How do we maintain keyword rankings when creating a domain?

[Reis_Inc.]

We are creating a new corporate "marketing site" on Hubspot and connecting our existing product site to that as a sub-domain.  Our existing site ranks very well for all of our targeted keywords. The existing product site will now be behind a login, so how do we transfer juice to the new site in Hubspot?  Or can we?

[Sheena_Schleicher]

Hopefully someone with Hubspot experience will jump in here, but (setting the Hubspot detail aside) I'm thinking the best approach will be to use canonical tags. You would have to take a phased approach, first creating all the equivalent pages on the new site with canonical tags (across both domains) indicating that the new URLs are the preferred pages & to pass all linking/ranking equity from the old site to the new one. You would have to wait for all the new pages to be indexed & begin to rank before putting the old site behind the login. Once this is all setup, submitting new sitemaps may expedite the lay time.

I'm interested in knowing why your company wants to put a well-established/ranking site behind a login.

Update:  The technical part of this article reminded me of what you're trying to do: http://searchengineland.com/breaking-glass-ceiling-search-acquisition-209676

[EricaMcGillivray]

While I can't speak for HubSpot and their tools, you could use 301 redirects. Since behind a user login, you'll be an https site, you could 301 redirect the http URLs to the new Hubspot marketing site.

[Reis_Inc.]

Hi Sheena,

Thanks for answering.  We are a commercial real estate data and economic analysis firm, that has an existing site which is used by subscribing clients.  We are creating a new corporate site for the purposes of having a marketing friendly site.  We are now going to gate our product site (existing) behind the new site.

Best,

Scott