I have a website called Cats of Australia that has been running since 1997. The domain name is www.catsofaustralia.com. In the early days Australia was really my only target but as the site has grown I wish to capture more of an international market and feel that the domain name of catsofaustralia.com is restricting the number of visitors to my site. I think it puts people off when they see it is an Australian site even though my content is now directed world wide so I want to change the name of the site. My question is: if I change the name of my site to say Cats of the World (just an example) and register that domain name catsoftheworld.com how would be the best way of handling the situation? Should I redirect traffic from the new domain to my old site? Or should I redirect traffic from my old site to my new domain? How will this affect my google positions? Will google ignore my new domain if it is a complete replica of my Cats of Australia site? Any help would be greatly appreciated. Zoe
you should redirect from old site to new domain since your old site is getting much traffic than your new domain. the 301 will not harm your current search engine rankings..
This is correct but remember it is only safe when you redirect with a 301. What I would do is to put [ie move the site] the australian site, as it is, as a sub-domain on the "world" site with the redirection to the sub-domain - you will need to change the logos etc, and, you will need to put prominently something like "were you looking for another country" and then have a drop down list for all the subs or directories.
Pardon my ignorance, but what is 'Redirecting with a 301?' The only way I know how to redirect is from my Control Panel which comes with my web hosting.
A 301 redirect is the way to go and should eliminate any potential for a duplicate content penalty. It would most likely not be a painless process, however, and there is some debate as to whether or not the new domain will be subject to the sandbox. I good summary of someone else's experience who went through this process is here: forums.seochat.com/seo-help-general-chat-16/domain-transfer-experiment-53222.html I guess the decision comes down to how much short term search engine traffic you are willing to give up in return for your long term "branding" effort.
OMG! I'm totally confused now. Bentong, I read that FAQs you suggested and it seems way beyond my capabilities. It lost me directly after the heading ' How can I do a 301 redirect?' I don't think I can manage to do a 301 redirect. I have found my htaccess but it looks a bit daunting to do anything to it. Go Scooby, that was a very interersting thread... but unlike rmccarley I don't have the time to monitor my Y's G's and MSN's. I wouldn't want my new domain to end up in the sandbox.... that sounds awful. Google should be more understanding. I should write and tell them so LOL I don't want to give up any of my short term search engine traffic on the vague possibility that I may get long term 'branding' traffic. My new name is just as likely to end up in that scary place I had never heard of before... the Sandbox. I'm disillusioned now. I thought it would be easier than that... sigh. Crikey... what to do now? I don't want to spend time and money setting up a new domain and changing my website to reflect the new name when it is quite possible that it would be a complete and utter waste of time. Perhaps I should just forget about the friggin' cats and start up a dog site. LOL
get the new domain, set up your 301..it will take some time for google to lose all your old pages.. get some incoming links to your new domain also, the sandbox is simply a disappearing of your site for 6 months, it might not necessarily happen if your domain is well established plus you already have traffic and your site has been bookmarked by lots of visitors already
here are three 301 redirects: redirect 301 /skifrokjobsframe.htm http://www.yourdomain.com/skijobs.htm redirect 301 /v-web/b2/ http://www.yourdomain.com/ redirect 301 /french-ski-resorts/ http://www.yourdomain.com/ The first redirects to a page from a page on that site The second and third redirect from a directory to the main url You get the .htaccess - as it is a "hidden" page you need to create the page in/on a text editor as htaccess with the redirect redirect 301 / http://www.yourworlddomain.com/ and then upload it and then rename with the . in front
this is also a good way to implement a 301 redirection. much better if you also have the same file structure from the old site.. i.e. http://www.oldsite.com/Breeders.htm will automatically be redirected to http://www.newsite.com/Breeders.htm