Re-launching Wordpress Website (switching old site to subdomain?)

Hey guys,

I am the owner of a music blog/website http://www.1vibe.net based out of Toronto Canada. I have worked hard to update the site with quality daily content for almost 4 years.

Recently we have been working hard to re-launch our website with new content and brand image. With that being said we went ahead and created our new layout which is currently sitting in its "demo mode" at http://www.new.1vibe.net

The problem I am now having is with making a decision about what to do when re-launching without loosing the indexed content of the current wordpress website that exists.

1vibe.net currently has a page-rank 4 and we get 1k+ of traffic daily mostly coming from google. Our website contains almost 3,000 total posts with 11,000+ tags which all have been indexed by google.

Initially for the re-launch we were just going to delete the old site and start everything from fresh by moving the new site to the main domain "www.1vibe.net". Later we thought this would be a bad idea because we might lose all of that google traffic which is currently coming through the current indexed pages.

So my question to you guys and girls is how do I move the new site "new.1vibe.net" over to the main domain "1vibe.net" and still keep the current wordpress website and database online but maybe moving it to a different directory and still have google index those pages. In other words, we want the re-launch to be of the new layout but starting with 0 existing posts. We also want the old content (what is currently located on www.1vibe.net, to still be alive somewhere).

Some people have suggested doing a redirect of some sort. Im not an expert in this field and I do not want to make a quick decision that might hurt our current traffic.

I welcome all suggestions as to what you would do if you were in my position and would really appreciate detailed explanations as to why you think your method would be most effective.

Thank you,
1VIBE

 

I would say keep the old domain as you seem to really have built up your search engine traffic. It would be a shame for all that work to go away. I am not great about the whole re direct thing myself.

 

Well the domain has to be "www.1vibe.net" regardless - but id like to have "www.1vibe.net" start with a new database with the new layout from post 0. There must be a way to move what is currently on the main "www.1vibe.net" domain to a subdomain like "old.1vibe.net" and have google recognize the move and not penalize or remove our indexed pages. Im hoping I can gather enough information to make a well informed decision.

 

bump for urgency - I really need some more suggestions on this. All help is welcomed.

 

You do have some options, but I need a little clarification before I can recommend the best one.

Will the new site have completely new page URLs, so if you have an existing article are you planning to have the same article on the new site, but under a different URL? So basically you will be launching a new site that contains all of the old pages that currently exist on the old site. Is that correct?

 

Thanks for the response Revium...

No the new site will only have new pages. The old posts and pages (so old layout and wordpress database) id like to move to a subdomain unless there are other alternatives. Im just trying to figure out how do i start a fresh new site on 1vibe.net but yet still be able to keep the old content somewhere online and have google recognized that they were just moved to a subdomain. Im also really just trying to figure out what is the best way to approach what it is im trying to accomplish with this re-launch without loosing out on all of the rankings and traffic that Ive established for my site already.

Hope that makes sense... thanks

 

You could move the content to a subdomain and either set up 301 redirects or use the rel canonical tag to let the search engines know the content is duplicated/moved.

If you use the rel canonical option you will need to leave the old URLs in place but just duplicate them on the subdomain or new domain (whatever you choose), and add the rel canonical tag on all of the old URLs pointing to the new URLs.

If you use the 301 redirect then you do not need to keep the old URLs on your site, but you will need to duplicate them at the new location, and then setup redirects on your server.

With both options you will need to make sure you do not use the same URL ever again on the new site (the only exception would be if you eventually remove the old URLs with the rel canonical tag on the new site once the search engines have indexed the new site, but you would lose credit for all links pointing to the old URLs if you removed them). Hopefully that is clear.

Here is an article from Google explaining the different options and the pros and cons of each one.
http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com/2009/12/handling-legitimate-cross-domain.html

 

See the problem that I have is to make a good decision. Im not so familiar with 301 redirects or the rel canonical tag and cant even think of where to begin. I assume that many people out there have wordpress websites and sometimes have to re-launch with a new brand and content, so I would like to be pointed in the right direction of where someone can explain how its done for wordpress specifically.

Another question is, what is the best thing to do to save the page ranking. The traffic isnt a huge issue because the new site has a new direction and the only visitors that currently are important are the ones who are loyal and visit on a daily. What should a website that gets 1k+ traffic daily do in this situation, cuz I also would like to re-launch in the next 2 weeks.

