Moving site to new domain without access to redirect from old to new. How can I do this with as little loss to SERP results as possible?

[c_estep_tcbguy]

I've been hired to build a new site for a customer. They were duped by some shady characters at goglupe.com (If you can reach them, tell them they are rats--phone is disconnected, address is a comedy club on Mission in SF). Glupe owns the domain name and would not transfer or give FTP access prior to dropping off the face of the earth. The customer doesn't want to chase after them with lawyers, so we are moving on. New domain, new site with much of the same content as previous site.

All that I have access to is the old wordpress site. I plan to build the new site, then remove all pages/posts from the old site. Is there anything I can do to salvage the current page 1 ranking? Obviously, the new domain will take some time to get back there. Just hoping to avoid any pitfalls or penalties if I can.

If I had complete access, I would follow all the standard guidelines. But I don't. Any thoughts?

Thanks!

Chris

[Guest]

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[c_estep_tcbguy]

Correct. Site is still live.

[mcncl]

If you have access to the old live WordPress site then you can set up redirects in there from old posts to new, relevant posts on the new site.

What content was actually duped? I barely see any content at all on goglupe.

[c_estep_tcbguy]

Sorry, not duped as in duplicated content. Duped as in that company took their money and ran.

I can set up redirects for each page/post? Do I need a plugin for that? I don't have access to the htaccess file.

[Chris661]

Yoast SEO plugin will do it.

[Guest]

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[mcncl]

Yoast will be able to handle it, though you might need to upgrade to premium for the plugin.

There are many other capable redirect plugins for WP which should do the trick too.

[c_estep_tcbguy]

Glad to know that this may not be near as bad as expected. Obviously this is not an ideal situation. The big lesson learned by these folks, take care of your domain!

[Guest]

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[c_estep_tcbguy]

New wrinkle. I added the redirects to the original site (robinsonsllc.net). Pages are redirecting just fine to new site (ababilling.net).

However, I get redirected when I try to login to robinsonsllc.net/wp-admin.

I didn't add any wildcards, and I certainly didn't redirect the wp-admin. I have no way to get back into the original site now.

Any ideas?