Redirect ruined domain to new domain without passing link juice
-
A new client has a domain which has been hammered by bad links, updates etc and it's basically on its arse because of previous SEO guys.
They have various domains for their business (brand.com, brand.co.uk) and want to use a fresh domain and take it from there. Their current domain is brand.com (the ruined one). They're not bothered about the rankings for brand.com but they want to redirect brand.com to brand.co.uk so that previous clients can find them easily.
Would a 302 redirect work for this? I don't want to set up a 301 redirect as I don't want any of the crappy links pointing across.
Thanks!
-
I feel that there should be some form of redirect that can be conducted without passing on link juice value.
From my perspective, it's not gaming the system or trying to game Google. My client doesn't want any link juice passing on, but wants to keep the old domain for people accessing the domain directly.
It's a shame really. Google holds a massive grudge, even though these guys trusted a big name in the SEO industry.
-
Sorry it's taken a bucket load of time to get back to you!
Ideally, they're looking at some form redirection to avoid any form of user interaction.
A meta-refresh might be the best route to go down, I'm going to noindex/nofollow the website and put forward a meta-refresh solution to them.
I don't think a second or two in lag would be a problem, as users hitting the .com version of the website will slowly phase out anyway.
Thanks buddy!
-
I don't think I ever realized that forwarding also can return a 301. That's really good to know. Thanks.
-
I'd just warn that most domain forwarding ends up returning a 301 response code anyway, and some return a 302. You could always test it out to see what happens. I checked (non-masked) domain forwarding on two hosts and found 301s in the header in both cases. I believe this is fairly common.
One controversial solution might be a JavaScript redirect that search engines can't understand instead. It's obviously cloaking if the content is different, but maybe not if the content is similar. See https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/2721217?hl=en&ref_topic=2371375
Unfortunately, there's not a redirect method that would prevent both versions of the site from being indexed. Even with a penalty, the old site could out-rank the new one for branded and long-tail traffic.
Perhaps the best/safest option is to simply noindex/nofollow the pages, then show a warning with a link to the new version of the page. Yes, it requires a new click from users, but it's simple enough that there's little to worry about.
-
I'm not sure that any redirect is guaranteed that Google won't pass on the links to the .uk domain. The two options I could think of which would probably be the least likely for Google to pass on the links would be,
1. You could setup a meta-refresh redirect on the .com. Make sure it's a few seconds and not instant.
2. Redirect everything from the .com site to a single landing page on the .com site. Put a message on that landing page that tells visitors the site has moved and provide a link to the new site.
Neither of these solutions are great from a user experience standpoint, but their the least likely for Google to pass on all the bad links from the .com site.
-
Why don't you try domain forwarding? That may be your only option as there is growing evidence that Google passes links from 302 redirects as well. You can find the domain forwarding option in the control panel where the domain name is hosted. Instead of doing a redirect, the change will take place with the DNS.
Here's some info: http://support.godaddy.com/help/article/422/forwarding-or-masking-your-domain-name
Make sure you choose forwarding without masking.
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
-
Website can't break into Google Top100 for main keywords, considering 301 Redirect to a new domain
A little background on our case. Our website, ex: http://ourwebsite.com was officially live in December 2015 but it wasn't On-Site optimized and we haven't done any Off-site SEO to it. In April we decided to do a small redesign and we did it an online development server. Unfortunately, the developers didn't disallow crawlers and the website got indexed while we were developing it on the development server. The development version that got indexed in Google was http://dev.web.com/ourwebsite We learned that it got indexed when we migrated the new redesigned website to the initial domain. When we did the migration we decided to add www and now it looks like: http://www.ourwebsite.com Meanwhile, we deleted the development version from the development server and submitted "Remove outdated content" from the development server's Search Console. This was back in early May. It took about 15-20 days for the development version to get de-indexed and around 30 days for the original website (http://www.ourwebsite.com) to get indexed. Since then we have started our SEO campaign with Press Releases, Outreach to bloggers for Guest and Sponsored Posts etc. The website currently has 55 Backlinks from 44 Referring domains (ahrefs: UR25, DR37) moz DA:6 PA:1 with various anchor text. We are tracking our main keywords and our brand keyword in the SERPs and for our brand keyword we are position #10 in Google, but for the rest of the main (money) keywords we are not in the Top 100 results in Google. It is very frustrating to see no movement in the rankings for the past couple of months and our bosses are demanding rankings and traffic. We are currently exploring the option of using another similar domain of ours and doing a complete 301 Redirect from the original http://www.ourwebsite.com to http://www.ournewebsite.com Does this sound like a good option to you? If we do the 301 Redirect, will the link-juice be passed from the backlinks that we already have from the referring domains to the new domain? Or because the site seems "stuck," would it not pass any power to the new domain? Also, please share any other suggestions that we might use to at least break into the Top 100 results in Google? Thanks.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | DanielGorsky0 -
Bad Domain Links - Penguin? - Moz vs. Search Console Stats?
