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Merging 2 Domains Into A New Domain

by TeeRiddle
11 replies
  • SEO
    • |
Hi all!

I'm thinking about merging 2 similar domains into 1 new domain and my head spins just thinking about it. Here's the deal:

Let's say I have 2 domains:

www.dogs.com
www.cats.com

I want to merge them into a new domain:

www.pets.com

I know I could copy dogs.com and cats.com onto pets.com and then apply 301 redirects to the newly moved content. But here's where I'm stumped:

I also would like to change some of the URLs of the old sites because some URLs are way too lengthy. In other words, it would be something like this:

old URL - http://www.dogs.com/really-long-craz...oo-many-words/
new URL - www.pets.com/dogs/long-url/

So, I want to migrate the web page to a new domain and change the URLs at the same time.

My questions are:
1) Would I need to do individual 301 redirects for each URL?
2) What do I do about category pages, tag pages, etc? Just 301 redirect?
3) Can I do the move one or two pages at a time, or is it best to do the migration and redirects all in one go?
4) Is this too much change at one time? Would this tank any rankings and SEO already there on the old domains?

TIA!
#domain #domains #merging
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  • Profile picture of the author Tung Dao
    Hi TeeRiddle

    Let me try to answer your questions, but in an order that I think would make more sense:
    4)This will absolutely affect your ranking. But it doesn't have to be such a headache, if you do things properly you'll get your ranks back soon.
    1+3) You'd want to redirect one page at a time. I know it's a pain in the ass, but it's necessary. Also, redirect only pages that has ranking value (i.e. pages that already rank and bring you traffic). If a page doesn't have backlinks or traffic, I'd say just ignore them.
    2) In most cases, nothing. Those pages usually don't have any ranking power or bringing you any traffic, so there's no point redirecting them.

    Hope it helps.
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  • Profile picture of the author MikeFriedman
    1) You should be doing individual redirects no matter what, but yes, you need to do them when changing the URL.
    2) 301 redirect.
    3) Migrate the whole thing.
    4) There may be some ranking fluctuations as Google crawls and figures out all the redirects. Shouldn't last more than 10-14 days though unless the sites are huge.
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  • Profile picture of the author cmsminds
    Originally Posted by TeeRiddle View Post

    Hi all!
    My questions are:
    1) Would I need to do individual 301 redirects for each URL?
    2) What do I do about category pages, tag pages, etc? Just 301 redirect?
    3) Can I do the move one or two pages at a time, or is it best to do the migration and redirects all in one go?
    4) Is this too much change at one time? Would this tank any rankings and SEO already there on the old domains?

    TIA!
    Below are the answers to your queries. I hope it will help you.

    1) Yes, you need to do individual 301 redirections for each URL you want to change.
    2) I think you should no-index the categories and tag pages as they are not much important.
    3) I would say it is best todo migration and redirects all in one go. But leave the pages which are not important.
    4) Whenever you do this kind of big 301 redirections, there is a chance of losing some of your keyword rankings. But don't worry, it will bounce back again after some time.
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  • Profile picture of the author nonin
    Yes, I would highly suggest to add individual 301 redirects for all top ranking urls
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  • Profile picture of the author TeeRiddle
    I want to thank each of you for giving me such great replies!
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  • Profile picture of the author Danny.Antonio
    Oh; it is very difficult to solve this problem. But nothing is impossible in the world of technique. I suggest u to add individual 301 redirects for all top ranking urls. Best of luck....
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    Danny Antonio

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    • Profile picture of the author liverpoolio
      I agree, i think he can do that with cloudflare
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  • Profile picture of the author liverpoolio
    Hey not sure if you've looked into this but if you use cloud flare you can do something called page rules. If you website has alot of pages it might get costly.

    Why not keep the url slugs the same and just do a url change in php my admin when you've done the migration?
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  • Profile picture of the author klixion
    Is there a lot of traffic going to your 2 old domains? If not, just move onto the new one and sell the 2 old ones. I wouldn't bother trying to redirect them unless the old one was a shadow domain of the new one.
    Like your new one is pet.com and your old one was pets.com
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  • Profile picture of the author Medon
    Individual 301 redirect is the best option for you.
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  • Profile picture of the author wickieagentur
    I suggest you do individual 301 redirections of the top-ranking pages because the need the priority as compared to others.
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