Forum Moderators: Robert Charlton & goodroi
I'm hoping I can get some clarification to my problem here. I've read through a lot of posts on 301 redirects, duplicate content but am still confused as the best way to proceed. I had originally open a thread here [webmasterworld.com...]
To recap
We have 5 websites all on different domains serving different content so in essence they are 5 standalone sites. The content is related though. We are now going to amalgamate all the sites into one website under one of the domains from Branding purposes.
We plan also to use Joomla as the CMS (if that matters)
For my example lets say that we are in the fruit business and the way we have it now is
www.1.com which deals with Apples
www.2.com which deals with Banannas
www.3.com which deals with Oranges
www.4.com Which deals with Pears
www.5.com which dealt with company info but will be used as the new site amalgamating the information on the 4 domains above
Whats my best approach to do this.
My options seems to be
1) Use Server or .htaccess redirects on domains 1.com, 2.com, 3.com, 4.com so that anyone accessing any page on these domains will be redirected to the hompeage of 5.com
2) Setup folders on the new site like www.5.com/apples/, www.5.com/oranges etc and use Server or .htaccess redirects on domains 1.com, 2.com, 3.com, 4.com so that anyone accessing any page on these domains will be redirected to the correct folder on www.5.com.
3) Rather then setup redirects on the domain level for all my main pages of say www.1.com redirect that page to the homepage of www.5.com. (So if I had www.1.com/page1.html or www.1.com/page10.php I'd redirected these using the .thaccess file to end up at the homepage of www.5.com or possibly an appropraite page on the new site)
I'd really appreciate some help here. The objective is to try and keep our PR ranking which is currently 5 to 6.
After its complete I'd plan to use a sitemap and submit this to google based on the information at [google.com...] and add Sitemap: http:/www.yoursite.com/sitemap.xml to our .htaccess file.
Note: We have full access to all the servers and we are running linux.
Thanks in advance
[edited by: tedster at 5:36 pm (utc) on Jan. 2, 2008]
[edit reason] fix link [/edit]
Also, be very clear that maintaining PageRank and maintaining your actual rankings on search terms are two different topics. The toolbar may show no problems with PageRank for your one continuing domain, even as your search traffic for all that redirected content goes out the bottom.
Even with the very best strategy, the search traffic for any domains whose content you move with a redirect will probably take a hit. Page Rank for your one domain may well stay constant (especially on the toolbar) but even then, with all those changes, you might attract some trouble for a while.
The best approach I can advise would be a variation of #2. Yes, create a new directory on the main domain and place the same content from your retiring domain there. With intelligent decisions in your url structure, you might be able to create a page by page 301 - going to the exact same content.
I would at least study the server logs intensely and do a page by page redirect for the important pages - those that have backlinks from other sites or that are currently receiving a lot of search traffic. I would also suggest taking this on one domain at a time - so you can learn from the first experience as you execute the next domain.
Also, be proactive in letting anyone who links to the old domain know that the url has changed. The more that you can get direct backlinks to the new url, the smoother and shorter can be your transitional traffic dip. Comletely new backlinks into those new directories will also help build trust.
And finally, in your linked thread in the Apache Forum, there is some very sage advice from g1smd. Make sure you've scrupulously addressed all the potential duplicate url issues. We've got several reference threads in our Hot Topics area [webmasterworld.com], which is always pinned to the top of this forum's index page.
Be intense about this. Also, make sure that every url request on one of your old domains goes through only one 301 redirect. Going through a chain of 301's can cause Google's analysis to lose track of the backlink influence.
This should feel like a lot of work - very detailed and agonizing work - because it is a lot of work. Broad brush solutions are very likely to hide a lot of poor technical decisions (often made unknowingly) and that can make the almost inevitable dip in traffic last for a lot longer than it needs to.
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Ultimately, your one remaining domain should grow in PR because of the 301 redirects. Depending on its current level, you may or may not see a whole number jump on the toolbar, because the PR scale is essentially logarithmic and it takes a lot more to go from PR6 to PR7, than it would to go from PR2 to PR3. Still, behind the scenes Google calculates PR out to many decimial places, so your "real" PR should go up if you execute these changes well.
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Many thanks for the comprehensive reply. I think I'm much clearer now on what needs to be done possible issues that can arise. I'll take on board what you say and start to compile a list of popular pages on the sites.
Thanks
Alan
