Migration Challenge Question
-
I work for a company that recently acquired another company and we are in the process of merging the brands.
Right now we have two website, lets call them:
We are working with a web development company who is designing our brand new site, which will launch at the end of September, we can call that www.parentacquired.com.
Normally it would be simple enough to just 301 redirect all content from www.parentcompanyalpha.com and www.acquiredcompanyalpha.com to the mapped migrated content on www.parentacquired.com.
But that would be too simple. The reality is that only 30% of www.acquiredcompanyalpha.com will be migrating over, as part of that acquired business is remaining independent of the merged brands, and might be sold off.
So someone over there mirrored the www.acquiredcompanyalpha.com site and created an exact duplicate of www.acquiredcompanybravo.com.
So now we have duplicate content for that site out there (I was unaware they were doing this now, we thought they were waiting until our new site was launched).
Eventually we will want some of the content from acquiredcompanyalpha.com to redirect to acquiredcompanybravo.com and the remainder to parentacquired.com.
What is the best interim solution to maintain as much of the domain values as possible? The new site won't launch until end of September, and it could fall into October. I have two sites that are mirrors of each other, one with a domain value of 67 and the new one a lowly 17. I am concerned about the duplicate site dragging down that 67 score.
I can ask them to use rel=canonical tags temporarily if both sites are going to remain until Sept/Oct timeframe, but which way should they go? I am inclined to think the best result would be to have acquiredcompanybravo.com rel=canonical back to acquiredcompanyalpha.com for now, and when the new site launches, remove those and redirect as appropriate. But will that have long term negative impact on acquiredcomapnybravo.com?
Sorry, if this is convoluted, it is a little crazy with people in different companies doing different things that are not coordinated.
-
it was actually a challenge to try to detail out.
It certainly seemed so
And you are very welcome - glad to have been able to help.
-Andy
-
Thanks Andy - I am so accustomed to thinking in permanent changes and in 301s and rel=canonical, that the obvious 302 skipped my thinking. While I am unsure if they will be willing to 302 in this interim period, it certainly will be my primary recommendation now.
Thanks for reading though that, it was actually a challenge to try to detail out.
-
Andy's suggestion seems perfect to me!
This is kind of an extreme example of what 302's were meant to do. Your content will remain exactly where it needs to be for reference purposes and the eventual 301 redirects when your new website goes live. Meanwhile the bravo site with your duplicated content will no longer be duplicated and no link juice or rankings are going anywhere. (In theory)
Minimal work as if the site is an exact copy it will take only a couple of lines to redirect the whole site.
-
Hi Kenn,
I think I understand all that.
In this situation, you could always use a 302 temporary redirect rather than canonical and tell Google that pages will be returning to normal at some point, and in the meantime, a 302 doesn't pass page rank so in theory, nothing should move and it shouldn't have any negative impact. It removes the duplication issue nicely.
A canonical will pass some page rank, and as a result, this might mess things up for you.
-Andy
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
-
Huge organic traffic drom after a perfect domain migration. What to do?
Hi, I already asked the question on different places. But so far nobody could help me.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Dennis1992038
Hope someone can help me out. If possible.
I migrated my website https://vihara.nl to https://meditatieinstituut.nl and lost about 80% traffic (see printscreens). It's over more than a month ago now and there is no sign of getting it back up. Maybe there is nothing to do and
1. I have to be patient and traffic comes back in a few months.
or
2. There is nothing to do and I've lost everything I've build up in the last years. Start over again to get the rankings back.
or maybe, maybe
3. I just forgot something that I still need to do to get the rankings back up. Or there is something I did not think of... This is done: The website is migrated 1 on 1. No changes in content, url, code, etc. Everything is exactly the same as on the previous domain. 301 redirects whole domain (via htaccess a bulk redirect). All the old pages, without exceptions, lead to the exact new page. The new domain is running from CDN (Cloudflare) with the same settings as the previous domain. SSL is installed in the exact same way. Domain migration set up in Search console (working). Uploaded new sitemap (working). Updated internal links. Changed the most important external links (where I could get contact after reaching out) In meanwhile received some new external links and also posted new content Anybody knows what to do? Or do I just have to be more patient and will it come back in a few months by itself? Looking forward to suggetions. Thanks! Gerjan Migratie-Meditatie-Instituut-2048x786.jpg verloop-sinds-de-start-2048x355.jpg0 -
How to create a smooth blog migration from subdomain to subfolder main?