I've been trying to figure out why my site www.stephita.com has lost it's google ranking the past few years. I had originally thought it was due to the Panda updates, but now I'm concerned it might be because of the Penguin update. Hard for me to pinpoint, as I haven't been actively looking at my traffic stats the past years. So here's what I just noticed. On my Google Search Console - Links to your Site, I discovered there are 301 domains, where over 75% seem to be spammy. I didn't actively create those links. I'm using the MOZ - Open site Explorer tool to audit my site, and I noticed there is a smaller set of LINKING DOMAINS, at about 70 right now. Is there a reason, why MOZ wouldn't necessarily find all 300 domains? What's the BEST way to clean this up??? I saw there's a DISAVOW option in the Google Search Console, but it states it's not the best way, as I should be contacting the webmasters of all the domains, which is I assume impossible to get a real person on the other end to REMOVE these link references. HELP! 🙂 What should I do?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | TysonWong0 -
New Website - Un-natural link warning with 2 weeks of going live
I have a customer who has a website, 8 years old. The business has changed, and he has launched a new website (and sub-business_ to handle a particular service. As such the main website will no longer be handling the new service. For purpose of example; The service in question had it's own are set aside on his website, so what we have done is to 301 that part of the site (a single URL) to the homepage of his new website. Old Business Site
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | makeusawebsite
Service 1
Services 2 (301 to new site)
Service 3 New Business Site This worked well, and within a week his new site was gaining traffic for the service keyword. However, we have now had a un-natural link wartning in webmaster tools. The old page on the old site had minimal links to it (around 400). It had a page authority of 42, and 142 linking domains. The new website has been live a few weeks now, and has had 3 links to it, all genuine. He was on page one for the new business name, and is now page 6. Has anyone else ever seen this happen, and how should we deal with it. We could of course remove the 301 redirect and put in a recon-request, but the 301 seems like thje right thing to have done, and is genuine. Any advice greatly appreciated.0 -
Subdomain or New Domain or Directory path?
Hi Mozzers, I have a dilemma here. I have one of my clients that has its American website and would like to promote its business in canada(2 locations only vs more than 40 in the u.s). What would be the best SEO decision here for the 2 Canadian locations: should i go for a new root domain? if yes why (www.example.ca) a new subdomain? if yes why (ca.example.com) or just following a directory path solution under the american site? (www.example.com/canadiancity) Thanks Ty
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Ideas-Money-Art0 -
New Site: Use Aged Domain Name or Buy New Domain Name?
Hi,
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | peterwhitewebdesign
I have the opportunity to build a new website and use a domain name that is older than 5 years or buy a new domain name. The aged domain name is a .net and includes a keyword.
The new domain would include the same keyword as well as the U.S. state abbreviation. Which one would you use and why? Thanks for your help!0 -
How to move website to new domain?
We have a website that has run under the same domain name for the past 10 years. We have built up a decent amount of SEO "mojo" (and traffic) over time, however, the original domain name no longer applies to the business model. A little over 1 year ago we started using a new brand name for the website and created a landing page for that domain name. Everything on that landing page links over to pages on the original domain name (to preserve the SEO value that we have built up over the years). We would like to move all (or most) of the pages/content to the new domain name. Would using 301 redirects be the safest, most effective way of doing this? I have heard of other people doing it this way, and often they will see their traffic drop for a few weeks before it eventually comes back. Anyone else had experience with this? What worked? What didn't? Thanks!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | seo-mojo0 -
Keyword Rich Domain Redirects to Brand Name But How Will SEO Work For It?
If i have a keyword rich domain name, but i redirect it to a brand domain name, will doing seo for the keyword rich domain name be effective in showing up on google under that domain, for the keyword i do SEO for? or does this cause a conflict for spiders/robots as soon as they realize the page they want to check out is getting redirected to another domain name?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | lafurniturestore2 -
Redirecting One Page of Content on Domain A to Domain B
Let's say I have a nice page of content on Domain A, which is a strong domain. That page has a nice number of links from other websites and ranks on the first page of the SERPs for some good keywords. However, I would like to move that single page of content to Domain B using a 301 redirect. Domain B is a slightly weaker domain, however, it has better assets to monetize the traffic that visits this page of content. I expect that the rankings might slip down a few places but I am hoping that I will at least keep some of the credit for the inbound links from other websites. Has anyone ever done this? Did it work as you expected? Did the content hold its rankings after being moved? Any advice or philosophical opinions on this? Thank you!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | EGOL2