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Of course, you've acquired the domain and not the old site; that makes sense. If I was desperate I would consider scraping what content I could from cached versions of the site (I'd outsource that)- if there are no legal implications in doing so. If that isn't possible/feasible, I'd direct what you can to the most relevant pages where possible and take the hit. I think your plan to create matching pages for the top 50 pages is sound. Whatever you do beyond that with 301s is of limited value if you can't match the content so in that case, I'd consider saving some time and creating redirecting everything else to your home page (or product overview page, for example, if this is of greater value and has higher engagement potential). The best you can do in each case is match as closely as you can to the content on the new site, where that isn't possible, consider the user's experience - can you deliver them to a page of interest where you can engage and potentially convert them into customers? You should always but the user's experience first, as this is what Google values most. After all, they want to do exactly the same for their customer - deliver relevant and engaging content. Worst case, if you've captured the biggest chunk of the value with those top 50 pages, you're going to salvage some value, at least. Consider the rest a bonus. Good luck

Thanks for the reply. I originally thought I wouldn't (and shouldn't) be able to use this in this scenario but then I stumbled across this post. All 301s are in place and working and will closely monitor the situation in GWT. Thanks Again

Hi there When you did these redirects, did you properly map them and follow migration best practices? Failing to do so can lead to a major drop. I would also make sure that you are following international SEO best practices and making sure you are taking advantage of proper indicators for country / language specific websites and content. I would also follow up on backlinks, citations, and listings, and make sure that they are properly pointing to their new URLs and structure, that way you are getting the full effect of you backlinks. Following the resources above and these backlink strategies should help you get back on track. Let me know if you have any questions or concerns! Good luck! Patrick

Thank you for your answer Lisa. Will do.

Hi David Thanks for your reply. This is how we did it: We redirected our old webshops with a 301 redirect on 07-07-12 to the new webshop. We had a new design, a lot of new content, new url structure, new product images etc. etc (but everything is unique) (we redirected everything to the root 300K pages) Nothing special happened and we conacted an SEO company to do a page on page redirect for the most important pages and then let the other links 301 to the root. On 23-07-12 we received our rankings back for 3 days, then there was a massive drop in rankings. Even the brand name is not showing up for the .com version. Now we changed the 300K redirects into 404 pages. So this is the situation: The most important pages from our old webshops are page to page redirected to the new webshop. All other urls are now 404.

We now removed all 301 after 2,5 weeks and replaced them with a custom 404 page. Only the most important pages are now redirected. But i guess something happened already. The .com version is very badly indexed, and it shouldn`t because we directed the 2 most important old webshops to this domain. All other versions, like the .nl and .de etc. are doing fine.

Hi Jennifer, Using 301 redirects is the answer, and I wouldn't worry about any kind of penalty from Google for this (any kind of manual inspection would show that it's a legitimate business merger). There won't be any harm in using a 301 redirect, however you will lose some link juice (exactly how much is unknown, but this unfortunately is an unavoidable consequence of moving sites). I would advise installing 301 redirects on a page by page level to carry across the individual strength you've built up for each page of your site (and consequently the keywords associated). This makes it a much bigger job and involves a lot of strategy planning, but it will be worth it as it will carry the existing traffic and rankings across from the current sites. So for example, rather than redirect the entire oldplantsite.nl domain to the newplantsite.nl homepage, go through each page and direct it to the most relevant page on the new site. For example: oldplantsite.nl/brazillian-rose-plant should redirect to the most relevant page on your new site, so something like newplantsite.nl/brazillian-plants This will also be great for user experience too as they will always be landing on a page relevant to the link or search result they clicked to get to your new site. In regards to the various other localised sites, this won't be an issue as long as you use the appropriate meta mark-up and Webmaster tools options. Thanks, David