Forum Moderators: Robert Charlton & goodroi
- Will the site lose its google rank? How long for?
- Will the sites age be set to zero?
- Will it go into the sandbox?
Most of the linking sites I can ask to update to my .co.uk but then I am worried about losing the link age.
- Is it better to leave them linking to the .com and expect Google to comprehend my 301?
- Or is it better to ask them to link to the .co.uk and lose the link age?
Quite simply let's say the exisiting url is example.com and you want to move and promote example.co.uk.
In the navigation an existing url on example.com may read:
/about.html, simply remove all the optimised information and put it in your new .co.uk and then replace the .com navigation with:
[example.co.uk...]
I'll have a 99%+ bet that even for a new site it should not be "sandboxed", it's not happened to me when doing this, and it also retains your original url for something else and will automatically be ready for any new site you wish to promote.
Is that it?
I get far too complicated at times.
I have used this method on many sites old and new and not simply one or two. Obviously it always takes until the next update for the SE's to start indexing correctly and also you do not necessarily retain the same ranking position since the new domain generally will not have the back links of the old one, but it does guarantee a seamless transition and, I believe, actually assists the spiders and especially so when we're talking geo-location.
Hope that helps.
...and also you do not necessarily retain the same ranking position since the new domain generally will not have the back links of the old one.
Ay, there's the rub... ;)
The idea of 301 redirects to a new domain is to preserve the backlinks and the rankings of the old one.
These work on MSN and Yahoo, and though Google recommends 301s as the method of choice, starting around March, sites that did redirect to new domains ended up in the sandbox. Now they appear to be coming out.
The question, I think, is whether new domains now will put you in, or whether that part of the sandbox is over.
PS... I should add that I don't think the problem ever was with the 301s... it was with the new domains... so building a site on a new domain would still have problems if those problems are still occurring.
The idea of 301 redirects to a new domain is to preserve the backlinks and the rankings of the old one.
But it's not a lot of use if it doesn't work though. The probability is that with going to Google.co.uk it should be a lot easier for kapow to rank for many terms quite simply because there is not the volume of global .com submissions.
A simple question. Is the .co.uk datacentre full? If not then it would be easy to get into .co.uk and then when .com wants to deliver .com results then it would also have the new .co.uk information to draw from, compare and rank alongside the existing .com results.
What I also feel is that a lot of US Americans tend to forget that when they're submitting to Google.com they're competing against the entire world not just fellow Amercians...hey, that almost sounds Presidential...so would that infer that it is easier to get into the .com results via the backdoor so to speak?
so building a site on a new domain would still have problems if those problems are still occurring.
This is the point I keep repeating. I have not suffered one "sandbox" when either doing this or reciprocally linking with an authority site HOWEVER, and this is a very BIG however and I have nothing to back this up with other than non-failure of submissions, all my sites are hosted in the UK and I often wonder by reciprocally linking .co.uk sites to our .com, biz and info where relevant, whether they are "somehow" avoiding this "sandbox".
I cannot prove anything except that I know how well we are doing and that we are not suffering the problems others have.
left on the old domain is only the navigation part of the old pages, and in that navigation you change all links to point to the new domain.
but then presumably you've got lots of duplicate 'home pages' all leading to one site? I can't see that this makes sense if we're talking about having other geo suffixes registered or misspellings etc. Also you've potentially got issues with being penalised for duplicate content and also tracking issues with people using their back button to get back to the index page they entered at so switching between domains - or am I still misunderstaning this method?
anj
presumably you've got lots of duplicate 'home pages' all leading to one site?
Nope, you've removed the original information and moved it to the new site.
or am I still misunderstaning this method?
Yep.
people using their back button to get back to the index page they entered at
It doesn't matter where they go once they've entered since they're using the new site's navigation. Even when they hit the home/index page it goes straight to the new home page, not back to the old home page.
What you have to do is think like a spider builder, and remember these things have no emotion, pure logic and specific instructions.
The spider arrives at the already established home page to update information. Some spiders, Inktomi is the worst, like to verify that their old information is still there and if it is not keep pounding the hell out of your site month after month trying to find it until it finally gives up. Inktomi finally stopped doing this to one of my sites, some 8,000 pages, after some 5 years I think it was.
I digress, the more sophisticated spider comes along to a site it already knows well and automatically spiders the new information. Why should it not?
It's a solid, reliable site with relevant information, the owner has simply moved his information around a bit therefore it will spider the new information and over the next couple of months, generally, delete the original old link information for the new.
Put yourself in the spider builder situation. How would you build it and what information would you ask it to request?
The spider builder knows that information is moved about, updated, transferred, etc. If the sider's instructions were not to update and not to follow links the search engines would not exist as they are now.
Its' the KISS principle - Keep It Simple Stupid.
Too many try to make things too complicated and take it personally. I have always used the KISS principle and it has never failed me in more than 10 years.
If it had I wouldn't be telling you and I would not be ranked at #1 for so many keywords terms and, of course, it really does help if you have a reciprocal link to an authority site but that it not 100% essential.
The beauty of doing it this way is that you still retain the original domain name within the engines and when you're ready to launch a new site there is no "sandbox" new domain filter to overcome.
There, I think I've explained it now:-)
and even once the user has followed a link into the 'new' site if they hit the browser back button from that first click rather than use the nav again they will go back to the skeleton page/old domain.
But, I can completely see the value in doing what you describe if it really is a case of shifting to a new domain name and wanting spiders/bots to just go with it naturally without resubmitting etc.
anj
Yep, this method is strictly for those who wish to move an entire or part of a site to a new domain(s) hopefully without incurring any "sandbox" penalty or 301 screw up!
To be honest I don't use any misspelt domains since I just would not be able to justify so many thousands, probably 25,000, of urls!
