Rebranding an established website

Rebranding an established website - how do I do this properly

[jc2005]

Hi folks.

This is my first post, perhaps someone can help here.

I run an established website on behalf of a company which is about to go out of business. The website, although not worth a lot of money, has a good reputation and I have acquired the rights to it and to ensure its future (I'll refrain from naming the site as this hasn't been finalised).

Due to business reasons, I am not allowed to keep the site as it currently is. I must rebrand, and have purchased a suitable domain name. I'm also allowed to do whatever is necessary to move users to the new site, but due to a weird contractual clause, whatever rebranded site I create must be:

(a) visibly different to the existing site;
(b) on a different domain;
(c) on a different IP;
(d) effectively independent from the original site.

The existing site must also, for other bizarre reasons, see out contractual obligations for another six months, and I'm looking to scale it down and move members to the new site. I may, on the other hand, be allowed to transfer the current site's domains to myself on expiry (six months hence).

What I am wondering is how to go about this. The current site has a Google PageRank of 7, which I believe to be quite respectable, and has incoming links from a number of external sites.

I'd like to maintain the page-ranking with Google, etc., whilst moving over to the new domain and with the new rebranded site appearing completely independent to the old one (but retaining its established ranking, traffic and the like).

Any ideas? I'd pursue the line of reasoning with the outgoing company, but they're quite adamant that the current branding and name must not be used, and that the rebranded site I create be effectively independent and unconnected (though internally it won't be).

Thanks,

John

[leadegroot]

Gee, thats tough - you haven't really bought much, just the rights to approach their existing members.
Assuming you have access to the current domain, not just to its members, you would want to 301 all the pages to the new domain.
Any chance you have an old domain name for your new site? Otherwise I think even the 301 will still see you sitting in the sandbox for months to come.
Would the contract allow you to use a subdomain on the domain name? That should evade the sandbox.

[pmkpmk]

Welcome to WebmasterWorld!

Wow! That is really a tough job! Can you disclose a little bit more (without dropping names or URL's which would against our TOS anayways) why the contract was built like it is? If they are going out of business, why do they care? Seems to me that the contract has either been negotiated by somebody who has NO KNOWLEDGE whatsoever about how modern SEM works, or by somebody who knows VERY WELL how the game is played (even though his reasons lie in the dark to me). If the first option is true, then I would try to re-negotiate the contract. Better pay a bit more and get full rights...

OK, my 2 cents:

1. Get the mindshare and buy-in of the members of the site. Be very open and very honest to them. Say that the old site is going down and that you are the "rightful heir". Explain them, WHY they should move to your new site. Show them the benefit. Get them involved. Ask them what features they missed so far, what could be done better. Maybe they want to meet with you in a user group, maybe they can engage in task forces to help you made the transition.
   
2. Don't ever refer to "that stupid contract" or say "I also can't understand why we can't use this site". You need their trust that the new site and the old site work in agreement. They liked the old site, they respected their maintainer. If you insult the old maintainer, they'll distrust you.
   
3. Yes, it would be helpful if the new domain would be around for a while.
   
4. Do I understand it correct that the old site has to be online for 6months more? If yes, then that's the most unpleasant part since you can't work with redirects. However you can PREPARE those redirects already, so at midnight of the last day you can kick them into place. Use permanent redirects, and redirect from deep-page to deep-page. Don't take only one general redirect "oldsite.com/* -> newsite.com", but redirect every single page to the most appropriate new page.
   
5. Start to make public announcements on the old site and on ony related site as soon as possible.
   
6. Talk to EVERY single inbound link of the old site. Call(!) them, explain the situation, and ask them to change their link to the new site. Maybe even get completely new links as well. If they not already have, talk them into using better anchor text.
   
7. Offline media: depending on the industry you are in, print coverage (editoral, advertorial or advertising), press releases, local radio or TV.
   
8. Awareness campaign via PPC. You can use the old sitename and the old sites keywords to advertise the new site.
   
9. Again, get the mindshare of the existing members. If it's a local thing, arrange a launch party.
   

Good luck!

[edit]Changed from bullet list to numbered list[/edit]

[edited by: pmkpmk at 2:24 pm (utc) on Feb. 25, 2005]

[jc2005]

Thanks for the advice.

Luckily, I will have effective free reign to do what I please with the old (established) site, and can do 301s at will. All I can't do is publicly associate the new site with the old (though I am free to approach all members).

This isn't a commercial deal, so there's no money involved and hence no easy way of acquiring the rights to the old domain. Without disclosing too much (in case they find out), it's a question of the original company having some contractual issues of their own with regard to a third-party (who nobody would have heard of I guess, but I won't disclose anyway for obvious reasons). I'm not exactly sure the nature of the situation, only what I'm permitted to do.

