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301 Redirect and Existing Backlinks

by JimEastman
3 replies
  • SEO
    • |
Hi,

Could one of you SEO experts out there help me with my dilemma?

I have a membership website that's ranking very well for my chosen keywords (page 1 of SERPS) - let's call this site "A"

Now we had decided to completely redo the site - look & feel, and also use a different membership management and billing system (aMember) so we created a "testing" site on another domain. Let's call this site "B"

Now I am in the process of moving over the members' billing functions to the New Site (B) and will soon be ready to do the final "move-over." The problem is, if we move the files currently on the NEW site "B" to the domain which is currently site "A" there is the potential for all kinds of problems - broken links within our posts & pages, change of the FTP username messing up the Incremental Content plugin in aMember, etc.

I'm thinking it would be so much easier to simply set up a 301 redirect on site "A" to redirect traffic (and current members) to the NEW website on domain "B" -- So when someone types in the URL to domain "A" it will redirect to domain "B", the new site. No need to move any files, fix broken links, move databases, etc.

However, I have worked very hard to get top search engine rankings for website/domain "A" So my questions are:
(1) ... if I do a 301 permanent redirect, will the search engines credit the "link juice" currently pointing to domain "A" to the new domain "B"?
(2) And if so, then assuming my search engine ranking does not change, which domain name will appear in the search results for my keyword? A or B?

It's worth noting the neither domain name has my keyword in the domain URL, so that should not be a factor.

Thanks in advance for any help.
#301 #301 redirect #backlinks #existing #rankings #redirect #seo
  • Profile picture of the author somacorellc
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    • Profile picture of the author JimEastman
      somacorellc - thank you so much for taking the time to reply! I really appreciate your help!

      Warmest Regards,
      Jim Eastman
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  • Profile picture of the author Derek S
    I thought about using this method to obtain DMOZ links but my question is this...

    When you 301 a site and all the backlinks and their anchor text juice up the site it is now redirected to, wont the anchor text on those links mess with the main keyword you are ranking for?

    For example my main site is for "Golf Swing" and all my backlinks have the anchor text "golf Swing" but i buy and redirect a site with all the anchor text "Dog Training" will my site on golf swing start ranking for dog training keyword? LOL
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    • Profile picture of the author raviv
      @Jim
      THere are two ways to look at it. You can do a sitewide 301 redirect from site A to site B.
      Alternatively you can redirect it on a page by page basis from site A to site B. Create new pages on site B that can relate to individual existing pages on Site A.

      Once Google finds your site A is being redirected 301 to the new site B, it will update its database. It can take some time. But your ranking on the SERPs can take a hit as somacorellc pointed out. But your site listing will show the metatags of Site A initially and when clicked will display Site B. Over time, these metatags from Site A will be updated to reflect the new metatags on Site B

      I assume most of your pages will be behind a login on your membership site. So the search engines cannot index these anyway. So you should have only a few pages that you would allow to be open to the bots. That should make life easy for you.

      @Derek
      You have pointed out an extreme case. It may well be possible because when you type download in the search engines, Adobe comes first in the SERPs because tons of backlinks with the anchor text Download Adobe Acrobat makes it rank so well.

      Chances are that the golf site may not rank for the dog training keyword as Google's algorithm places emphasis on relevance so it might lose out. Just my opinion.

      Best
      Raviv
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