How do I change domains with out loosing PR or natural traffic?

Discussion in 'Site & Server Administration' started by emil2k, Dec 31, 2005.

0
  1. #1
    Can someone tell me how I would do this...

    I heard of somekind of redirects and all this but what are my options if I want to move a free hosted site to a domain without loosing its natural rankings in SEs and it's PR...

    Thanks
     
    emil2k, Dec 31, 2005 IP
  2. Smyrl

    Smyrl Tomato Republic Staff

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    #2
    The usual way is to 301 old domain name to new domain name but you would need a control panel with old host to do this. If you do not have a way to put a 301 redirect in place I do not know what would be best way to go.

    Shannon
     
    Smyrl, Dec 31, 2005 IP
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  3. onedollar

    onedollar SEO Consultant for Hire

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    #3
    The best way is to do 301 redirect of course but it might still not give you full benefits as google will dump down your existing site for few months.

    PR would not be affected but if your traffic depends on google, it might suffer a bit
     
    onedollar, Dec 31, 2005 IP
  4. minstrel

    minstrel Illustrious Member

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    #4
    Shannon's correct but I assume if it's a free hosting service you probably cannot use cpanel or htaccess. Try this instead:

    Create this new file for each changed page with the same filename as the old page name:

    <HTML>
<HEAD>
<META HTTP-EQUIV="REFRESH" 
CONTENT="10; URL=http://www.yourdomain.com/newpage.htm">
<TITLE>This page has moved</TITLE>
<META http-equiv="Content-Language" content="en-us">
</head>
<BODY>

<P>This Page Has Moved<BR>
Please update your bookmarks to 
<A href="http://www.yourdomain.com/newpage.htm">http://www.yourdomain.com/newpage.htm</A>
</p>
</body>
</html>
    Code (markup):
    This has the advantage of informing human visitors who may have bookmarked the old URL. Just make sure you use a refresh delay of at least 10 (seconds).

    Alternatively, if you can use either PHP or ASP on the old hosting service, try one of the following:

    301 redirect in PHP
    Create a file named index.php and delete index.html. Then put the following code into your new index.php page:

    <?php
header("HTTP/1.1 301 Moved Permanently"); 
header("Location: http://www.newdomain.com/page.html"); 
exit(); 
?>
    Code (markup):
    301 redirect in ASP (only microsoft web servers)
    Change the file extension of the file you will be using to default.asp instead of default.html or index.htm or whatever, and add the following code into your new default.asp page: 

    <%
response.Status = "301 Moved Permanently"
response.addheader "location", "http://www.newdomain.com/page.html"
response.end
%>
    Code (markup):
     
    minstrel, Dec 31, 2005 IP
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  5. digitalpoint

    digitalpoint Overlord of no one Staff

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    #5
    Can also do it site-wide at the web server level. See this thread.
     
    digitalpoint, Dec 31, 2005 IP
  6. minstrel

    minstrel Illustrious Member

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    #6
    emil2k is trying to redirect from a free hosting service, though, so I'm assuming he probably won't be ableto do that.
     
    minstrel, Dec 31, 2005 IP
  7. digitalpoint

    digitalpoint Overlord of no one Staff

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    #7
    Ah... well if the free hosting service lets you use .htaccess (probably not though), you could do it from that as well.
     
    digitalpoint, Dec 31, 2005 IP
  8. emil2k

    emil2k Well-Known Member

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    #8
    emil2k, Dec 31, 2005 IP