Moving pages that pay well in AdSense

Should we leave ads and any suggestions for move?

[Crystal Pegasus]

Hi All,

We are possibly going to have to remove a whole section of a site (pages that being the majority of AdSense earning... and pretty good money) and create a new site from scratch for it.

Firstly, should we put on the AdSense ads when we first put the pages on the new site? Is there any advantage to giving the site time without the ads? If so, what are they? Or will having the ads right from the start bring the best results.

Secondly, does anyone have any suggestions, "tricks of the trade" as to any ways we can avoid having to build up rank etc. right from the start again? I knoiw this may be a forlorn hope, but thought it couldn't hurt to ask! :)

These pages get heaps of traffic now, as the original site is about 7 years old, and it's taken a long time to get to where we are, so it's discouraging to think of having to begin again, so to speak.

Is there any way we can utilise the age/ranking of the old site to help the new site?

Would "this page has moved here" links from the old site be a good idea?

Does the actual fact of having AdSense on the site help Google find it?

Any other suggestions?

Thank you.

Crystal Pegasus.

[Quadrille]

Does the actual fact of having AdSense on the site help Google find it?

No; different set up.

[Gusgsm]

I am having a similiar doubt (not much money, though) and I was wondering myself: Could Google Sitemaps be of any help in such a situation?

[josetann]

I say, if you're making a lot from it, keep it like it is! If you try to move to a brand new site, it'll take a while for your PR to creep back up, and your earnings will most likely take a nosedive. I don't know the specifics of what you want to do, but if I was in the similar vague situation here's what I'd do. Go ahead and create your new site. The content you were going to move from your old site, just copy it and update it while you're at it. Leave the old site just as it is, so you'll have old content (which is bringing in the $$$) on the old site, and the same content on the new site, except updated. You may even want to post a link towards the top of the old pages directing users to the new site where they can find the updated version (something like, for the updated page visit newsite.com, this page is kept for archival purposes only).

[Car_Guy]

It may not help you, but I would do everything possible to avoid moving from a site that is already well-established and making you money.

[hyperkik]

A couple of years ago I moved some content to a different URL, as part of the process of cleaning up the focus of a site. I got a lot of links which went to the old site (which was in a subdirectory) updated to the new site. I used 301 redirects. The results were, to put it mildly, not spectacular. The new site still gets a fraction of the traffic it did on the old URL. I'm not saying that you will have the same experience, but if it is a cash cow I would personally do my best to leave it where it is.

[dibbern2]

I would move all the OTHER pages to a new site if possible, leaving the money earners where they are forever.

Don't duplicate content accross two sites (an old one and the new one). You are likely to get slammed with a duplicate content rating that could take months (or years) to erase, resulting in serps rankings somewhere between #500 and not-at-all.

[Crystal Pegasus]

Thanks for all the comments so far.

Unfortunately we don't have the option of moving the other pages to leave the good earners where they are. We aren't positive that we will have to move them yet, but it's looking likely.

Ah well... we'll get there again eventually I guess. Just the idea of working our way up again from nothing after bringing in several hundred dollars a month is somewhat disheartening!

Any more ideas?