5 replies to this topic

[irvin]

We have three domains which we are merging into a single web site. We have been getting satisfactory rankings for all three sites in google. We have already merged the sites into one. If we point the other two domains to the new site, we will be forced to maintain the other domain names which is redundant. We don't want the existing links in google to give the user a "page not found" error.

To get past this, my thoughts were to post the old sites to separate folders on the new site, modifying all their pages to include a noindex, nofollow meta tag. Then when there were zero results in google for the other domain names, we would drop the domains, and remove their web pages.

Is this the best way to go, or are there other ways of accomplishing this.

Thanks.
Irvin. <><

[qwerty]

Welcome to the forum, Irvin

If you put a permanent (301) redirect on the two sites you plan on dropping, you can point anyone going to the old URLs to the new ones on the main site, so I don't see any reason why you should have to put the pages from the old sites into special folders, unless that's the way you actually want to structure things. I believe the strategy you're talking about would be a little easier to set up, since it could be done on a per-folder basis rather than per-page.

When spiders go to the old URLs and get redirected to the new ones the 301 will tell them to delist the old URLs, so it will just be a matter of waiting until you see those URLs drop from the index.

[awall19]

It depends on how extensively you developed the other sites... If they already have good rankings and good link popularity then there is no reason to throw that away.

I think what most people recomend doing to redirect old domains to a new location is called a 301 redirect, which is a perminant change of site redirect.


(he typed at the same time as me)

[irvin]

Thanks Aaron, Bob. The 301 redirect sounds like the ticket.

Irvin. <><

[Scottie]

Welcome to the forum, Irvin!

You might also want to make sure you have a custom 404 error page set up with your major navigational links on it to catch any users that try to use old links or bookmarks.

[joker]

Hey Irvin:

This subject has already been pretty well covered, but I thought I would also add this: the redundancy you expressed concern about might be a good thing as you transition from the multiple domains to the single one.

Depending on your site, there might be a number of people who either have your site bookmarked for the domain you will be eliminating, or, they just remember the name and type it into the address bar. By maintaining the domain and pointing to your new site, you stand a better chance of not losing those people.

It might not be a bad idea to see if you can't run a script for people who were re-directed, pointing out that the domain/URL has changed, and that they should update their bookmarks.