Best way to redirect to new site without losing PR etc

[mountrecruitment]

Hi can anyway clarify the best way to point an established domain at a new site but affect SEO efforts as little as possible.

I want to delete the original site and the new site will be hosted elsewhere etc.

Is a 301 redirect the answer?

 

[SEOpie]

Yes, a 301 redirect is the best method and will pass on the authority of the old domain to the new. Though it probably won't happen overnight.

 

[mountrecruitment]

Cheers, i havent had to do anything like that for some time and didnt know if there was anything else i should be doing! Needed a sanity check - rather that than lose all authority of first site!

 

[SIC2014]

Hi Mount Recruitment

I think there are a couple of things worth bearing in mind regarding redirects:

1. There will be a very slight lost in PR. See video below.

(YouTube Is there an advantage to using rel="canonical" over a 301 redirect?)

2. Before doing a site migration, it might be a good idea to analyse incoming links to the old site, to be sure you don't redirect any 'bad links' and affect your new site. In light of the Penguin algorithm, think this in good practice when doing 301s.

Thanks

 

[OldWelshGuy]

Sorry but the term '301' isn't accurate enough.

To answer the question properly can you tell me a bit more? mainly are you changing the url structure or are you just switching domain?

If you are keeping the same site but switching domain, then you need to set up a 301 redirect match using Apache mod rewrite. this will send any request to any page on olddomain.com/page/ to the corresponding page on the new domain. This will result in practically no loss of rankings IF you do everything else properly.

1. set up new site on new hosting
2. put in place the correct redirection
3. LEAVE the old site up on the current hosting as google spiders usign IP addresses and will likely hit both, have the 301 redirection on the old site.
4. carry out a change of domain in Webmasters tools
5. monitor the traffic to both sites in WMT & Analytics
6. register both www. & nonwww. in WMT.

Oh and now would be a good time to move to https:

If on the other hand you are changing the site structure then the advice is more complex, but I won't go into it as it depends on the site structure as rules can be built into a custom HTACCESS for redirection. etc

 

[RealEcon]

Sorry but the term '301' isn't accurate enough.

To answer the question properly can you tell me a bit more? mainly are you changing the url structure or are you just switching domain?

If you are keeping the same site but switching domain, then you need to set up a 301 redirect match using Apache mod rewrite. this will send any request to any page on olddomain.com/page/ to the corresponding page on the new domain. This will result in practically no loss of rankings IF you do everything else properly.

1. set up new site on new hosting
2. put in place the correct redirection
3. LEAVE the old site up on the current hosting as google spiders usign IP addresses and will likely hit both, have the 301 redirection on the old site.
4. carry out a change of domain in Webmasters tools
5. monitor the traffic to both sites in WMT & Analytics
6. register both www. & nonwww. in WMT.

Oh and now would be a good time to move to https:

If on the other hand you are changing the site structure then the advice is more complex, but I won't go into it as it depends on the site structure as rules can be built into a custom HTACCESS for redirection. etc

^^^This

 

[mountrecruitment]

Only just seen these replies!

I want a new site for thinkskins that will be on WordPress or poss shopify. I haven't sat and planned it out as losing rankings is a concern but there will be a cull of products so yes I would say the site structure would change although will do all I can to minimise impact.

Help this is above my head!

In the last few days I have received a unnatural links warning via wmt as well, no idea why!

 

[OldWelshGuy]

if you have received a warning you can kiss goodbye to your rankings within weeks if you haven't already.

This needs to be attended to without delay.

 

[mountrecruitment]

Weird thing is I haven't done anything to the site for at least a year!

Any advice in what to look for in wmt?

 

[OldWelshGuy]

A links warning is retrospective and includes ALL your links (even those directory links Google TOLD YOU to build )

 

[greenjourney]

If anyone have related documents about 301?

 

[larrypaul]

Doing 301 redirection would be the best option but keep in mind that URL's need not be changed. Inspite of this there would be slight loss in Page Rank...

 

[william04]

Its difficult to retain same URL while website redesign. For example your current website have example.html at the tail of URL and New page would have examples.php Both are different but basically best related page so that website visitors or search engine bots not confused after redirection.