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        4. Transfer a Main Domain to a Sub-Domain

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        • AscendLearning
          AscendLearning last edited by

          My IT department tells me they want to transfer my main site domain, which has been in existence since 1999 as an e-commerce site (maindomain.com) to a sub-domain (www2.maindomain.com) or a completely new domain (newdomain.net). This is because we are launching a new website and B2C e-commerce engine, but we still have to maintain the legacy B2B e-commerce engine which contains hard-coded URLs, and both systems can't use the same domain.

          I've been researching the issue across SEOmoz, but I haven't come across this exact type of scenario (mostly I've seen a sub-domain to new domain).

          I see major problems with their proposal, including negative SEO impact, loss of domain authority/ranking and issues with branding.

          Does anyone know the exact type of impact I can expect to see in this scenario and specific steps I should go about to minimize the impact?

          Btw, I will be using Danny Dover's guide on properly moving domains where appropriate.

          Thanks!

          1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
          • ChrisHolgate
            ChrisHolgate last edited by

            It goes without saying but also ensure that as well as 301'ing all the old URL's, that you create a robots.txt to stop Google potentially spidering the new subdomain which contains the legacy files.

            Best of luck!

            1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
            • OlegKorneitchouk
              OlegKorneitchouk last edited by

              If the current site is getting a lot of traffic and the new site would be a drastic change from the current site, I would look into hiring a coder to fix the hardcoded urls issue.

              Everything you mentioned is plausible if not probable including negative SEO impact, loss of domain authority/ranking and issues with branding.

              If the new site is going to be on different pages, make sure you 301 redirect the old pages to the new subdomain/domain. Aside from that, can't really do much =/

              Good luck,
              Oleg

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