 

Both of these options (301 redirect and rel canonical tag) will pass pagerank from the old URL to the new URL which will give you the best option of maintaining your rankings. There is a slight decline in the page rank with redirects, but most of it will pass through to the new page and it is the best way to maintain your page rank.

Which option you choose, 301 redirect or rel canonical tag, depends on your ability and time. For the 301 redirects you need to have access to the server to setup them up, for the rel canonical tag you only need to add a meta tag to the header of each page you want to redirect so you just need access to the html code. I cannot tell for sure if your current site is in Wordpress or not, but if it is and you will be duplicating your old site in wordpress at the new location then you can probably find a plugin to help you add the rel canonical tag.

If you do a quick search in Google you will find some Wordpress plugins which allow you to set up rel canonical tags, just make sure the plugin supports cross domain rel canonical functionality.

If your old site is not in Wordpress then you will most likely need to compile by hand a list of URLs you want to redirect and then either manually setup the 301 redirects on your server or manually add the meta tags.

Hopefully this helps to clarify what goes into how to decide which option to choose.

 

Can anyone be more specific... as in the steps id have to take to do this.

It is a wordpress website and (ex. old.1vibe.net) id like to move the website to a subdomain which will just be a duplicate of the same wordpress site. The main domain 1vibe.net which will be a brand new wordpress installation, will be a different site (different categories, permalinks will be different, new database meaning starting from 0 posts etc.).

It would be nice to know which plugins specifically will help me do this. I have full access to my server as well.

I really need to do this very soon, our re-launch date is fast approaching and it sucks that this is something I have really completed in the past so finding a someone to help has been hard.

Thank you!

 

bump for reply

 

First I would create the new subdomain and then install the new Wordpress setup on it with all of the old files and pages from your existing site. At this point do not link to your new site yet, and on the Settings >> Privacy page in the admin section select the 'I would like to block search engines, but allow normal visitors' setting. Once you have your new site setup and working and the redirects in place you can change this setting to 'I would like my site to be visible to everyone, including search engines (like Google, Bing, Technorati) and archivers'.

Next you can install your new website on your old domain, but keep in mind, if they are both Wordpress setups, that the new homepage file may have the same URL, so you will not be able to redirect that URL. You can allow this new site to be crawled by the search engines.

Next make sure both sites (old and new) are working properly and that you can access all of the URLs.

Next you need to determine if you are going to use a 301 redirect on the server or the meta rel canonical tags to redirect the old site to the new one.

If you were redirecting an entire domain to a new one domain using the old domain at all you could do this easily with a 301 redirect. Is your old site on a subdomain or contained within a folder you will no longer use on the new site? If so it will be easier to setup a 301 redirect. If your old site is on the root, then the only way I know to successfully redirect the URLS would be to do them individually or from the category folder level as long as the category folders will not be duplicated in the new site URL structure. This assumes of course that you have categories within your current URL structure.

If you have to add the URL redirects manually, then the next thing you will need to do is make a list of all of the old URLs you want to redirect and match them up with the new URL they should be redirected to.

Next based on what method you are using (301 redirects or meta rel canonical tags) you need to setup the redirects. If you need to manually add the redirects you can use the Wordpress 'redirection' plugin.
http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/redirection/

Once the URLs are in place and you ensure they are redirecting properly, then select the 'I would like my site to be visible to everyone, including search engines (like Google, Bing, Technorati) and archivers' setting on the Settings >> Privacy page of your new subdomain.

I hope this helps and gives you some direction for the transition.

If anyone else knows of better plugins or an easier way to setup the redirects please chime in.

 

Hey Rev,

I actually looked into the the "redirection" plugin for wordpress earlier today and using it to do the 301 redirects is just too confusing for someone who hasnt worked with 301 redirecting or meta rel canonical. Also keep in mind that my current website has 3,000 posts which on average have 3-10 tags each (which are unique urls) so that is a great deal of URL's to try to redirect manually.

Not only do I not have the understanding and knowledge to do this on my own quickly, but Im just trying to grasp this whole concept.

I was wondering if anyone is certain on how to make this work, id be willing to compensate you for your work considering the urgency of the re-launch. So please feel free to contact me.

 

I think the best option is to transfer everything to subdomain and use 301 redirect.