Forum Moderators: Robert Charlton & goodroi
For the first week, while the old pages on the old site remained in the index, we received consistant traffic. Then, as those old pages dropped to supplemental status, no more traffic on Google was redirected. On top of that, the new sites have indexed, but they are not ranking.
I assume these will restore and rank, once the pages have some strength restored to them.
What's the deal on managing a rebranding or localisation of sites through the use of 301 redirects to maintain traffic? Could we have done this better?
For example,
a.com/blue-widgets.html -> b.com/blue-widgets.html
or
a.com/bluewidgets.html -> b.com/Blue_Widgets.php?
[edited by: Whitey at 11:16 am (utc) on July 3, 2007]
Traffic generally will drop for 3-6 months, but it does recover.
TJ
Has anyone managed a transfer with no loss of traffic?
There's one factor you can leverage that you didn't mention -- Google Webmaster Tools. I've heard that authenticating both the old and new domain within one GWT account can help lessen the pain. But to date, changing to a new domain is always a painful process and involves an extended loss of Google search traffic. I'd treat it like serious surgery -- double hip replacement or something like that with an extended rehab time, even with every studious effort applied.
not to a brand new domain
Would you recommend a preparation strategy by indexing the new site with the URL structure in place, dummy data and IBL's prior to redirecting the traffic onto it?
I wish this kind of change was not so challenging, but it is. Because of the way spam moves around, Google needs to be cautious when a new domain pops up. So I think of it like a business moving to a new physical location. As soon as possible, you would begin to brand the new location with "future home of" signs, press releases and so on -- you would not wait until the new doors are finally open to put up the signs.
I think anybody attempting a migration to a different domain should think long and hard whether it's really necessary. Google seems to actively dislike this.
Google seems to actively dislike this
I don't think they actively dislike it. As Ted says above, you're going to get caught in a filter that wasn't necessarily designed to catch you. It's an unfortunate side effect for a legitimate change in domain.
Definitely don't undertake it lightly, and I note some people have experienced a 12 month recovery time (which doesn't surprise me although my experience has been somewhat less than that) but sometimes you're in a situation where you just need to do it. A legal trademark wrangle for example.
My experience is a 100% recovery, eventually. Expect total loss of Google traffic to start with and a slow and gentle recovery over a period of time.
TJ
My experience is a 100% recovery, eventually.
Ditto, eventually, as in nine months or so... on a corporate site where the company also has considerable offline presence.
A legal trademark wrangle for example.
A trademark problem might present additional complications, as in a brand name wrangle you may be forced to give up the old domain. That would prevent 301 redirection of your old links to your new site, and that redirection is generally crucial to the recovery process.
When clients rebrand, btw, make it clearly understood that they are going to need to retain ownership of the old domain for a very long time. Letting it lapse prematurely can result, at best, in loss of inbounds. 301 redirection is not a one-time and forget-it thing. The redirect needs to stay in place as long as there are live links to the old domain on the web, and that redirection requires that you continue to own the domain name.
I've also seen situations that are essentially blackmail schemes, where a recently lapsed domain is pointed to a site that offers to sell you either unsavory photos... or sell the domain back to you for a rather high price.
The 2 domains i referred to have come up in the regional SERP's and rank well. So that's under 3 weeks from the time of the redirect.
These sites had holding pages and were indexed [ 1 page ] but have indexed and ranked all the way to level 5 from the home page. That's fast [ IMO ].
New backlinks have been added, so I'll wait and see how long this takes to kick in. One thing to note [ i think ] is that these new sites are only small [ 700 and 1400 pages ]
Another site with 301's to 40,000 pages has not come up in the SERP's [ 4 weeks now ] . So I'm wondering if the size of the site is an issue in slowing things down.
The 2 domains i referred to have come up in the regional SERP's and rank well.
"Regional" may well be the operative word here. Speaking for myself, I didn't pay much attention to the word "regionalised" in your original post.
Instead, I paid much more attention to "rebranding" in your title, and in fact was thinking of the consequences of redirecting to a new domain in the "main" Google US index.
It may be that your regional searches are much less competitive than the US index. Also, I've heard European SEOs say that they don't have to contend (yet) with many of filter-like algo factors we observe here... possibly including things like Local Rank and TrustRank, which could well be involved in the delays lumped under the umbrella of the so-called "sandbox."
There are other factors that may well take 6 months or a year.
What factors would these be?
Also, I've heard European SEOs say that they don't have to contend (yet) with many of filter-like algo factors we observe here... possibly including things like Local Rank and TrustRank, which could well be involved in the delays lumped under the umbrella of the so-called "sandbox."
There seems to be more filtering involved with Google US/.com . We rank No1 for an unusual term on a regional serp, but are filtered down to around 60-70 on the US/.com serp. There's a similar pattern on the other regional serps with equal terms being applied.
At this stage "trust" hasn't come into play, since those regional results have not taken in backlinks. Ageing isn't a consideration for the regional serps either, since we have had no presence [ except for a 6 month holding page - which may provide some influence ]. But it certainly seems that US/.com serps are heavily filtered by comparison.
[edited by: Whitey at 10:26 pm (utc) on July 17, 2007]
In the last two years I've worked with three different clients who were either bought out or acquired and had to deal with these domain changes - it never took less than a year for me.
What strategy did you use to minimise traffic loss?
[edited by: Whitey at 10:58 pm (utc) on July 17, 2007]
We rank No1 for an unusual term on a regional serp, but are filtered down to around 60-70 on the US/.com serp.
So, just to make things clear... As I understand it, from the US perspective, you're not immediately ranking well, and you may not be ranking well regionally for competitive stuff. I wouldn't want your prior report of quick rankings to give false confidence to anyone who's moving to a new domain.
This is a move that is not to be taken lightly, nor should it be done just prior to the busy season.
and you may not be ranking well regionally for competitive stuff
Sorry this line might have been confusing.
for an unusual term
We are ranking well, regionally, for an unusual term [ location specific ] but it is competitive locally. That same term should show higher in the US/.com serps but doesn't.
[edited by: Whitey at 12:29 am (utc) on July 18, 2007]
The date I executed the change was July 1st. Traffic remained constant for a week or so and has dropped off significantly this week. I know that this is really too soon to declare victory or defeat but I am suffering right now.
I had the new site/domain operation for about three months before I did the redirects from the old site. In that time I was able to obtain a DMOZ listing and several (10-15) other decent PR links for the new domain. It was slowly beginning to build traffic on its own. Probably, 50-75 unique a day.
I am in a situation right now were I could go back to the old domain. What would happen if reestablished the old content on the old site? Is it too late to do it without some sort of penalty?
Finally, for all you adsensers, my CTR has dropped one full percent and the eCPM has been cut in half. By the way, the old site was ugly, slow and hadn’t been updated in almost a year. With all those faults it was a much better earner than the newly updated, faster, and web 2.0 “looking” site.
