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
-
In the age of people rarely actually typing domains directly, rather opting to type a brand name or part of the domain and letting Google et al. do the work, I'm not sure there is much issue having a dash. I'd certainly rather have the shorter domain with a dash than a longer one without.
-
Thanks, Alex. I appreciate you validating my hunches so that helps me with my decision. I can redirect quickly and keep the continuity.
To your point about the blog, the new site is blog and testimonial centric; big part of the new front. I think the plan we have will truly lift us up quickly.
Last thought/question - I've researched a lot on a domain with a dash. Varying thoughts both ways - do it and don't do it. I like the shortness and the domain.com rather the net. Any opinions on this?
Thanks again. Helps to have some chops to lean on here.
MM
-
Short answer, given the small amount of work to 301 everything, I'd go for it.
Slightly longer answers:
Does it make sense to "cut bait" from the current site given the lack use?
I wouldn't, I don't see any benefit to doing that. Your site does rank for some keywords and phrases (Not spectacularly, but it does rank none the less), so why chuck that way? 301 the pages to the new domain and host the content there. As a side note, maybe look at url structure for the blog posts at the same time, you might see an uplift in ranking.
Does it make sense to build the site and still set redirects from the old domain pages to a new one?
Yes, as above.
Given so little traffic, is there really an effect on SEO if we sunset the old domain?
Google, in my experience, seems to take a while to "forget" about old sites, even if they are 404ing. Your old content will, for a while, compete with your new site.
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?
Yes, but Google wouldn't understand that.
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
-
New URL Structure
Hi Guy's, For our webshop we're considering a new URL structure because longtail keywords to rank so well. Now we have /category (main focus keywords)
Technical SEO | | Happy-SEO
/product/the-product345897345123/ (nice to rank on, not that much volume) We have over 500 categories and every one of them is placed after our domain. Because i think it's better to work with a good structure and managed a way to make categories and sub-categories. The 500 categories may be the case why not every one of them is ranking so well, so that was also the choice of thinking about a new structure. So the new URL structure will be: /category (main focus keywords)
/category/subcat/ (also main focus keywords) Everything will be redirect (301, good way), so i think there won't be to much problems. I'm thinking about what to do with the /product/ URL. Because now it will be on the same level as the subcategories, and i'm affraid that when it's on that level, Google will give the same value to both of them. My options that i'm considering are: **Old way **
/product/the-product-345897345123/ .html (seen this on big webshops)
/product/the-product-345897345123.html/ Level deeper SKU /product/the-product/345897345123/ What would you suggest? The new structure would be 20 categories 500+ sub's devided under main categories 5000+ products Thanks!0 -
Site address change: new site isn't showing up in Google, old site is gone.
We just transitioned mccacompanies.com to confluentstrategies.com. The problem is that when I search for the old name, the old website doesn't come up anymore to redirect people to the new site. On the local card, Google has even taken off the website altogether. (I'm currently still trying to gain access to manage the business listing) When I search for confluent strategies, the website doesn't come up at all. But if I use the site: operator, it is in the index. Basically, my client has effectively disappeared off the face of the Google. (In doing other name changes, this has never happened to me before) What can I do?
Technical SEO | | MichaelGregory0 -
301'd site, but new site is not getting picked up in google.
Hi I'm having big issues! Any help would be greatly appreciated This is the 3rd time this happened. Every time I switch my old site greatcleanjokes.com to the new design of chokeonajoke.com traffic goes almost completely down (I even tried out the new design on greatcleanjokes [to see if it was a 301 issue] and traffic also went down.) What can possibly be wrong with this new site that google just doesn't like it ?! I was ranking high up for many big phrase like joke of the day, corny jokes, clean jokes, short jokes. Now It's all gone. I also think it's strange that when I search for site:chokeonajoke.com the post pages show up before the category pages!? Here is the old site http://web.archive.org/web/20140406214615/http://www.greatcleanjokes.com/ Here is the new one http://chokeonajoke.com/ If you can't figure out anything do you know of anyone I can hire who may be able to figure it out?
Technical SEO | | Nickys22111 -
Recommended Web Hosting Companies
Some of you might have seen that I recently discovered that another was mirroring my website(petmedicalcenter.com). Found out that this domain (justinchina.co.uk) was previously hosted on Host Monster and when we upgraded to a dedicated IP this last year we got that same IP address. Unfortunately, the justinchina.co.uk domain from GoDaddy is still pointing to our server/IP. Thus the mirrored site. This has been a huge headache and a loss in rankings has made this even more frustrating. Instead of giving me a new IP address, Host Monster said to just add this to my htaccesss file: RewriteEngine on
Technical SEO | | BCB1121
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} justinchina.co.uk
RewriteRule .* - [F] I waited 24 hours, submitted two support tickets, and talked to 4 tech support people and this is the solution I receive when they should have given me a new IP. I think it is time to switch. Any good host recommendations?0 -
Site Map Problems or Are They?
According to webmaster tools my Sitemap contains urls which are blocked by robots.txt Our site map is generically generated and encompasses all web pages, whether I have excluded them using the robots.txt file As far as I am aware this has never been an issue until recently. Is this hurting my rankings and how do I fix it? Secondly, webmaster tools says there is over 5,000 error/warnings on my site map. But site map is only 1,400 or so pages submitted. How do I see what is going on?
Technical SEO | | Professor0 -
Site Categorization?
I know getting site categories to appear under the site are dependent on a lot of factors including site mapping. We have a site that does the categorization thing when you type in the sites url name however more people search for the name of the talent to find the site and the short url on the site is just his name, but shorter. However I was just wondering is their a way to optimize the site so that way we could get categorization to show up under the sites URL when they search for the talents full name I ask because the amount of people looking for the talents full name rather than the short name is a lot larger and I would like to see if we can take advantage of the real estate, but I honestly don't think there is a way, however I figured I would open it up to discussion to see if anyone has any ideas. Example: Site name is ABCD you type this into Google and you get ABCD.com about blog how to contact However the actual person whose site it is is ABCDEF and when you type that in you just get: ABCD.com without any of the categories appearing below the url. And that is what I'm asking about. Thanks as I can't seem to find a lot of information on this. However if there is another spot on the site talking about this please let me know I may just not be searching with the right terms.
Technical SEO | | KateGMaker0 -
Seo on a dk site
hi my client has asked if we can seo their dk site , my question is does all link building and article submission have to be in danish
Technical SEO | | Westernoriental0 -
Problem with my site
the site is casino.pt we created the site 7-8 month ago, we started to push it by good and natural links (http://www.opensiteexplorer.org/www.casino.pt/a!links!!filter!all!!source!external!!target!page), links in sites with content rich and most of them related to gambling and sport topics. During the first 3-5 months, the rankings were better and better, after the 6 months, the site lose all its rankings. Aditional details http://www.casino.pt/robots.txt http://www.google.pt/#hl=pt-PT&source=hp&biw=1280&bih=805&q=site:http%3A%2F%2Fwww.casino.pt&aq=f&aqi=&aql=&oq=&fp=2651649a33cd228 no critical errors in google webmaster tools any idea how can I fix it? thanks
Technical SEO | | Yaron530