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had the same issue, we direct to www. syntactically, our content is part of the world wide web, so we figured that www. was the way to go. it won't really affect SEO one way or the other, but for a consistency standpoint (as Takeshi mentions), choose one or the other via .htaccess.
hi -
are the site topics related? Site B, in addition to being older, has higher authority (i'm presuming) because you've built great content around the topic and attracted a community and audience.
if site A is totally unrelated, cannibalizing site B and moving everything over probably wont get you very fair. because all of the sudden, all of the things that helped site B rank well, will be irrelevant to the content that is now there!
i would consider adding social features such as seo-able comments/forums/disqus etc. to help build each sites "local"ness in kw's. get each site as far away from the "template" mindset as you can.
in terms of "templates" keep in mind that google is not looking at template code for the most part. they're looking at the content (stuff in text) on your site and it's relevance.
i'd also consider shelving 260 of those domains, and making 10 really great sites.
best of luck!
also, keep in mind that if you are ranking on secondary terms on the non-front pages, you will lose a lot of that relevance by forwarding to only your home page (esp. if it's not about that specific thing.
example:
old site about fruit on home page - old subpage about apples
the old subpage about apples may rank really well
next, you forward the old subpage about apples to your new front page
the search engines go "oh, this page isn't as relevant as the old apples subpage that no longer exists, let's bump down the rankings"
hence, it's always best to forward your equivalent old content to your equivalent new content.
hi -
how many pages are we talking here?
check with your website host. many of of them have redirect utilities (such as isapi_rewrite : http://www.isapirewrite.com/) installed on the server (or just "rewrite" for apache i think) that will allow you to add a set of rules to your .htacess so it filters the way you want every time someone hits an old page. you would need 2 rules:
1.) when site is contactinfo.html --> contact.php
2.) when all others ---> send to index.php
i would highly advise forwarding more relevant pages to their new equivalents if they are available. doing it the way you've mentioned will send link juice to index.php, but you may run into relevance issues.
isapi_rewrite is a little complicated in terms of it's syntax rules, but they've got a pretty useful forum. additionally, sometimes website hosts have a pro that can help you if you can't figure it out.
hope that's of some help! :>)
dan
i use them as well and have not seen any issue.
well said. key part of that "only 25% of internet pages", which for a small company like seomoz is an ENORMOUS undertaking with quite a bit of cost and effort.
i too get excited about linkscape updates, but i feel like it's a blurry picture at best, so i view it as an aid more than the end-all-be-all-this-is-where-i'm-at tool.
hi -
i've been through this and can offer a few suggestions:
1.) see if your server can use some sort of rewrite program like isapi rewrite. you can create code to have the page rewrite the url to what you want.
2.) consider moving to a new ecommerce platform (scary, i know) and then using 301's from your old stuff to your new stuff. any ecommerce vendor that is not using seo friendly product url's in 2011 does not deserve your business. if they aren't doing that chances are they may also be behind on such things as pci compliance, security, and general features.
good luck!
hi -
i've been through this and can offer a few suggestions:
1.) see if your server can use some sort of rewrite program like isapi rewrite. you can create code to have the page rewrite the url to what you want.
2.) consider moving to a new ecommerce platform (scary, i know) and then using 301's from your old stuff to your new stuff. any ecommerce vendor that is not using seo friendly product url's in 2011 does not deserve your business. if they aren't doing that chances are they may also be behind on such things as pci compliance, security, and general features.
good luck!
so your saying that:
beta.olddomain.com will go to: olddomain.com
existing content at olddomain.com will go to newdomain.com
if that's correct it may be a bit over my head. perhaps someone else can chime in?
it sounds like you are trying to preserve link juice two ways, which i don't think you can do . perhaps a staggered launch that will allow the 301 to redirect the content, and then a relaunch via the beta content later (no 301s)?
hi Kyle,
all the domain forwarding sounds kind of dangerous to me.
i've done a few site redesigns and can offer the following advice:
1.) if it ain't broke, don't move it.
2.) if you can develop your new site via a local server, or a cheap host (set up a pw so only you can see it while you develop), i would do that. again, just moving domains seems risky.
301 redirects communicate to the search engines that you are permanently redirecting your content to your new site. you want to consider doing a 301 for ALL content/urls. this will help preserve rankings. a lot of times you can use a program like rewrite to handle this if you have tons of urls.
your best bet is to get all your "new" content ready to go, live, and then 301 redirect to it at your new domain. if that is happening on THE SAME domain (old content -> new content ; same domain), you want to 301 redirect your old url's to their equivalent new urls.
hope that helps! :>)
hey justin -
try importing it into microsoft excel or google docs spreadsheet, that should make it quite a bit more readable. if that doesn't work you may be able to export it from one of those 2 programs in a more readable format. :>)
thanks
dan
read up on "keyword cannibalization" - it will give you a better view of how you can compete with yourself on keywords.
best of luck!
dan
adam
take a look at disqus. i believe they have some plugins for SEO integration. anybody with a variety of accounts can comment.
hope that helps,
dan