Old domain (example.com) to (somethingelse.com)

[kettlebellswing]

Hi there

I'd really appreciate any help you can give me. I want to redirect our old domain (example.com) to (somethingelse.com). They are both hosted separately.

The old domain has a domain authority of 20 and never ranked well. We can't be sure Google simply doesn't like the old domain. I'll explore the links again to check.

Another question is: do we even want to pass the old authority to the new website?

Thank you.

[JonAlonsoCNC]

There are 2 main things to consider

1. Branding: Is your brand powerful enough that the old domain could still have direct visitors If most of your audience is a one-time interaction then starting fresh and rebuilding your brand could be the best option. I would also look at your pages with traffic, What pages did you get the most traffic from and maybe redirect those pages and replicate those same pages on your new domain. ( Make sure to keep the copy, title tags and descriptions consistent )

2. Do you have any authoritative sites linking to you? With SEO it's about relevance/Authority and Google seeing your an expert in this space. If you have topical links ( Trade publications, news sites, online editorials ) that are deemed to be authoritative in your niche and has an audience of your potential customers, organically reach out to those editors, webmasters and ask to change your link to the new domain. You don't lose authority and you start gaining back what you may have won without having to start from the beginning.

At the end of the day, if you are starting fresh due too poor SEO from the past, I would say to build the new "fresh" domain from the ground up. Create a relevant copy, get topical links to your industry and create a website that users want to come back too. This will help you win every time.

-Jonathan Alonso

[kettlebellswing]

I kind of knew the answer to the question, you've clarified my thinking a lot.

It seems logical that we should start afresh and change any good links with the webmasters we can.

Thank you so much for your feedback.

[RyanMeighan]

It depends on the relationship between the two domains. Either way, as long as the 2 domains are similar/relevant to each other I would definitely suggest leveraging your old domain (A DA of 20 isnt terrible) in 1 of 2 ways: 1. A 301 redirect as you mentioned or 2. keep the old domain active and link to and from it to build up the DA of both sites.