Redirecting a old aged site to a new exact match site?

[macky7]

Hi All,

I have a question. I have 2 sites with me in the same sector and want some help.

site 1 is a old site started back in 2003 and has some amount of links to it and has a pr 3 with some good links to it but doesn't rank much for any keywords for the timing.

site 2 is a aged domain but newly developed with unique content and has a good amount of exact match with a .com version.

so will there be any benefit by redirecting site 1 to site 2 to get the seo benefits and a start for link bulding? or is it best to develop and work on each site?

the sector is health insurance.

Thanks

[SlavaRybalka]

I am working with insurance sites myself.

I would redirect and move forward. Here is why:

If you decide not to redirect - you will never learn what will happen and how will Google react. If you never learn - you will stay where you are now. If you redirect and something bad/unexpected happens - you will learn from it.

If a business doesn't develop - it decays.

In fact, by redirecting, you connect both sites, merging link juice from both sites into one.

.

[macky7]

Thanks Slava,

I will surely try this out and will keep this thread updated.

Thanks

Adi

[EvanSteed]

Good Evening Macky7! I was reading a great post earlier tonight, by Paddy Moogan: 301 Redirect or Rel=Canonical - Which One Should You Use? http://www.seomoz.org/blog/301-redirect-or-relcanonical-which-one-should-you-use (Even Matt Cutts weighs in on the issue!) Within the post, I quote: "Is there another page on the site which has very similar content that you could send the user to?  If so, use a 301 and point it to the similar page so that you stand a chance of retaining the traffic you already get" From what I gather in your question, I'd probably: 1.) 301 as many "very similar" pages as possible from site 1 to site 2 2.) 301 the remaining pages of site 1 to site 2's homepage  Best, Evan

[BryanCasson]

Hi Macky,

I personally would 301 redirect site 2 to site 1 if site 1 is more than 5 years older than site 2. The reason being is that I think that site 1 is likely to have more authority over so many years (even though it may not be ranking and is dormant). However, if site 1 is really outdated then I would say redirect site 1 to site 2. As mentioned by the others it is important that you do not just redirect the whole domain from one to the other. Try and match as many pages as possible with relevant, matching 301 redirects.

Lastly, I would also check the amount of backlinks on each domain, if one heavy outweighs the other then this should be a factor in your decision.

So in summary, your decision should be based on the following order:

• Domain Age
• Keyword in the domain www.healthinsurance.com vs www.drwho.com
• Backlinks
• Modern Website build with modern code

I would not be able to tell you the exact best method unless you PM your domains so I can give you an indepth report, as there are many other smaller factors like tables vs divs, sitemaps, penalty history etc.

[jmueller]

Hi,

I would redirect #1 to #2 and move on from there. Why? Exact Match is just overpowered. It depends on your sector / competition however. Generally it's best to have all content on one site so you can focus all your attention there.

If you have GWT accounts be sure to tell them that you move the site over to another one!

good Luck!

Jan