Move to new domain with new design and url

[as14220808]

I have an e-commerce website that is template based and I have absolutely no control over it. Each product have quite good ranking in google. However, we are creating new website using asp.net mvc and host in azure. It has totally new design. Since I have no control over my old website, I cannot force the server to redirect each product page to my new website product page. This is what I have done so far.

1. I told my old website provider to point my domain (ex. domainA.com) to new nameserver at dyndns
2. I created a new zone and add a http redirect service to new domain (http://www.domainB.com) with 301 redirect

I'm pretty sure that this is not enough since there is a difference in url like this

• Old: www.domainA.com/product/70/my-product-name
• New: www.domainB.com/product/1/my-new-product-name
• New route config: {product}/{id}/{name}

As you can see, the structure is similar but the product id and name is different. Do I need to catch the incoming id and name from old website and 301 redirect it again to the correct one? If so, this will cause double 301 redirect and would this be a SEO problem?

Thank you in advance for your answer.

[MonicaOConnor]

Usually, the 301 redirect would be set up in the HTAccess file to make sure that the product pages point to the corresponding product pages. It sounds like everything might be pointed to the home page. You don't necessarily want to create duplicate 301s.

Do you think that it would be impossible for the site to rank without the 301 redirects? If they cannot be done correctly I would say don't do them at all. I know that sounds crazy, but with a complete change in domain and having no control over the 301 redirects it might do more harm than good.

[Sheena_Schleicher]

It sounds like you need a pattern redirect implemented, ideally in one 301. If that's not possible, I would definitely add another to get all the URLs redirected to their new location (avoiding any redirect loop) - better to lose 10-20% of link equity than all! Plus you said the old pages rank well - changing domains already almost guarantees a drop in rankings, even with 301s implemented. You absolutely need the 301redirects! As a last resort, have them 301 to the new location of each page's category.

Make sure you test whatever solution you go with on a few pages before pushing across entire categories.

Hope this helps!