I have a blog (example myblog.com). It is doing fairly well, but I have another site (example mysite.com) which recieves much more traffic. I had a sort of blog format on it before (my own code, not wordpress). This is what I want to do. Setup a wordpress blog at the root of mysite.com transfer all posts from myblog.com to mysite.com Ive got incoming links to both. One article on mysite.com brings in about 60-100 uniques a day. I'd have to rewrite these in the newly installed blog format. This means the URLs will change. I know this will badly hurt the SEO and PR of both. myblog.com will be emptied meaning loads of pages will not be found. its quite a small site thoughw ith currently no PR so it shouldnt matter too much. a few readers may get confused though. mysite.com will have a whole load of changes. URLs wont point to where they once did and content will be missing. how do i make a blog on mysite.com, using content from its current state and myblog.com with the least amount of damage possible?
I went through the same problems a few months ago when one well known hosting provider decided to all of a sudden change my database format and kiled all of my archive. Luckily i had a recent backup of posts (289) to be exact and was able to upload sql text file to give new blog some beef without killing my PR or SERP stats. Based on what you are trying to do it looks like you may take a hit for a few months until you get some good quality backlinks to your more highly trafficked domain. Good luck...
I've heard some people mention 301 redirects, would this help at all? can anyone help explain please?
Yes, 301 means Permanent Redirect. 301 redirect is the web server’s way of telling search engines that the page has moved permanently and you want people to know about your NEW DOMAIN .From SEO Perspective, 301 redirect is much more search-engine friendly because you are guiding and suggesting the search bots that this redirection is permanent and this place will never change in future. So, in that case, the Search engine will transfer the existing value of your domain to the new one. The page rank will be slightly hampered but still you will manage to retain the same or better pagerank if you do not make any changes to the existing content. Let the search spiders recognize the NEW URL first, then you can experiment with your content. Hope this helps.
How long would the 301 redirect have to be up for? would it have to be in the htaccess file permanently, or just for a couple of months?
You can export all the posts and categories from the blog and then import that in the new blog... thast it
Almost every "worthwhile" thing i have learned about, 1.getting traffic 2. getting paididid, has come from you guys. I was just trying to figure out how to move my pr4 domains, i have like 7 just laying around unused or forwarded. I went back in and changed my pr5 to a 301 redirect from a 302 from what i am reading i think that will help me. Messing with you guys is going to get me nice new nerd toys, thanks peeps. And guy who almost lost the blog content, i did a few months back. 500 original pages. I begged for some back and got about 350, thank the web gawd.