Moving to a new site while keeping old site live, with same content

[kitpierce]

For reasons I won't get into here, I need to move most of my site to a new domain (DOMAIN B) while keeping every single current detail on the old domain (DOMAIN A) as it is. Meaning, there will be 2 live websites that have mostly the same content, but I want the content to appear to search engines as though it now belongs to DOMAIN B. Weird situation. I know.

I've run around in circles trying to figure out the best course of action. What do you think is the best way of going about this?

What I've been thinking I might do:

1. I point DOMAIN A's canonical tags to the copied content on DOMAIN B. Wait for the new domain to show up in SERPs.
   
2. Set DOMAIN A's robots.txt and meta to NOINDEX, NOFOLLOW.
   
3. Maybe use Google Webmaster Tools to request Site Removal for DOMAIN A.

Bonus questions:

1. Should I ask sites that link to DOMAIN A to change their links to DOMAIN B, or start fresh and cut my losses?
   
2. Should I still file a change of address with GWT, even though I'm not going to 301 redirect anything?

[aristotle]

Should I ask sites that link to DOMAIN A to change their links to DOMAIN B

You might be able to transfer the benefits of the links to the new domain by using the canonical tag. Because according to other posts I've read here, a canonical tag transfers link "juice" in the same way as a 301. So doing both your steps 1 and 2 might be the best solution. Although the canonical tag might make the noindex tag unnecessary and redundant. So I'm not 100% sure if you need to do step 2 or not.

[aakk9999]

1. Yes, use canonical
2. Do not do this. Google advises against having canonical and noindex on the same page.
3. Not sure, never tried removing domain in conjuction with other actions. Perhaps leave this for later if you see that the Domain A is not dropping out of SERPs as a result of other actions, then you can fall back to this.

Your bonus questions:
1. It is a good additional signal if you change as many links as possible to point directly to Domain B, especially as you are relying on canonical and not on 301. It tells Google all this is intentional, and not some technical mistake
2. Yes, I would execute GWT Change of Address as you will have canonical implemented


Couple of other things:
a) change sitemap.xml to have DomainB host names in it. Serve the same sitemap.xml for both, Domain A and Domain B
b) Add Domain B to the same GWT and then fetch the root and do "Submit URL and all linked pages to index"

[aristotle]

Google advises against having canonical and noindex on the same page.

Thanks Sandra - I didn't know that. But it makes sense because the noindex might not just be redundant, but also confusing. So you're right.

[aakk9999]

@aristotle, here is what John Mueller actually said back in March:

You should not combine noindex with rel-canonical pointing at an indexable URL (the rel=canonical says theyt're equivalent, the noindex says there pretty much oposites). I'd pick one, but not both. https://plus.google.com/+JohnELincoln/posts/TCJHwdZHdQc [plus.google.com]

BTW, Welcome to WebmasterWorld, kitpierce!

[aristotle]

You should not combine noindex with rel-canonical pointing at an indexable URL (the rel=canonical says theyt're equivalent, the noindex says there pretty much oposites). I'd pick one, but not both. [plus.google.com...] [plus.google.com]

Well I don't understand that logic. To me, the canonical tag says to index the new domain and de-index the old domain. And the noindex says to de-index the old domain. I don't see how that makes them opposites. But I guess it doesn't really matter.

[ergophobe]

RE #2, the discussion so far has been about NOINDEX. Also do not block pages in robots.txt. If you do that, Google can't crawl your site, so they'll never see the canonical tags on the pages on the old site.

Once you do a site : oldsite.com search and get zero results, then you can block it in robots.txt

[aakk9999]

Well I don't understand that logic. To me, the canonical tag says to index the new domain and de-index the old domain. And the noindex says to de-index the old domain. I don't see how that makes them opposites. But I guess it doesn't really matter.

Yes, it is strange.

