Redirecting Powerful Domains
-
What do you do if you have a client that never implemented a 301 redirect on their domain? For example here are the OSE stats for the URLs;
PA: 48 DA: 50 LRD: 65 TL: 1,084 FB: 178 FB: 14 T:5
PA: 51 DA: 50 LRD: 165 TL: 2,271 FB: 178 FB: 14 T:5 G+1:3
My first instincts are to redirect the first one to the second one, but is it too late for that? Will that screw up all of their established stats? Any input or examples of past experiences with this would be great.
-
A lot of information outside of SEO should be considered before redirecting a domain.
-
I agree with Daniel. It is never too late to fix this issue.
My suggestion would be to fix the root cause of this issue. Go into the web server and perform the URL redirect at that level. This way no one will ever be able to see the non-www version of your site. If you try to access http://google.com you will notice the "www." is automatically added. This method should stop any future non-www linking.
Once the redirect is in place, TEST IT. Don't just test the root domain but also just a couple pages as well.
Once the change is made, determine if any of the non-www links are internal. If so, fix them immediately. Next determine if any of the non-www links are under the site's control. Your social network links, signature links, other sites you own, etc. should all be updated to use the "www" link.
-
Not that I know of. Maybe someone else can chime in with their experience.
I could possibly see an issue with Analytics if you're running an AdWords campaign for the old site version. But that would be a simple fix, if it's even an issue.
SEOmoz's section on redirects is comprehensive:
-
That's what I thought. Could there be some negative impact that I'm not thinking of? Besides that small percentage of link juice.
-
It would have been better to do it earlier.
But losing that small percentage of link juice (1-10%) is a small price to pay for canonicalizing (with a 301 re-direct) that website.
You have a lot of links to gain by doing this (1,084) and you prevent duplicate content issues.
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
-
Shopify Redirects
I work for a company who has a few url issues. One url is www.randomwords.com/random/type:random The other is www.randomwords.com/random/type-random What is the best way to go about this issue?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | MasonInteractive0 -
If you do 302 redirect then change to 301 redirect do you lose all link juice?
Hello everyone, I was wondering if you could help me with understanding the following story: A website has been moved from its HTTP version to a HTTPS version. The SEO manager has advised developers that they needed to do 301 redirects. However, in the end, 302 redirects have been put in place instead. Now, 301s should be put in place ASAP. The million dollar question is: has the website lost all of its link juice already given the nature of the redirects? Also, does it depend on whether Google has indexed the new 302 pages or does it depend on something else? Many thanks!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | MarketingGH0 -
What happens to a domain in SERPs when it's set to redirect to another?
We have just acquired a competing website and are wondering whether to leave it running as is for now, or set the domain to redirect to our own site. If we set up this redirect, what would happen to the old site in Google SERPs? Would the site drop off from results? If so, would we capture this new search traffic or is it a free for all and all sites compete for the search traffic as normal? Thanks in advance. Paul
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | kevinliao0 -
Rel canonical or redirect
Hi, my client has the following links pointing to the home page http://www.weddingrings.com/index.cfm http://www.weddingrings.com In this case would I use rel canonical or redirect?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | alexkatalkin0 -
Danger in using utm_source and utm_medium to track tens of thousands of cross domain redirects
We just merged with another company and are redirecting their domains (competitive/similar content) to our own. We'll have several domains, redirecting (301) several hundred thousand URL's to our domain (not all the same page, very unique mappings). Will adding utm_source, et al parameters to the URL's have a negative impact on how google transfers value to the pages based on the redirect authority passed? Any points of view? We have a self referencing canonical, but given that we have 90 million pages on the current domain (and climbing), seems like cleanest approach would be to not use redirects. Thanks, Jeff
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | jrjames830 -
Microsite as a stand-alone site under one domain and sub-domained under another: duplicate content penalty?
We developed and maintain a microsite (example: www.coolprograms.org) for a non-profit that lives outside their main domain name (www.nonprofit-mainsite.org) and features content related to a particular offering of theirs. They are utilizing a Google Grant to run AdWords campaigns related to awareness. They currently drive traffic from the AdWords campaigns to both the microsite (www.coolprograms.org) and their main site (www.nonprofit-mainsite.org). Google recently announced a change in their policy regarding what domains a Google Grant recipient can send traffic to via AdWords: https://support.google.com/nonprofits/answer/1657899?hl=en. The ads must all resolve to one root domain name (nonprofit-mainsite.org). If we were to subdomain the microsite (example: coolprograms.nonprofit-mainsite.org) and keep serving the same content via the microsite domain (www.coolprograms.org) is there a risk of being penalized for duplicate content? Are there other things we should be considering?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | marketing-iq0 -
Temporary Redirects on Magento
I've recently taken over a client who uses the Magento platform and there was definitely a duplicate issue with his homepage. It redirected www to non www, however the canonical tag was setup wrong and pointing to the www version. When I looked at OSE for both versions the non www has only 7 linking domains and a page authority of 32. The www version has 24 linking domains and page authority of 39. As the domain is fairly new, I decided to redirect the non www to www and keep the canonical the same. (I changed the internal linking structure etc). When I run both URLs through this tool: http://www.ragepank.com/redirect-... it's returning a whole bunch of 302, rather than 301 redirects. What's the deal with that? Is that a Magento setting that I can fix or something a little harder? I'm not sure if it's proper etiquette to post the URL of a client, so if that would help and is OK, please let me know. Thanks
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | bradkrussell1 -
Domain certificate
Hello, I would like to know if there is any certificate we can buy to increase the Seo of my website. Thanks very much for your time
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Cartageno0