Acquiring a blog
-
Hello All,
I've recently acquired somebody else's blog and have redirected every post to the relevant page of my website (madegood.org). The content is the same as on the original site, and I have used 301 redirects. The original blog didn't have a particularly high page rank
I'm slightly worried that there are now thousands of links coming from one domain, which itself doesn't have much authority. Is there a way that I can tell google that I've acquired the blog, as opposed to just having lots of links from one domain.
Thanks
Will
-
Hey thanks!
-
Couple of good resources I can recommend:
1. How to find low value Links: http://www.stateofsearch.com/step-by-step-guide-finding-low-quality-links/
2. Link Detox: http://www.linkdetox.com/
If using an automated system like Link Detox, be sure to review each link manually.
-
Charles, saying that "Google will penalize you" for doing something is a fairly strong statement. Can you point to your source on this subject? It's helpful to give additional information in cases like this.
-
Although, what am I looking for with regards to dodgy backlinks? What are the tell tale signs?
I'd be happy to go through my backlinks in WMT and check each one, but not entirely sure what I'm looking for. I know all the theory behind good backlinks, but it all seems a bit wooly when it come to bad links, is there an easy way to spot sure fire offenders. Then when I find one, what can I do about it?
Cheers
Will
-
Will do!
-
I'd start by checking your backlinks, both to your domain and the one you redirected. After that, expand your investigation from there.
-
Thanks Cyrus, that's a very comprehensive answer!
I basically uploaded the copy on to new pages on my site, and manually put a 301 every page of the old site to the page on my site that has the same copy.... If that makes sense!?
I'm only concerned because I've suddenly (over the last couple of days) seen a hit in my google search referrals by about 70%. This migration happened months ago but I'm trying look under every stone.
I'll do as you suggested and see how I get on. Thanks again.
Will
-
It sounds like basically you did a domain migration? I'm a bit confused because you said you redirected to relevant pages on your website, but you also said the content is the same. So I'm wondering if you redirected to existing pages on your own site, or simply redirect the old URLs over to new URLs with the content from the old site. (Yeah, it doesn't make sense, but I'm on my first cup of coffee)
Generally, a large amount of redirects won't hurt you if it's for a legitimate reason - especially if you're migrating content from one domain to another. Where you get in trouble is when you 301 redirect URLs with low-quality backlinks. Those links then become YOUR links.
It might also look suspicious if you redirected multiple domains in a short period of time to your new domain, but this doesn't sound like the case.
Regardless, the best way to handle this is to claim ownership of both sites in Google Webmaster Tools before the redirect, then file a change of address for the old domain. You can actually still do this after the fact - you simply need to stop the 301 for the homepage long enough to claim ownership.
You likely want to file sitemaps for both the old URLs and new URLs so search engines can "process" the 301s. You can find more helpful tips here: http://www.seomoz.org/blog/web-site-migration-guide-tips-for-seos
I wouldn't expect this to effect your traffic in a negative way or cause a penalty, but keep an eye on your traffic and rankings just in case. If anything does go wrong, you can revert the changes you made.
Hope this helps! Best of luck with your SEO.
