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Forced to Start Over, What to Do?

by andrewprime1
3 replies
  • SEO
    • |
I was forced to start over with my e-commerce site, long store. The gist is I had over 1000 pages on the domain, now I have 40 or so. There is no way to use any of the old files/pages.

What can I do to minimize the potential negative ramifications of this?

Redirecting pages with 301s is my first thought. Most of the pages lost were products, so maybe I 301 each product page back to a related category page?
#forced #start
  • Profile picture of the author nettiapina
    Yes, you can do something like that. I'd probably do it. However, if the product pages had no backlinks it's not much of an issue.
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  • Profile picture of the author Seokix
    Firstly, why were you forced to start over? If the content is good, why not pull the entire site content off and take the site down. Wait till the site is completely de-indexed and throw the site up on a new domain and you won't have any duplicate content issues.

    Just another option for you!

    Cheers.
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    • Profile picture of the author andrewprime1
      Does anyone know of a good tool that allows you to search for all backlinks to your domain that INCLUDES the URL of the page being linked back to?

      Originally Posted by Seokix View Post

      Firstly, why were you forced to start over? If the content is good, why not pull the entire site content off and take the site down. Wait till the site is completely de-indexed and throw the site up on a new domain and you won't have any duplicate content issues.

      Just another option for you!

      Cheers.

      Thanks for the response!

      I work for a mom and pop brick and mortar store that sells closeout/off year adventure sports equipment. We had a developer build us a point of sale platform that integrated with an e-commerce site. Tons and tons of problems with them led us to find a new POS. It, of course, did not interface with the custom platform we had and had it's own product uploading protocol, so we had to start over, sadly.

      Of the 1000 pages we lost, ~900 of them were out of stock products that we would never get back in stock anyway (on account of closeout inventory, we rarely get the same things twice) and the quality of content was pretty low.

      Although this is going to affect our ranking, I think starting over with this much better site (with much better structure in terms of SEO) is going to work out to be a good thing. We really want to get back to selling gear online, so I don't think the wait it out solution would fly with the owners.

      Yes, you can do something like that. I'd probably do it. However, if the product pages had no backlinks it's not much of an issue.
      Thanks for that. I think I will redirect the pages back top the category they are a member of then. I will also look for pages that have back links and recreate/redirect them. I feel like that will be better for those specific pages. Do you agree?
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