As the designer and recognised 'owner' of the site (parent company merely provided server, domain and a little marketing), I have the goodwill of 7000+ registered members, a Google PR of 7, #1 in Google search on key terms and 200K page impressions each month. So, in a sense, it's a big deal to me to keep my creation alive, but without the overhead and beaurocracy of the old company and its own issues.

Hope that helps a bit.

John

[pmkpmk]

OK, I changed my list above from bullets to numbers.

So if I understand your situation correctly, my points 5, 7 and 8 are completely ruled out? What about #6?

I would modify #4 then to - once you set up the new site completely - redirect all pages immediately to the new site. Nevertheless you will lose your ranking and your number 1 spot for some weeks. Rumor says that after 12 weeks all the redirects hve been digested by Google.

[jc2005]

"Do I understand it correct that the old site has to be online for 6months more?"

No, fortunately not. As soon as I've got the new site up and running, I can basically scale down the original site. The plan being, of course, that the new site will truly be independent of the old.

Basically, the biggest obstacles are page ranking, search engine results and incoming links, rather than the current members (who are very loyal, and will follow without complaint). There are other considerations, such as the online CC payment system - which will need to be migrated - and even practical considerations such as the ISP contract and the leasing on the site's dedicated server - but these things are easily sorted with a bit of paperwork.

What I really want to achieve, in summary, is to shift www.oldsite.com to www.newsite.com, whilst transferring the pagerank, SE results and incoming links to the new site without any downtime, and crucially, no obvious trail being left to associate the new site with the old site, once done.

John

[trillianjedi]

You're going to have to 301 and cross your fingers.

If you're going to be moving to a new domain and re-branding, you really have no option.

A PR7 homepage makes it a fairly authoritative domain though, so I can't really see you being booted out for too long. And with 7k members you should survive a lean patch on SE referrals without too many concerns.

I recently re-branded a site and the new domain got sandboxed, but I wasn't as authoritative as you sound to be.

The site did have 1,500 odd members though, so ticked along quite happily in the interim, and came out again a few months later.

TJ

[pmkpmk]

What I really want to achieve, in summary, is to shift www.oldsite.com to www.newsite.com, whilst transferring the pagerank, SE results and incoming links to the new site without any downtime

No way!

You can take care of the incoming links by proper planning and (hopefully) the cooperation of the guys linking to it, but you WILL suffer at least for a while from reduced ranking and most likely reduced PR as well. (btw: PR is not as important as it used to bee - a very good summary is here: [webmasterworld.com...] ).

and crucially, no obvious trail being left to associate the new site with the old site, once done.

Do you realize how strange that my sound? And actually this rules out redirects, because how more obvious can you be?

[trillianjedi]

And actually this rules out redirects, because how more obvious can you be?

Good point. I guess it's a case of getting as many as possible to change the link, then ditch the 301 in a few months time.

TJ

[jc2005]

Thanks,

No, nothing dodgy about the association thing - just want to make a clean break from the original domain, as I feel a re-brand should be just that. I think I'm going to have to go with the 301s for the meantime, with both sites co-existing for awhile, and ensure registered members are automatically redirected to the new site so that they can start using it right away.

In terms of 'sandbox' time; the site has a good sense of loyalty from members, so they come back every day. Its most loyal member has visited 7500+ times in 3 years, which I think's pretty cool. That's even more than me, and I run it ;-)

Anyway, I guess I'm going to have to 'suck it and see'...

Fingers crossed!

John

[jc2005]

Actually, does anyone know of an easy way (short of sifting the logs) to determine which sites link to a site? That way I can set about contacting each site in turn, with a view to gaining a head-start on the migration process.

John

[pmkpmk]

You need to rely on the search engines. The "link:mysite" in Google is pretty meanningless, try the "link¦mysite" instead. Yahoo seems to be much better - MSN's index is yet too small.

Check them all three and combine the results.

Please report back how it went - I'm really interested in that.

[leadegroot]

just sift the logs - thats not hard, and far more reliable than any search engine link command.

[pmkpmk]

That only works for Backlinks that actually send visitors! Visitor-sending backlinks are important, but the usually only make up half (or even less) of all the backlinks you have.

[leadegroot]

Certainly, but updating the links which do send you visitors is far more important (in this case) than updating the ones that don't.
Priorities are important.

[pmkpmk]

Of course you are right that priorities are important, the only problem with backlinks is that they involve an incalculable component: humans!

You don't know IF you reach the webmaster of the backlinking page at all, what mood he (she) is in, if the backlinking page might have become a competitor in the meantime, etc.

So - yes - backlinks that send you visitors might seem more important than backlinks that contriute to your PR. But since ALL backlinks are difficult and delicate, I would not advise to split them in two groups but rather to start working on them ALL at once if they are in a manageable quantity.