Cyrus
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
-
Question on Pagination - /blog/ vs /blog/?page=1
Question on Pagination Because we could have /blog/ or /blog/?page=1 as page one would this be the correct way to markup the difference between these two URL? The first page of a sequence could start with either one of these URLs. Clarity around what to do on this first page would be helpful. Example… Would this be the correct way to do this as these two URLs would have the exact content? Internal links would likely link to /blog/ so signal could be muddy. URL: https://www.somedomain.com/blog/
Technical SEO | | jorgensoncompanies
<link rel="canonical" href="https://www.somedomain.com/blog/?page=1"> URL: https://www.somedomain.com/blog/?page=1
<link rel="canonical" href="https://www.somedomain.com/blog/?page=1"> Google is now saying to just use the canonical to the correct paginated URL with page number. You can read that here:
https://developers.google.com/search/docs/advanced/ecommerce/pagination-and-incremental-page-loading But they do not clarify what to do on /blog/?page=1 vs /blog/ as they are the exact same thing. Thanks for your help.0 -
Schema for blogs
When I run a wordpress blog through the structured data testing tool I see that there is @type hentry. Is this enough for blogs etc? Is this a result of Wordpress adding in this markup? Do you recommend adding @blogposting type and if so why? What benefit to add a specific type of schema? How does it help in blogging? Thanks
Technical SEO | | AL123al4 -
Duplicate page titles for blog snippets pages
I can't figure the answer to this issue, on my blog I have a number of pages which each show snippets and an image for each blog entry, these are called /recent-weddings/page/1 /2 /3 and so on. I'm getting duplicate page titles for these but can't find anywhere on Wordpress to set a unique title for them. So http://www.weddingphotojournalist.co.uk/recent-weddings/…/2/ has the same title as http://www.weddingphotojournalist.co.uk/recent-weddings/…/3/
Technical SEO | | simonatkinsphoto0 -
Best way to implement noindex tags on archived blogs
Hi, I have approximately 100 old blogs that I believe are of interest to web browsers that I'd potentially like to noindex due to the fact that they may be viewed poorly by Google, but I'd like to keep on our website. A lot of the content in the blogs is similar to one another (as we blog about the same topics quite often), which is why I believe it may be in our interests to noindex older blogs that we have newer content for on more recent blogs. Firstly does that sound like a good idea? Secondly, can I use Google Tag Manager to implement noindex tags on specific blog pages? It's a hassle to get the webmaster to add in the code, and I've found no mention of whether you can implement such tags on Tag Manager on the usual SEO blogs. Or is there a better way to implement noindex tags en masse? Thanks!
Technical SEO | | TheCarnage0 -
Blog article URL - with or without date?
Quick question to all you folks: does including the date in a blog article's permalink affect rankings? For example, here's an article with the month and year, as well as the blog title: http://www.ayzanyc.com/blog/2012/12/difference-between-hot-chocolate-hot-cocoa/ Is it better to omit the date and just put the blog title? Also, if is better to avoid using the date, is it worth it to change the link structure of our previous articles (given that the URL will now be different), or should we just focus on future articles? Thanks ahead of time for your advice.
Technical SEO | | onurkiyak0 -
Hosted Wordpress Blog creating Duplicate Content
In my first report from SEOmoz, I see that there are a bunch of "duplicate content" errors that originate from our blog hosted on Wordpress. For example, it's showing that the following URLs all have duplicate content: http://blog.kultureshock.net/2012/11/20/the-secret-merger/ys/
Technical SEO | | TomHu
http://blog.kultureshock.net/2012/11/16/vendome-prize-website/gallery-7701/
http://blog.kultureshock.net/2012/11/20/the-secret-merger/sm/
http://blog.kultureshock.net/2012/11/26/top-ten-tips-to-mastering-the-twitterverse/unknown/
http://blog.kultureshock.net/2012/11/20/the-secret-merger/bv/ They all lead to the various images that have been used in various blog posts. But, I'm not sure why they are considered duplicate content because they have unique URLs and the title meta tag is unique for each one, too. But even so, I don't want these extraneous URLs cluttering up our search results, so, I'm removing all of the links that were automatically created when placing the images in the posts. But, once I do that, will these URLs eventually disappear, or continue to be there? Because our blog is hosted by Wordpress, I unfortunately can't add any of the SEO plugins I've read about, so, wondering how to fix this without special plugins. Thanks!
Tom0 -
What are the impact of doing URL Rewriting instead of 301 redirections whille optimizing a blog?
In WordPress, with the ALL In ONE SEO pluggingm we've optimze the permalinks to show more keewords in the URL'. What can be the impact?
Technical SEO | | webit400 -
What's the best way to transplant a blogger blog to another domain?
So I have this client who's got a killer blogger blog—tons of inbound links, great content, etc. He wants to move it onto his new website. Correct me if I'm wrong, but there isn't a single way to 301 the darn thing. I can do meta refresh and/or JavaScript redirects, but those won't transfer link juice, right? Is there a best practice here? I've considered truncating each post and adding a followed "continue reading…" link, which would of course link to the full post on the client's new site. It would take a while and I'm wondering if it would be worth it, and/or if there are any better ideas out there. Sock it to me.
Technical SEO | | TheEspresseo0