Perhaps it depends how they combine the signals from both pages as a result of rel=canonical. My theory is that when they merge signals from Page A and Page B, they do not look at which page brought which signal, they just merge them together. The issue would then be that there would be noindex signal carried over from Page A into that merged pot of signals.

But as you say, it does not really matter, what it matters is that we know having these two together *may* cause an issue.

[lucy24]

# Set DOMAIN A's robots.txt and meta to NOINDEX, NOFOLLOW.

Where does robots.txt fit in?

"nofollow" doesn't mean "pretend you never saw this link". It just means "don't tell them I sent you". So noindex and nofollow are really completely unrelated.

[seoskunk]

301 a to b, that's all

[ergophobe]

seoskunk... that's not what s/he is asking

there will be 2 live websites

301 is not the answer here.

[ergophobe]

Where does robots.txt fit in?

It doesn't really unless both sites are on the same server and you just want to cut down on bandwidth. Once everything is out of all indexes (Google, Bing, etc), you could block it in robots.txt to keep the nice crawlers out.

The key though is not to block anything in robots.txt while those pages are still in the index.

[Planet13]

I know you said you MUST have two live sites, but I would really consider doing EVERYTHING possible to just move the old site to the new site and 301 redirect everything.

There is no telling nowadays what animal update might hit you.

[anim8tr]

Totally agree with Planet13, BUT if it's an entirely new domain name (not a subdomain) then the next best option (to a 301) might be to use the "Change of Address" functionality in Google Webmaster Tools (although I admit to never having used it before).

The problem with the canonical approach is that it's not 100% reliable. Google treats canonicals as a "strong hint" and not as a directive. If Google gets confused as to what the actual URL is (via conflicting link info) they may continue to index the original and ignore the canonical. We've seen that happen very often where I work.

Most importantly though, DO NOT do a noindex on the original site until you figure out the best approach.

[kitpierce]

Thank you for the welcome and all the awesome discussion points!

Doing a 301 redirect is 100% out of the question (which admittedly sucks), but it might happen a year down the road. So, knowing that, what I'm getting from this conversation is that I should do the following:

1. Set up the canonical tag on Domain A pointing to Domain B
   
2. File a change of address in Google Webmaster Tools
   
3. Forget about doing any noindex or nofollow or other site removals
   
4. Yes, try to get current links changed to new location
   

What should I do about content that isn't moving to Domain B? Leave as is? Do you think it matters? I'm also wondering how I handle the sitemap situation when some content isn't moving.

aakk9999 [webmasterworld.com] said:

a) change sitemap.xml to have DomainB host names in it. Serve the same sitemap.xml for both, Domain A and Domain B

[aakk9999]

What should I do about content that isn't moving to Domain B? Leave as is? Do you think it matters? I'm also wondering how I handle the sitemap situation when some content isn't moving.

I think this depends on the future strategy and what you want to happen in SERPs in a meantime.

- What do you want to happen with the traffic to pages that do not move?
- Is it important that Domain A is kept out of SERPs completely or only for the pages that have the equivalent on Domain B?
- What is the strategy for Domain A a year/two down the line? Will Domain B replace it completely?

[kitpierce]

What do you want to happen with the traffic to pages that do not move?

Don't care. :D

Is it important that Domain A is kept out of SERPs completely or only for the pages that have the equivalent on Domain B?

Only important for the pages that have the equivalent on Domain B.

What is the strategy for Domain A a year/two down the line? Will Domain B replace it completely?

Hopefully a year down the road, Domain A will be 301'd to Domain B, but from the moment the canonicals are placed and Domain B is up, I no longer care what happens with Domain A (other than it remaining live as-is, of course).

[lucy24]

Doing a 301 redirect is 100% out of the question (which admittedly sucks), but it might happen a year down the road.

Can you explain this a little bit? Sometimes there's something that looks like an insurmountable barrier, but it turns out there's a way around it.

[kitpierce]

I can't really say more other than it's for reasons that have nothing to do with SEO, and I just have to work around it.