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Moving domain: How to keep rankings?

by ClearWater404
11 replies
  • SEO
    • |
we have migrated a drupal site to wordpress. Currently it is on a development server.

the original domain has PR5 and many pages indexed (300+).
currently my client uses another keyword rich domain that he 301 redirects to the original domain. this other domain has also a PR of 5, according to online PR checking tools.

When we are going to transfer the Wordpress site to the hosting ("going live"), my client wants to use the "other domain" as it will appeal more to users (keyword rich).

What needs to be done to preserve PR, indexed pages and their rankings in the search engines?


your help is appreciated
thanks
~F

PS: we are thinking about installing the same website on both domains, but doing a 301 redirect to the "other domain" pages. Their URL structure is going to be the same, except for the domain name (TLD).
Also, the previous Drupal website URL structure has been maintained for 98% of pages, with some redirects having been added in the htaccess file as there were accented letters in the drupal URLs of some pages, which is not supported with wordpress.
#domain #moving #rankings
  • Profile picture of the author webdevpro
    IMO 301 is the only technique in case of preserving rankings while transferring the host or changing the url structure.
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  • Profile picture of the author sovereignn
    301 redirect

    your rankings and PR will transfer

    Just make sure to do all the pages correctly!
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  • Profile picture of the author tgpros
    You've said most of the pages have been transferred, as long as the new sitemap is largely the same, you should find the 301 works a charm.

    A 301 can be a long term solution too, I've done it on many sites in the past.
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    • Profile picture of the author ClearWater404
      Originally Posted by tgpros View Post

      You've said most of the pages have been transferred, as long as the new sitemap is largely the same, you should find the 301 works a charm.

      A 301 can be a long term solution too, I've done it on many sites in the past.
      hi thanks.

      currently they are on a development server (another domain, unrelated). We had migrated the site keeping 99% of the URL structure (minus the redirections for accented letters in URLs).

      but choosing another domain as the original one is where I was wondering if we would have a negative impact on rankings, knowing the URLs except the domain would be the same, and 301 redirects would be placed on the "old" URLs (the ones from the initial domain name).

      I guess someone familiar writing htaccess rewrite rules could do these redirects?
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      • Profile picture of the author dburk
        Hi ClearWater404,

        If you are changing domains then it is not possible to keep the URL structure. You are actually keeping no more than 0% of your URL structure. Not a single URL will be the same because the domain name is part of that URL structure.

        You can recover about 85% of your lost PR by using properly formatted 301 Permanent Redirects. For best results make sure that the old URLs point to the same page content on the new website.

        A bit of marketing and promotion well make up for the slight loss in PR from changing your URLs.
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        • Profile picture of the author ClearWater404
          Originally Posted by dburk View Post

          Hi ClearWater404,

          If you are changing domains then it is not possible to keep the URL structure. You are actually keeping no more than 0% of your URL structure. Not a single URL will be the same because the domain name is part of that URL structure.

          You can recover about 85% of your lost PR by using properly formatted 301 Permanent Redirects. For best results make sure that the old URLs point to the same page content on the new website.

          A bit of marketing and promotion well make up for the slight loss in PR from changing your URLs.
          thanks dburk. mmh, so contrary to what has been mentioned by sovereignn here I will not be able to transfer PR doing 301 redirects (page to page).

          I found this directly from Google: it is not clear now if there is no impact on PR.

          Regarding same page content: actually, the URLs point to the same article page (post), it is just that sidebars, header & footer are different, so adding a bit of different content to the whole page appearing in the browser.
          thanks for your help.
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          • Profile picture of the author dburk
            Hi ClearWater404,

            You will lose all of your PR because you are changing URLs, however the bulk of the lost PR can be recovered by using 301 redirects. It just won't be 100% due to the decay factor Google has in their PageRank Formula. The recovery time is usually pretty short, a few weeks is typical and it may vary based on the size or your website.

            There could be other factors, like keywords in the domains that will either exacerbate or mitigate the impact of your migration on your PR.
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  • Profile picture of the author Mister Rex
    Your PS will not work. The domain has PR, but the URLs you create for the purpose 301ing will have no backlinks.

    You will lose some PR, but that shouldnt be your focus. Your focus should be on rankings.

    It is a risk switching domains, but it isnt going to kill the new site. If your client is dead set on migrating, then do it. But let him know that the possibility exists to lose all rankings (since only google controls that anyway). But, the most likely scenerio is a brief drop in rankings followed by a gradual increase in rankings back up where they were.
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  • Profile picture of the author danb12
    You will lose all PR

    trust me, its not worth it keep your current domain.

    I know people say ur PR gets moved too, not always, i lost all PR3 moving a domain, never got it back.

    Code:
    Eric Enge: Let's say  you move from one domain to another and you write yourself a nice little  statement that basically instructs the search engine and, any user  agent on how to remap from one domain to the other. In a scenario like  this, is there some loss in PageRank that can take place simply because  the user who originally implemented a link to the site didn't link to it  on the new domain? 
 
Matt Cutts: That's a good question,  and I am not 100 percent sure about the answer. I can certainly see how  there could be some loss of PageRank. I am not 100 percent sure whether  the crawling and indexing team has implemented that sort of natural  PageRank decay, so I will have to go and check on that specific case.  (Note: in a follow on email, Matt confirmed that this is in fact the case. There is some loss of PR through a 301). [my emphasis]
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  • Profile picture of the author retsek
    Do the 301. PR really has little to do with ranking and your position in SERPs. Unless you're selling links you really shouldn't be concerned. And as you say, the new domain is already PR5.

    In addition to the 301, do a "Change of Address" inside WebmasterTools. It helps in getting the pages updated faster and it seems to help in my experience.
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  • Profile picture of the author ThatAblaze
    I would just like to clarify a point: If the new domain has been 301 redirected to the old domain then it is not really a PR5. When you redirect a domain for some time it starts to show up as the PR of the target. This is what most people refer to as a "fake" PR5 domain. It is probably actually PR0.

    When you redirect to it, expect it to drop to PR0 and then slowly build its way back up to PR4 over a period of maybe a month. You may have trouble getting back up to PR5 for some time.

    Your best redirection method will be to redirect every page on the old domain to the corresponding page of the new domain.
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