Lost SEO contract, new SEO wants us to do the following - can you explain why?

[Simon_VO]

1.    Make prokem.co.uk the master domain rather than prokem-corrosion-protection.com

2.    Ensure each http URL is 301 redirected to its https counterpart via htaccess rather than in plesk

3.    301 redirect each www.prokem-corrosion-protection.com URL to its co.uk counterpart via htaccess. I can provide a list of pages to redirect as there are a number of duplicate pages that will need removing.

It probably makes sense to implement these other changes at the same time:

• Remove all of the canonical tags currently on the site.

• Leverage browser caching by following Google’s page speed recommendations - https://developers.google.com/speed/docs/insights/LeverageBrowserCaching

• Losslessly compress all of the website’s images.

• Combine and minify the website’s JavaScript

[ChrisAshton]

Hi Simon,

It's likely they've noticed an issue with the old domain (maybe a problem with the link profile?) and they're migrating to a geo-targeted TLD, hence the .co.uk. In this instance, it would make sense for them to do the https swap at the same time if they planned to do it in the future.

The reason for the redirects being done on a per-page basis is that they're trying to retain as much strength from the existing domain as they can. Setting up a 301 will retain ~80-90% of that strength though it will also retain the backlinks so maybe the link profile isn't the issue after all.

The last points are really just about improving the site speed and I would assume that since they're asking for a blanket removal of all canonicals, they've come across something else that concerned them or perhaps they're input manually right now and they plan to template them instead.

If my assumptions are correct, their requests seem above board. The larger question I'd have in this scenario is why you're tasked with doing their job!