Changing Domains - 301 old https to new https

[bnewt]

Brief History:

Our company made change to a new domain. Both domains had an SSL configured on it in which the old domain SSL was controlled and created by Shopify which gave us limited control. Because we couldn't redirect the old https://  to the new https:// So basically we duplicated our new HTML website and put canonical ref on all duplicate pages to the final domain to help get search to navigate to the newer domain.

Question:

In the near future I would like to take down the old domain and do a 301 domain forwarding. What is the correct course of action to complete this? Our old domain was indexed and SERP results were tied to it's https:// url's.

[ThomasHarvey]

If I'm correct, you're no longer using the old domain and just redirecting to the new site?

If that's correct, why keep it with Shopify at all, you could instead point it to a different server (or to Cloudflare which'll be able to handle to redirects through page rules without you having to do any code).

The best course of action is to 301 redirect the site to the new site, then on the new site (after checking for issues) submit sitemaps/fetch as google. To speed up this process slightly you can also submit a sitemap for the old site, Google will see the redirect when they try to crawl any page.

[BlueprintMarketing]

Thomas is right you IF YOU STILL HAVE THE DOMAIN you can use Cloudflare to do 100% Free URL Forwarding With HTTP & https 301 wildcard redirects with no server.

"Because we couldn't redirect the old https://  to the new https:// So basically we duplicated our new HTML website and put canonical ref on all duplicate pages to the final domain to help get search to navigate to the newer domain."

So the canonical ref on all duplicate pages to the new domain will help get Google to navigate to the newer domain but not like a 301 redirect will. So on Shopify, you are pointing the old URLs to the new domains URL's I hope if not please 301 use Cloudflare for 301 domain forwarding

• If so Follow the tutorial below on how setup free URL forwarding with Cloudflare, along with 301 wildcard redirects.
• https://woorkup.com/free-url-forwarding/

if you do change the URL's after the forward slash "/" or don't want Cloudflare to run your old domain so you can take down the old domain and do a 301 domain forwarding you should read the guides below.

• https://builtvisible.com/domain-migration/
• https://moz.com/blog/achieving-an-seo-friendly-domain-migration-the-infographic
• https://searchengineland.com/changing-domain-names-2016-10-easily-overlooked-steps-can-save-seo-248484

this setup, you don't want to duplicate your web site HTTP to HTTPS if needed.

• https://www.aleydasolis.com/en/search-engine-optimization/http-https-migration-checklist-google-docs/

If I where you I would just do what is in this guide the only cost is the cost of your old domain & it will auto line up urls (if you did not change them aside from the domain name.

• Read & use this https://woorkup.com/free-url-forwarding/

Hope this helps,

Tom

[bnewt]

Thank you for the response Tom - This does make sense and I will implement and let you know how it works out. I have very limited experience with the free Cloudflare account so I do have one question. Does the domain I am forwarding everything need to be controlled by Cloudflare as well? Didn't know if that was needed for everything to play nice.

[BlueprintMarketing]

Hi

Cloudflare does not need to be added two times (or to each domain) to work or it would only be used on the old domain for an Automattic 301 redirect to the new site/ domain so I would only use it once to make sure I get the set of 301s for the old domain.

Does that make sense?

(The "yournewdomain.com" does not need to run on Cloudflare only the "yourolddomain.com" domain)

You will then want to see how this is used in the following pattern:

https://yourolddomain.com/*

Select “Forwarding URL” and “301 – Permanent Redirect” for the settings, and input the following rule:

https://newyourdomain.com/$1

The /$1 enables the wildcard part to function. Then click on “Save and Deploy.”

cite: https://woorkup.com/free-url-forwarding/

Let me know if I can be of any help,

Thomas Zickell

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