Hi mozzers, We have decided to migrate the blog subdomain to the domain's subfolder (blog.example.com to example.com/blog). To do this the most effective way and avoid impact SEO negatively I believe I have to follow this checklist: Create a list of all 301 redirects from blog.example.com/post-1 to example.com/post-1 Make sure title tags remain the same on main domain Make sure internal links remain the same Is there something else I am missing? Any other best practices? I also would like to have all blog post as AMPs. Any recommendations if this something we should do since we are not a media site? Any other tips on successfully implementing those types of pages? Thanks
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Ty19861 -
Site Migration
Hi, I have been researching the best way to migrate six sites into one, since I have never done it, and I am frankly overwhelmed. Some resources say to do it incrementally, and a/b test; but I would prefer not to have to do it, as won't it present a disjointed representation for visitors? The previous sites are older and a bit clumsy compared to the new design and functionality in the new site. Can someone please tell me the right way to approach this? Or tell me the best resource for a step-by-step prep, migrate, and watch process? Thanks so much in advance!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | lfrazer1230 -
No Index Question
Hello, We are attempting to have the following page removed from Google search results: view-source:http://www.mndaily.com/1998/04/08/missing-student-has-disappeared A noindex tag was added but we aren't sure if it was done correctly. I'm wondering if there are any experts here that might be able to confirm that this was added correctly and will result in the removal of the page from search results. Thanks in advance for any help you can provide!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | jasonMPLS0 -
Google PR & OSE DA/PA Question
Hey Moz Community, Can anyone explain why a website would have a PR4 Home page and most inner pages PR3 with only a DA12 and PA14 from OSE? The website in question is my Rotary club http://carymacgregorrotary.org. Thank you.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | WhiteboardCreations
Patrick0 -
Subdomain SEO question (php script on domain + wordpress on subdomain)
Hi Moz fellows, I am doing my first website which is entirely .php scripted. But I would like to have a wordpress blog to create content and blog posts, while the .php side of the website is more for sales pages and user generated listings.The only way to do this is to install wordpress on a subdomain "blog.website.com" QUESTION: If all my keywords targeted content is on the subdomain's Wordpress blog, but all my guest blogging efforts link to my main website, which one will rank? The subdomain or the domain? I need the domain to rank well as it is a Fiverr-like script, so if tons of people land on my "blog.website.com" subdomain, they will not convert into users... Let me know if you have experience with such a scenario, and thank you all in advance for your help! -Marc
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | marcandre0 -
What Questions to Ask in SEO Interview
Tomorrow morning I have a call with an SEO company interested in doing some work with our company. Its a larger company who do a lot of SEO work, and seem to have good feedback around the place. But we have been very very white hat in our all our our SEO work so far, and some of their wording on their site talks about "Negotiations and acquisitions of link partners".. which gives me the feel they might be a little grey hat.. What are some good questions we should ask these guys to make sure what they are doing is legit, and not going to get us stung for anything? And what sort of work should we get them to do, if we are happy to take care of content creation, on page optimisation and social media activities? Thanks!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | timscullin0 -
Issues in Migrating to CMS
My number one client is migrating a formerly HTML/Dreamweaver site to an open source CMS (CMS Made Simple.) We have execellent rankings right now, and I am concerned about what we will lose, and how to ensure the rankings stay. Any guidance? I have already asked the developer to maintain the page names and structure, and tag the CMS output pages.htm . I've run a few weak spiders over the staged CMS site, and all the pages are being picked up. What else can I do, we are getting ready to launch. THANKS!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | jayt0