tactic for the service pages? ideally, we'd like a web-design service page to rank in Australia and the UK but not sure if this is actually possible, or whether to duplicate the pages and localise them i.e. /web-design-leeds/ and /web-design-melbourne/ What's everyone's thoughts on this? localised landing pages with some duplicate content or one master page with both locations mentioned? Thanks!
Local SEO | | Unbranded_Lee1 -
Duplicate content on multiple domains
Dear all, I have bought 30 geo top level domains. This is for an ecommerce project that has not launcehd yet (and isn't indexed by Google). I am now at a point where I can change/consolidate all domains as sub domains or sub folders or keep things as they are. I just worry that link building would be scattered and not focused and that it might be better to concentrate the efforts on one domain. What are your views on this? Many thanks!
Local SEO | | UpMedio_SEO
Ami0 -
Handling redirects when 2 companies merge
I am working with 2 local businesses that are joining forces to create 1, new business. Both individually hold consistent position 1 and 2 in Google for the majority of their chosen terms. However, the merger will see a new brand name and therefore a fresh out of the box domain. I have suggested setting up a partition on the hosting for both old URLS. All that will be hosted there would be .htaccess files with 301s to the like-for-like pages on the brand new domain / website. This will obviously also aid UX. However, is this overkill? I personally think not... but would a domain level 301 redirect work just as well from preserving / passing on any authority to the new URL.
Local SEO | | AbsoluteDesign1 -
How can you add custom Structured Data to a website hosted on Squarespace?
I have a client with a simple one page landing website hosted on Squarespace. Is there any method to easily apply structured data to this format?
Local SEO | | RosemaryB0 -
Should I change my domain/brand name?
Hello everyone, Thanks for stopping by to check out my problem and to help shed light on it for myself and hopefully others in a similar boat! As Ive gotten more into this process of SEO and my online business (with the great help of many community members here, many thanks everyone!) I have begun building a wordpress site in prep of canceling my squarespace site (Im a Kauai based wedding photographer) for more SEO value, faster page load time, and more data and plugins to the site. During this time however Ive noticed that my business www.balihaiphoto.com has a lot of confusion/search results and content I think may be leading potential clients in other directions, or even google down the wrong track of what my business is. The reason I suspect this is a restaurant that hosts a lot of weddings, and in turn, wedding photographers blogging about the location (the venue is called Bali Hai and its not located in Hawaii) as well as a reality group here and that Im getting occasional hits on my site for "Bali Wedding photographer" when I'd like to be known/indexed and ranked for "Kauai wedding photographer" and am working on a lot of long tail content to add to the site once its finished up. I feel like Im answering my own question slightly as I feel that I need to change the domain and name to something new, unique, and not attached to anything other than Kauai and Hawaii, but dont know exactly why that may be the best thing to do, or, if it even is the best thing to do? I greatly appreciate any help or elaboration as to why or why not a domain and brand name change would be helpful or not. Many thanks everyone and Aloha! -Jon Gibb
Local SEO | | Jon_Gibb0 -
Lots of [keyword]in[city].com domains - what to do?
A client of mine had purchased a lot of domains. They all start with the same keyword following by "in" following by a cities name. The cities are all the cities around their location. They had the pages set up to all look the same with very small differences in content. A bunch of duplicate content. All of them have a DA of 8 and PA of 19. There are 35 of them total. They get roughly 30-60 hits a month each but it's mostly all spam. The idea was for users to type in [keyword] in [city] in Google and these websites show up. A competitor of my clients had done something similar which was working for them. The main website (separate of these) gets ~1500 visits per month of non spam traffic and gets ~10 referrals from these websites. What should be done with these domains? Chalk it off as a bad idea and have them 301 to the main website until they expire? Or can they be changed into something useful? If so, how? Any ideas would be greatly appreciated. Note: I did search for this similar topic but it was hard to search it out and I did not find an answer. Thanks!
Local SEO | | RedKeyDesigns0