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.
Switching URLs after acquisition to retain domain authority?
-
Hey everyone! My company just acquired our biggest competitor and we're switching to their platform because they have a better technical structure for SEO--what's the best way to do that, other than a 301 redirect? Can we even rename their domain to ours? How do we ensure we keep both our and their domain authority and SEO juice? Thanks!
-
Assuming you are keeping your domain, what you should do is 301 redirect your old pages and your competitor's old pages to your new pages.
You can't rename their domain to yours but you need to redirect it to yours. You will also have to continue to keep ownership of the domain (renew it when necessary) to be able to benefit from the domain authority and "link juice".
-
Google Webmastertools is the best way they have a move URL tool.
-
I agree with William. However, I want to add that you should also try to change all the direct links as much as you can. So, besides the internal 301 from the "old" domain to the "new" one, I would have a list with all the links you get to the "old" domain and try to change them to point directly to the relevant page on the "new" domain. There are a lot of good articles on moving a website domain. It takes a lot of work and a huge attention to detail. But if you do it right, it's worth the hassle! Let me know if you need more info.
-
Well, that seems more like a business strategy question than a technical one. You need to decide if you are still going to operate the companies separately or are going to merge one into the other. If you are going to operate under just one name and domain I would make a big marketing push to let everyone know that you are merging the companies into one and that this is our new business strategy and "Domain Name".
Then after some time has passed I would start redirecting all the content and traffic to the "NEW" site. with the standard 301 procedures. Making sure that everything you are keeping is redirected properly will help keep about 85% of the "Link Juice". There is always a little lost basically from how the algorithms work, but that is out of your control.
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
-
Combining Two Sites With Similar Domain Authority
Hello, We run two sites with the same product, product descriptions and url structure. Essentially, the two sites are the same except for domain name and minor differences on the home pages. We've run this way for quite a few years. Both sites have a domain authority of 48 and there are not a large number of duplicate incoming links. I understand the "book" to say we should combine the sites with 301's to the similar pages. I am concerned about doing this because "site 2" still does about 20% of our business. We have been losing organic traffic for a number of years. I think this mainly has to do with a more competitive environment. However, where google used to serve both our sites for a search term it now will only show one. How much organic benefit should we see if we combine. Will it be significant enough to merge the two sites. Understandably, I realize the future can't be predicted but I would like to know if anyone has had a similar experience or opinion Thanks
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | ffctas0 -
Backlinks from old domain
Hi, We have gone through a change of company brand name including a new domain name.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Agguk
We followed google recommendations at: https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/83106?hl=en and it seems to have worked really well, the new domain has replaced the old in the google search results. My question: Still most of our backlinks, both anchor text and links use the old brand name and domain and it´s a slow process trying to update all references. Although they get redirected fine to the new domain (also following google recommendations), I wonder if the current scenario is doing any harm, SEO wise (other than the missed visual exposure of the new brand name) ? ...since the old brand name is not present at the new site I´m thinking of including "New brand name - previously old brand name" somewhere just to provide some sort of connection to all old backlinks, would that be unnecessary? I should mention that the old brand name actually includes our most important keyword but the new brand name does not. Thanks!0 -
Domain Authority: 23, Page Authority: 33, Can My Site Still Rank?
Greetings: Our New York City commercial real estate site is www.nyc-officespace-leader.com. Key MOZ metric are as follows: Domain Authority: 23
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Kingalan1
Page Authority: 33
28 Root Domains linking to the site
179 Total Links. In the last six months domain authority, page authority, domains linking to the site have declined. We have focused on removing duplicate content and low quality links which may have had a negative impact on the above metrics. Our ranking has dropped greatly in the last two months. Could it be due to the above metrics? These numbers seem pretty bad. How can I reverse without engaging in any black hat behavior that could work against me in the future? Ideas?
Thanks, Alan Rosinsky0 -
How do I list the subdomains of a domain?
Hi Mozers, I am trying to find what subdomains are currently active on a particular domain. Is there a way to get a list of this information? The only way I could think of doing it is to run a google search on; site:example.com -site:www.example.com The only issues with this approach is that a majority of the indexed pages exist on the non-www domain and I still have thousands of pages in the results (mainly from the non-www). Is there another way to do it in Google? OR is there a server admin online tool that will tell me this information? Cheers, Dan
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | djlaidler0 -
Outranking a crappy outdated site with domain age & keywords in URL.
I'm trying to outrank a website with the following: Website with #1 ranking for a search query with "City & Brand" Domain Authority - 2 Domain Age - 11 years & 9 months old Has both the City & brand in the URL name. The site is crap, outdated.. probably last designed in the 90's, old layouts, not a lot of content & NO keywords in the titles & descriptions on all pages. My site ranks 5th for the same keyword.. BEHIND 4 pages from the site described above. Domain Authority - 2 Domain Age - 4 years & 2 months old Has only the CITY in the URL. Brand new site design this past year, new content & individual keywords in the titles, descriptions on each page. My main question is.... do you think it would be be beneficial to buy a new domain name with the BRAND in the URL & CITY & 301 redirect my 4 year old domain to the new domain to pass along the authority it has gained. Will having the brand in the URL make much of a difference? Do you think that small step would even help to beat the crappy but old site out? Thanks for any help & suggestions on how to beat this old site or at least show up second.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | DCochrane0 -
Domain expiration and seo
My domain name is free with my service with yahoo but it expires every year and gets extended automatically as I continue service, how does this impact my seo efforts? I've heard that the search engines prefer sites to expire in 3 years or more? Is this a fact?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | bronxpad0 -
URL Length or Exact Breadcrumb Navigation URL? What's More Important
Basically my question is as follows, what's better: www.romancingdiamonds.com/gemstone-rings/amethyst-rings/purple-amethyst-ring-14k-white-gold (this would fully match the breadcrumbs). or www.romancingdiamonds.com/amethyst-rings/purple-amethyst-ring-14k-white-gold (cutting out the first level folder to keep the url shorter and the important keywords are closer to the root domain). In this question http://www.seomoz.org/qa/discuss/37982/url-length-vs-url-keywords I was consulted to drop a folder in my url because it may be to long. That's why I'm hesitant to keep the bradcrumb structure the same. To the best of your knowldege do you think it's best to drop a folder in the URL to keep it shorter and sweeter, or to have a longer URL and have it match the breadcrumb structure? Please advise, Shawn
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Romancing0 -
Recovery during domain migration
On average, how long does it takes to recover 80% of the rankings if two high authority domains are combined without chaging any content? I totally understand that each domain is different and search engines can treat them differently but if all the steps are followed to the T what are the chances?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | ninjamarketer1
