7 replies to this topic

[BrianR]

We've discussed the merits of a permanent redirect (301) before in the forum, but I'm not aware of there being any advice on the following:

Earlier this year, I optimised a 150 page dynamic site which had good penetration in the various search engines. At the same time, they decided to change their domain name completely, including moving it from a .com to a .co.uk tld.

The site was finished 3 months ago, and I was expecting to see fairly good penetration of the site by now, possibly down to level 3 of the site, and the old domain mostly gone from the listings. But that hasn't happened.

The web designer also hosts the site and he persuaded the client to park the new .co.uk domain with the old .com domain, plus several others the company has bought over the years. I'd advised a permanent redirect, but was overruled.

So, to take Google as an example: As of today, the new .co.uk domain has 40 pages listed in Google while the old .com domain still has 140 pages listed.

Could the fact that the new .co.uk domain is parked rather than permanently redirected have anything to do with this rather slow refreshing of Google's listings, or am I just being impatient??

Thanks,

BrianR

[Jill]

Yes, there's nothing telling Google that the other domain is no longer worthy, so they will continue to index it.

Jill

[BrianR]

Thanks, Jill - that's exactly what I wanted to hear. I'll see if I can persuade the client to change their mind now.

BrianR

[Randy]

The old .com domain likely has more links pointing at it Bri.

In my experience the higher the PR, the more interest and the deeper Googlebot will spider. This seems especially true of Dynamic sites, though that may just be because of the nature of the site.

[BrianR]

Randy - can I clarify this please:

Are you saying that the results I'm seeing are solely because the old domain has loads of backlinks, and that the parking vs 301 has nothing to do with it??

Or are you saying that both are contributing to the results??

Thanks,

BrianR

[Randy]

Both Brian. The Parked/301 is definitely an issue.

What I was referring to was the depth and frequency the bots will crawl a site.

In my experience (and this is mainly with Dynamic sites that have mutiple variables in the URL) as a site gains more backlinks and PR rises, Googlebot will get more interested in the site. When the interest level is higher, good old Googlebot will crawl stuff that it had been ignoring for weeks or sometimes months. And crawl much more often.

It's completely logical that Google would be more interested in and devote more of their resources to sites it believes are more authoritative. But don't ask me the exact point this "interest" kicks in. I'm not sure a person could say that it happens at PR4 or PR3 or PR5, mainly because I don't trust the PR level we're allowed to see in the first place.

So if you perform the 301, as soon as Google starts to transfer the PR and backlinks from the old site to the new site, you'll like also start seeing more pages show up in the SERPs and notice Googlebot spidering your new site more often and more deeply. Did that make sense?

[BrianR]

Yes, that makes perfect sense - thanks again, Randy - I'm sorted now.

BrianR

[Gatorhardware]

We had the same problem. I ended up putting another site on the old domain name and just waiting. Google has finally indexed the new site on the old domain name and it is acting as a totaly different site now. The new domain name is getting indexed daily now after only a month.