9 replies to this topic

[buster13]

My splash page PR2
- having it since 2009 till now
- loads a huge image that is changed every 3 months while other elements on splash page remain unchanged since
- url: eg.www.example.com

My WordPress blog PR1
- loads 'whats new' contents of my products
- posts are created like once every 2 weeks
- url: eg.www.example.com/wordpress/

Problem
I wish to replace my Splash page with my WordPress blog (calling www.example.com will load my blog and not splash now)

IMO, I could,

1) Copy all /wordpress/(directories) to root directory so that calling www.example.com will load WordPress

2) Do a 301 redirect on www.example.com -> redirect to -> www.example.com/whatsnew/

What is the best method and are there any other options
to achieve above aim with minimal disruptions to search engines while keeping my PR intact?

[Jill]

Either way is fine for the search engines. They would have no preference.

[buster13]

Either way is fine for the search engines. They would have no preference.

but how about my PR, will i lose PR2 since my blog is PR1 if I choose method 1 ?
also if I choose method 1)
i believe i must also redirect those example.com/whatsnew/ indexed links in Search Engines to example.com
because I can't have 2 similar blog located at example.com and example.com/whatsnew/

[Michael Martinez]

Most of your PageRank will follow the 301-redirect. Eventually, in time, many months from now, you may see that reflected in the Google Toolbar PR data. By the time you see it, the transfer will have long since happened.

[Jill]

but how about my PR, will i lose PR2 since my blog is PR1 if I choose method 1 ?

If you're talking about toolbar PR, yes, because they only update it a few times a year. But since it's meaningless, it won't effect anything.

You won't lose your actual true PR, which is what matters.

[ABAR]

I didn't know that the PR toolbar was only updated a couple times a year.

very interesting...


Does this mean that my website is actually no a PR 0 but potentially a PR 9 or 10 just not updated yet?

[Michael Martinez]

The Toolbar PR data is derived from internal PageRank that is updated constantly. Google employees describe the TBPR data as an occasional snapshot of how important a document is (according to their calculations) compared to the rest of the Web.

I don't know if it's safe to say it's like a percentile (PR 1 = 10th percentile, PR 2 = 20th percentile) but it probably doesn't do any harm to compare it to something like that.

[buster13]

..but what will you guys do if in my shoes?

copy wordpress directories to root so calling example.com load wordpress
[ need to create a redirect for existing indexed URLs: example.com/wordpress -> to -> example.com ]

or

create 301 redirect on example.com that will redirect to example.com/wordpress/

---
i can't make up my mind. if PR is not critical in making this decision, what other factors do i need to consider?
eg.
- redirect 301 loading time
- shorter URLs [ example.com/my-post-title/ compared to example.com/wordpress/my-post-title/
- bringing wordpress to 1 directory level up to root will be beneficial to SEO

[Michael Martinez]

Splash pages are not really search friendly. They can be optimized to rank but it's a pain to do so. Then again, you shouldn't be trying to get all the traffic to come in through the root URL.

It's really not an issue that can or should be decided by search engine optimization. SEO works best when it supports the business decision.

What do you WANT to do with the site? Do that and then figure out what you have to do to make sure the search engine finds what it needs.

Don't fuss over Toolbar PR.

[Jill]

Michael's answer is exactly right.