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Changing Sites and Host - Can I Keep My Ranking?

by gixxer
4 replies
  • SEO
    • |
Hey Everyone!

I've had a Drupal blog site for over a year that ranks pretty well in its niche. It's hosted by a local provider and I've been somewhat unhappy with the design and a bunch of other issues.

This weekend I started a new wordpress site on hostgator. I don't really mind starting over on the new site and rebuilding rankings (not sure how long this would take in my small niche) but I'm wondering if there's anything I can do to move everything to hostgator, keep the rankings and move forward in wordpress.

Sorry if this isn't a smart question. I'm on a steep learning curve over here.

Any comments or suggestions are appreciated.

Thanks!

gixxer
#changing #host #ranking #sites
  • Profile picture of the author Josip Barbaric
    Originally Posted by gixxer View Post

    Hey Everyone!

    I've had a Drupal blog site for over a year that ranks pretty well in its niche. It's hosted by a local provider and I've been somewhat unhappy with the design and a bunch of other issues.

    This weekend I started a new wordpress site on hostgator. I don't really mind starting over on the new site and rebuilding rankings (not sure how long this would take in my small niche) but I'm wondering if there's anything I can do to move everything to hostgator, keep the rankings and move forward in wordpress.

    Sorry if this isn't a smart question. I'm on a steep learning curve over here.

    Any comments or suggestions are appreciated.

    Thanks!

    gixxer
    As long as you do a 301 redirect for all pages that may have changed url's, you should be fine. You may experience ranking fluctuations due to a change in content and site's IP address, but in most cases it's not very significant.

    Cheers,

    Josip
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    • Profile picture of the author gixxer
      Again, not to sound ignorant here...

      As I understood it, the 301 redirect is for when the page or site has moved. I'd really like to change platforms and go with WP from here on out. Do I need to remain in Drupal to keep the rankings?

      Is there some way I can move the RANKINGS over to the new WordPress platform or would I have to remain with the Drupal site to keep the rankings with the 301 redirects? Does that make sense?

      I guess what I'm trying to ask is if I can scrap the Drupal site and move forward in WordPress but somehow keep my good search rankings.

      Does this make sense?

      Thanks again!

      gixxer
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      • Profile picture of the author Josip Barbaric
        Originally Posted by gixxer View Post

        Again, not to sound ignorant here...

        As I understood it, the 301 redirect is for when the page or site has moved. I'd really like to change platforms and go with WP from here on out. Do I need to remain in Drupal to keep the rankings?

        Is there some way I can move the RANKINGS over to the new WordPress platform or would I have to remain with the Drupal site to keep the rankings with the 301 redirects? Does that make sense?

        I guess what I'm trying to ask is if I can scrap the Drupal site and move forward in WordPress but somehow keep my good search rankings.

        Does this make sense?

        Thanks again!

        gixxer
        Hi gixxer,

        You would need a 301 redirect only if you changed from Drupal to Wordpress, given that the url's of your pages would change.

        Example: if your Drupal url's look like yoursite.com/node1, then you would need to do a simple 301 redirect to the new WP pages that look like yoursite.com/nice-looking-url

        If your current Drupal url's look like yoursite.com/nice-looking-url - you won't have to do any 301 redirecting, just make sure that your new pages have the same url's.

        So, the answer is YES, you can move to Wordpress and keep all of your rankings.

        Cheers,

        Josip
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  • Profile picture of the author giseo
    never had any problems, just try and minimize the downtime. i've even nuked entire blog archives during moves with no redirects and no loss in ranks.
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