Creating two websites from one and building up traffic to the new domain quickly

[helga73]

A client has an existing successful website that sells niche products - they are well known in their marketplace. They have two sets of key customers, let's call them (a) and (b), that need addressing in different ways to maximise sales. (a) is the more specialist end of the market, where people have complex needs - there are fewer of them but repeat business is likely, and we can talk to them in more technical language. (b) is the layman's end of the market - there is a vast pool of potential customers but they'll be more casual buyers and need to be addressed more in layman's terms.

So what they want to do is to take their existing website, and essentially split it into two different websites, one for each market. The one that will use the existing domain, with all the links that have built up over the years pointing to it, will be the site for the more specialist end of the market (a). The domain name suits it better, which is why he wants to use the existing domain with that site and not the other.

(b) will be a brand new domain. The client will write new product descriptions across the board so that the two sets of product information are not duplicate.

I'd rather he didn't do this at all, because of the risk involved, and the difficulty of building up the traffic to the new site, which is after all the one with the best chance of mass market sales. But given that the client has decided that this is definitely what he wants, does anyone have any thoughts on what the action plan should be?

[effectdigital]

Yes there is risk involved. But the greater risk is when you never diversify and build out, you get left behind. What's worse, a high probability of a small to medium dip in results (short term, 2-3 months) or the certainty of site death via refusing to evolve over time (probably in 5 years)?

What he is doing, is making a business decision. You can't make or unmake, or take responsibility for his business decision (that burden is his and his alone). What you can do is help to inform his decision

Even when redirect mapping is done perfectly, you can experience dips in traffic. This is especially true when new domains come into play!

Things that can affect the 301 redirects ability to transfer maximum (100%) SEO authority:

• 1. If the redirects end up looping (super unlikely, between two different domains. Happens more when architecture changes on the same domain and someone super smart isn't doing the redirects!)
• 2. Wrong redirect type used (e.g: JS redirects, Meta refreshes, 302 redirects etc)
• 3. If the redirects begin to chain (301 to a 301, 301 to a 302, 302 to a 301 etc.)
• 4. If the content Google saw on its last 'active' cache of the old URL (which is now redirecting), is vastly different from the content of the redirect destination URL. Do not think in human terms, think in machine terms. Think about stuff like Boolean string similarity. If you take all the content from the old URL and put it in a single string, and do the same for the new page - if the Boolean string similarity is only (example) 25% (rather than 75%, or 90%) - then don't expect most of the SEO authority to go across (it won't). If the new page is significantly different, it's Google's view that the backlinks which webmasters created previously (to the old URL) shouldn't necessarily be applied (in terms of PageRank) to the new URL. They might not have decided to link to the new URL, if it's very different (fair play I guess)

---

So as you can see, even if you do everything perfectly, there's still a risk that some performance could be lost and could have to be re-built. So why do anything or ever split / build sites out?

Well, the human population grows every day right? So does the population of the internet. That means that keywords which are long-tail today, could be heavy-hitters in 2-5 years time. That will draw the attention of larger SEO agencies and companies with more resources (people, money, expertise) than you can hope to match.  Those keywords will get sucked up into the sky

So what will you replace them with? Happily, keywords with 0 search volume today (or which aren't even recorded) will exist and become fruitful as the human (and web) population grows and the diversity of applied language (for searches and queries) increases in complexity over time

So if you never build out and split out, never divide and offer a more long-tail experience - you will die and be forgotten. All your keywords now, will be taken from you - with nothing to replace them with, your site will die out

So you **HAVE **to grow and divide and scale. It's not optional, it's a survival requirement on a Darwinistic web

But you are right there is risk, especially in the short to medium term. There will be some pain and a loss of results. But if that stops the site from completely dying out, it's something you have to do

Judging when that moment has come can only be the business owners decision

Think of a lion on the African savanna. Is it risky to go out there, take down an antelope or a bison? You bet your ass it is, as a predator the lion could lose an eye. But does the lion just say "fudge it then I'll just stay in"? No, because if he takes that line of thought he's sure to starve. I mean, in reality the lionesses do all the hunting anyway >_> but you get what I mean right?

This split out will probably negatively impact results, and these kinds of maneuvers need to be kept in check. Once move like this every 2-3 years should not be exceeded. But if you never do these things, you lose everything in the long run!

Hope that makes sense

[helga73]

I appreciate the time you've put in to such a detailed reply, however I'm not questioning the client's business decision and I don't plan to.  My question was not whether it is a good idea or not - that really doesn't matter as the decision is already made - but more to start a discussion around the best action plan from this point forward.

There won't actually be any redirecting involved, because what the plan is essentially is to make a new website with all the same products on as the original site, but worded completely differently for the wider market. The existing website will stay in place as-is, with the original domain and all the original content.

[effectdigital]

Sorry where you said 'splitting' the site in two, I assumed part of the site would move out to the new domain and therefore would no longer reside on the old domain

If it's going to be exactly the same site on both domains, then it truly is un-wise as there's no value-add for the web or end users (why go to the new site, when users can get all the same stuff on the old site?)

If it's going to be basically the same then it probably won't perform very well (also as the goal-posts for a good, linkable site have probably shifted since the old one was made!)

Different wording will help a bit but I wouldn't expect to see much performance on the new site, if it's not bringing a value proposition to the table (wording will only take you so far)

This is a good video from Google: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6AmRg3p79pM

You only really need to listen to point #1. If you start working on the SEO before you work on the unique value proposition of the new brand (or at least, new site - if it will be branded the same) then it's pretty much pointless to continue

[helga73]

Again, the thing is that the client has made the decision and he definitely wants to do this. I'm not planning to fight it any further as I've already explained to him the difficulties and he appreciates them and has made the decision to do it anyway.

The new site won't be exactly the same, but it will have broadly the same set of products, albeit described in a very different way.

The situation is undoubtedly difficult and undesirable, that's for sure. But the client has made a business decision and now we have to find the best way through it.