Moz Q&A is closed.
After more than 13 years, and tens of thousands of questions, Moz Q&A closed on 12th December 2024. Whilst we’re not completely removing the content - many posts will still be possible to view - we have locked both new posts and new replies. More details here.
Is domain forwarding the same as a 301 redirect?
-
Hi, I have an older domain with some SEO auth for varying pages and a newer domain that is for the brand. Right now there are some 301s for about 13 pages and we are currently moving servers. I was wondering if domain forwarding is the same as writing 301 redirects for each page or is it something different (302)?
-
Thanks,
I was hoping to find that a domain redirect/forwarding would be like a 301 and include the paths from the previous site to the new one instead of needing to create numerous 301s.
-
Sorry for the late reply.
From what I have been able to find, it is an either-or situation. Basically, I think that I am forced to write out all the 301 redirects for each of their paths to the new site to ensure they don't lose any of the SEO they may have gathered on the way.
-
Domain forwarding and 301 redirects are different. Forwarding involves moving an entire domain to a new one, while 301s are about individual pages. To maintain SEO authority:
- Use 301 redirects for specific pages.
- For general traffic forwarding, utilize domain forwarding.
- Always employ a 301 redirect for a permanent move, as it informs search engines to pass on SEO authority. A 302 redirect is for a temporary move.
-
This will ultimately depend on your provider, and they should have supporting documentation.
I think in most cases the redirect will be a 301, but it may not retain the path - in other words, all pages on the old site could redirect to the one new URL that you enter.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
What are the SEO ramifications of domain redirection?
Hi Moz Community! I was just trying to set up our global site and got this message: "Redirect detected
SEO Tactics | | Padmagandhini
We have detected that the domain bhaktimarga.org redirects to prodfront-coli.bhaktimarga.mediactive-network.net. We do not recommend tracking a redirect URL. Would you like to track prodfront-coli.bhaktimarga.mediactive-network.net for this campaign instead?"
6358703c-d8ef-4c0a-83a9-c948d370d743-image.png What's interesting is when you go to the site, Bhaktimarga.org, it shows our domain in the URL bar. Is this done for performance and masks the hosting provider domain? I haven't talked to website developers about this yet, but my main question is...Does this have any SEO ramification? Thanks so much,
Padma0 -
Unsolved Term Brand Authority Assesses?
If your brand name (e.g., "Example Brand Name") is different from your brand's domain (e.g. "www.ebn.com"), does the Brand Authority tool measure authority for "Example Brand Name" or "EBN"? Thanks!
Product Support | | PRAComms1 -
Should I switch back to my old domain?
I'm looking for some advice on switching domains for my survey/giveaway website.
SEO Tactics | | courtney.lou
I purchased a website that gets around 1,500 in traffic and makes a few hundred in Adsense. The previous owner had rebranded the site and changed the domain which ended up hurting his SEO and traffic. Before that it was getting 10,000 in traffic on the old domain.
It's been a few years since the rebrand but the original domain still holds a lot of authority and got way more traffic. Should I consider switching the website back to the original domain to try to improve rankings again or should I just focus on the new domain?
The website now is snipon.com and the previous domain name was surveyh.com
I'm wondering if switching back to the original domain will still be beneficial or if it will just mess up what's happening now on the rebranded site.0 -
What is the safest way to redirect for best SEO benefits?
What is the safest way to redirect for best SEO benefits? Example: loodgieter-aanhuis.nl -> loodgieters-ambacht.nl Does someone have any technical information on how to (root) redirect for best SEO practices?
On-Page Optimization | | hans-keeren0 -
Is it Ok to have multiple domains (separate website different content) rank for similar keywords?
