Migrating Reviews from Old SIte

[Chris661]

We recently changed our Website to Word Press and I would like to move the old reviews to the new site.

I am concerned Google might not understand the reviews showing up all of a sudden. The old reviews were on a sub-domain (store.domain.com). I will be able to match the dates and text as well as names.

Any advice or Best Practice on this?

Thanks!

[WilliamKammer]

Are you able to access the .htaccess file on the old website? If so, it sounds like the best thing to do would be to 301 redirect from the old review pages to the new ones. With these 301s in place, Google can figure out that the site has moved, and you aren't just spamming a ton of new reviews and manipulating dates.

If that isn't possible, implement canonical tags on the old pages.

In either case, make sure to mark up the new pages in Schema.

[Chris661]

Hi William,

Yes I am pretty sure I can. It is provided by Core Commerce and I will be shutting it down at some point. I thought the 301 redirects should be placed in the new site's htaccess?

Once the old site is shut down there would be no page to tag canonically, I think?

Using Raven Schema Creator plugin but interested in other recommendations as well.

Thanks

[WilliamKammer]

Is it possible to host the domain somewhere cheaply once it's shut down, just to have an .htaccess file on it? Then it can still be done, just make sure everything redirects somewhere in the .htaccess.

An .htaccess file on your new domain can't control web pages from the old domain to redirect them, that .htaccess file has to go on the old domain. .

Correct, you can cannot tag canonically if the old site is shut down.

Schema generators are to taste, pick one you feel comfortable using and double check the markup.

[Chris661]

Just to be clear, it is now a sub-domain.

Does that matter?

[WilliamKammer]

No. Not unless it is a subdomain of the same domain you are redirecting to, in which case you would put the .htaccess on the new domain.

So, the .htaccess file has to go on the old domain unless the old subdomain was something like reviews.newdomain.com and now you moving them to newdomain.com/reviews.

I hope that makes sense.

[Chris661]

"unless the old subdomain was something like reviews.newdomain.com and now you moving them to newdomain.com/reviews."

That is the case. Was "Store.domain.com" and now is "domain.com". Was previously two sites and the one I am dumping was the subdomain.

Thanks for hanging in there and answering this thing!