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.
Merging Niche Site
-
I posted a question about this a while ago, but still haven't pulled the trigger.
I have a main site (bobsclothing.com). I also have a EM niche site (i.e shirtsmall.com).
It would be more efficient for me to merge these site, because:
-
I would have to manage content, promos, etc. on a single site. In other words, I can focus efforts on 1 site. If I am writing content, I don't have to split the work.
-
I don't have to worry about duplicate content. Right now, if I enter a product URL into copyscape, the other sites is returned for many products.
What makes me apprehensive are:
-
The niche site actually ranks for more keywords than the main site, although it has lower revenue. Slightly lower PA, and DA.
-
Niche site ranks top 20 for a profitable keyword that has about 1300 exact match searches. If you include the longer tail versions of the keyword it would be more.
If I merge these sites, and do proper 301s (product to product, category to category) how likely is it that main site will still rank for that keyword?
Am I likely to end up with a site that has stronger DA?
Am I better off keeping the niche site and just focusing content efforts on the few keywords that it can rank well for?
I appreciate any advice. If someone has done this, please share your experience.
TIA
-
-
Folding or merging websites should be done when possible. The fact you are on this blog querying same shows that you are properly considering the implications of the fold. Take your time to do it right. Consider all options.
A poorly executed fold can have sustained detrimental impact - seen it a few times when Bosses pull the trigger and demand speed & nothing else, no room for thought allowed. I would recommend drawing a site map of both sites and then considering the impact of the re-directs for each page - mapping/planning it out.
I know this is about technical and the boys have that covered but also think about brand, mail outs, informing your data base. However you connect with the customers make sure you have that covered. The customer comes first.
Finally on examples - we have done several mainly eCommerce sites where the blog has been a separate URL not even a sub-domain. None have gone backwards and a couple of them popped immediately after the fold. Ultimately great outcomes for all. So I have confidence. Just make sure you are doing what you are doing now considering the unique aspects of your website and how you will capture those aspects in the fold.
Good luck.
-
Agree with Patrick - those resources should help and in general, I'd bias to merging the sites. You may even lose out short term, but long term, you'll almost certainly be better off focusing your efforts and energy, and earning the branding benefits of a single site and name.
-
Hi there
I wrote a pretty indepth answer for a similar question that you can read here.
TL;DR - Rand also has a great Whiteboard Friday post on this subject called Should I Rebrand and Redirect My Site? Should I Consolidate Multiple Sites/Brands?
Hope this helps! Good luck!
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
-
My site shows 503 error to Google bot, but can see the site fine. Not indexing in Google. Help
Hi, This site is not indexed on Google at all. http://www.thethreehorseshoespub.co.uk Looking into it, it seems to be giving a 503 error to the google bot. I can see the site I have checked source code Checked robots Did have a sitemap param. but removed it for testing GWMT is showing 'unreachable' if I submit a site map or fetch Any ideas on how to remove this error? Many thanks in advance
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | SolveWebMedia0 -
Merging Sites: Will redirecting the old homepage to an internal page on the new site cause issues?
I've ended up with two sites which have similar content (but not duplicate) and target similar keywords, rather than trying to maintain two sites I would like to merge the sites together. The old site is more of a traditional niche site and targets a particular set of keywords on its homepage, the new site is more of an authority site with a magazine type homepage and targets the same set of keywords from an internal page. My question is: Should I redirect the old site's homepage to the relevant internal page on the new website...
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | lara_dar
...or should I redirect the old site's homepage to the new site's homepage? (the old site's homepage backlinks are a mixture of partial match keyword anchor text, naked URLs and branded anchor text) I am in two minds (a & b!) (a) Redirecting to the internal page would be great for ranking as there are some decent backlinks and the content is similar (b) But usually when you do a 301 redirect the homepage usually directs to the new homepage and some of the old site's links are related to the domain rather than the keyword (e.g. http://www.site.com) and some people will be looking for the site's homepage. What do you think? Your help is much appreciated (and hope this makes sense...!)0 -
Why does a site have no domain authority?
A website was built and launched eight months ago, and their domain authority is 1. When a site has been live for a while and has such a low DA, what's causing it?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | optimalwebinc0 -
Outbound Links to Authority sites
Will outbound links to a related topic on an authority site help, hurt or be irrelevanent for SEO purposes. And if beneficially, should it be Nofollow?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | VictorVC0 -
Multiple sites in the same niche
Hi All A question regarding multiple sites in the same niche... If I have say 10 sites all targetting the same niche yet all on different C-class IPs with different hosts, registrars, whois data and ages can I use the same template, or will Google discern a pattern? Basically I have developed a WordPress template which I want to use on the sites albeit with different logos / brand colours. NB/ All of the 10 sites will have unique, original content and they will NOT be interlinked
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | danielparry1 -
Is it possible to Spoof Analytics to give false Unique Visitor Data for Site A to Site B
Hi, We are working as a middle man between our client (website A) and another website (website B) where, website B is going to host a section around websites A products etc. The deal is that Website A (our client) will pay Website B based on the number of unique visitors they send them. As the middle man we are in charge of monitoring the number of Unique visitors sent though and are going to do this by monitoring Website A's analytics account and checking the number of Unique visitors sent. The deal is worth quite a lot of money, and as the middle man we are responsible for making sure that no funny business goes on (IE false visitors etc). So to make sure we have things covered - What I would like to know is 1/. Is it actually possible to fool analytics into reporting falsely high unique visitors from Webpage A to Site B (And if so how could they do it). 2/. What could we do to spot any potential abuse (IE is there an easy way to spot that these are spoofed visitors). Many thanks in advance
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | James770 -
Best way to merge 2 ecommerce sites
Our Client owns two ecommerce websites. Website A sells 20 related brands. Website has improving search rank, but not normally on the second to fourth page of google. Website B was purchased from a competitor. It has 1 brand (also sold on site A). Search results are normally high on the first page of google. Client wants to consider merging the two sites. We are looking at options. Option 1: Do nothing, site B dominates it’s brand, but this will not do anything to boost site A. Option 2: keep both sites running, but put lots of canonical tags on site B pointing to site A Option 3: close down site B and make a lot of 301 redirects to site A Option 4: ??? Any thoughts on this would be great. We want to do this in a way that boosts site A as much as possible without losing sales on the one brand that site B sells.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | EugeneF0 -
Badges For a B2b site
love this seo tactic but it seems hard to get people to adopt it Has anyone seen a successful badge campaign for a b2b site? please provide examples if you can.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | DavidKonigsberg0