Is it 'OK' to have multiple domains in the following instance? Does Google actively discourage multiple (but completely different sites) domains from the same company appearing in the search results for the same and or similar keywords if the content is slightly different? This is where the 'main site' has the details, and you can purchase product, and the second site is a blog site only. We are creating a separate content blogsite; which would be on a second domain that will be related to one portion of content on main site. They would be linking back and forth, or maybe the blog site would just link over to the main site so they can purchase said product. This would be a similar scenario to give you an idea of how it would be structured: MAIN SITE: describes a few products, and you can purchase from this site SECOND SITE, different domain: a blog site that contains personal experiences with one of the products. BOTH sites will be linked back and forth....or as mentioned maybe the blog site could just link over to the 'main site' Logo would be a modified version of the main logo and look and feel of the sight would be similar but not exactly the same. MORE INFO: the main site has existed for way over 10 years, starting to gain some traction in an extremely competitive market, but does not rank super high, is gaining traction due to improvements in speed, content, onpage SEO, etc... So in addition to my main question of is this 'ok' to have this second domain, also will it hurt the rankings or negatively affect the 'main' site? Wondering about duplicate content issues, except it will be slightly different...
SEO Tactics | | fourwhitesocks0 -
Domain migration goes wrong. I have a few quesitons.
So I did a domain migration 4-5 months ago, lost about 70-80% of the traffic and I still couldn't recover the traffic. Redirected everything 1:1 Updated internal links Triggered change of address in GSC Monitoring the server logs (everything is perfect) Uploaded the old sitemap with the old URLs What happened/ what have I noticed so far: Almost all URLs have been indexed on the new domain New content on the new domain is indexed in a matter of few hours There's only one particular page that still appears as "Crawled and indexed" on the old domain and still receives traffic. I tried to request the manual indexing so Google could figure out the page has been redirected but nothing has changed. I think this is a sign Google hasn't finished the domain migration process? Most WEBP images appear as "Crawled - currently not indexed" on the old domain. Shouldn't they appear as "Page with redirect"? The new domain is ranking pretty well on a bunch of keywords (they're like 2-3% of the total page count) while the rest of 97% of pages haven't appeared not even in the top 200 results (these pages don't receive a single impression) Google acts a bit strangely on crawling the old domain. He keeps crawling the category pages over and over again (sometimes I see 20-30 crawls on a single category page in a single day) while the inner pages and images are rarely crawled. Like I see 4-5 crawls on images per day maximum. The traffic and number of rankings keywords haven't changed a bit after the last Google updates. Does this indicate that we haven't been impacted by them? So any suggestions on what else can I do to find out the reason why the website hasn't recovered? My guesses are: The process is still not finished (unlikely since it already passed 4-5 months) There's a technical error that I can't find (again, unlikely since I see nothing strange in the logs that'd indicate Google has problems fetching the site) Someone did something nasty (like blasting the website with backlinks or copying the content) that hindered the process? I see a couple of sites made in a language I can't read that literally copy and translate the content from my website and publish on theirs with the canonical URL my website URL. Also, two sites cloned mine after the migration but I managed to eliminate them in time. I had a lot of spammy backlinks on the old domain that have been automatically generated on the ranking pages over a few years. I haven't disavowed them because Google claimed they can identify and eliminate them. Now all those backlinks have instantly moved to the new domain which could put Google in panic mode and lower its trust in our website. Should I disavow them? Please any help is highly appreciated.
SEO Tactics | | Anna332120 -
Multiple URLs from One Domain on Page 1
Is it possible (and if it is possible, how difficult is it) to get multiple URLs from the same domain name to be indexed on the first page of Google for the same keyword or phrase? Assuming each URL has significantly different content of course... Context: A large real estate brand has 6 franchise offices in the same city. Each office has its own listing/landing page on the parent brand website. Each franchise owner wants their page on the website to rank for the term 'Christchurch real estate'. The homepage of the parent brand website currently ranks on the first page of Google for this search term, but none of the franchisee pages do. So my question is: with the right unique content on each franchisee page, supported by quality backlinks to each of the different offices, is it possible to get multiple franchisees listed on the first page of Google given that ultimately the 6 URLs are all attached to the same domain name? (And, if so, do you have any hot tips you can share to assist me on this uphill battle?)
SEO Tactics | | BeKonstructive0 -
How .ae and .com domain in SEO performance for UAE region?
I have a domain for my UAE based project called https://mydubaiseo.com/ and however, one of my colleagues suggested going with .ae option.
Technical SEO | | 0eup.ombitao
Whether if we change the domain like as suggested get earlier results than .com domain or what?\Which domain .com or .ae ranks faster in UAE location if the SEO strategies followed in the same way?0