http://uclue.com/?xq=3466 en-us Tue, 07 Sep 2010 18:24:13 +0000 Uclue - (c) 2007 Uclue LLC roger.browne@gmail.com http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/tech/rss
The ideal way to move a domain will always be to get every one of the inbound links changed to point to your new site. But as this is near impossible, 301 redirects are a useful tool.

Anyway I hope you don't have too many domain name moves in the future.

Best Regards,
eiffel]]> Fri, 20 Nov 2009 11:02:48 +0000 http://uclue.com/?xq=3466#24850 http://uclue.com/?xq=3466#24850
They mislead you into thinking that a 301 redirect will just move everything over. It may not be the best way to move a domain. The next time I have an old site that I want to move, I will just put a huge banner link on every page of the old site that tells people to check out our new site. This way I will not lose 180 days of no traffic.]]> Fri, 20 Nov 2009 00:07:56 +0000 http://uclue.com/?xq=3466#24843 http://uclue.com/?xq=3466#24843
Your Apache redirects (in the .htaccess file) look fine to me.

I located your previous site and checked the redirect using the Firefox Live Headers extension[1]. Everything is working correctly. What you are doing is what Google expects you to do when you move your site.

Google doesn't reveal the exact details about how they handle 301 redirects, but they do say this: "Ranking signals (such as PageRank or incoming links) will be passed appropriately across 301 redirects"[2].

Google also has a page of advice about "Moving Your Site"[3]. It's written as a helpful guide for webmasters, but it doesn't take much "reading between the lines" to see that some things are likely to be important for ranking purposes:

1. Avoid "404 File Not Found" errors at your old site. You've already done this with the "whole domain 301 redirect" in your .htaccess file, but...

2. Google says "Don't do a single redirect directing all traffic from your old site to your new home page ... a page-to-page redirect will help preserve your site's ranking in Google". So keep the "whole domain 301 redirect" at the end of your redirects, but add specific-page redirects for every individual page that has enough traffic for you to care about.

3. Search for inbound links to your old site. Whenever possible, ask the webmasters to update their links to your new site. It can only be a good thing for Google to see incoming links being changed from your old site to your new site.

4. Keep your old site (with its redirects) up-and-running for as long as you have any significant traffic to that site. Google mentions 180 days, to give it time to re-crawl the pages that link in to your old site. Google visits some sites daily, but it won't go so often to obscure pages on a site that rarely changes.

5. Presumably the old page rank gets transferred across "bit by bit" as Google re-crawls the pages that link in to your site. However, you can speed this up by using Google Webmaster Tools to notify Google of the site change. In this case, Google will "update our index to reflect your new URL. Changes will stay in effect for 180 days, by which time we'll have crawled and indexed the pages at your new URL"[4]. I take this to mean that all of your old page rank will be transferred at once, then after 180 days it will be replaced by the new page rank calculated by re-crawling all the pages that link to your site.

If you haven't been using Google Webmaster Tools[5], you might find it worthwhile to sign up. You will need to verify that the old and new sites belong to you (by placing a file or snippet on the sites). Once you have done that, you get a number of advantages in addition to being able to tell Google about your site move (for example, you can see a chart showing how the loading speed of your web pages has changed over time).

As for how long the whole process takes, Google says "up to 180 days". When Philipp Lenssen changed the URL of his "Google Blogoscoped" website, he tracked what happened. He didn't appear to lose any traffic. Although he got a very rapid transfer of page rank from his old site, the new site never quite equalled the old one. Immediately before the move it was Page Rank 7. After the move it rose quickly to PR5, and it's now PR6. He documented his findings four months after the domain move[6].

Philipp also points out that when you move your domain, you must do much more than just redirect your webpages. He provides a useful checklist[7].

Xaever, I hope this provides the information you seek. If not, feel free to request clarification.

Regards,
eiffel


References:

[1] Add-ons for Firefox - Live HTTP Headers
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/3829

[2] FAQ: Crawling, linking and ranking (Google Webmaster Help)
http://sites.google.com/site/webmasterhelpforum/en/faq--crawling--indexing---ranking
(search for the word "appropriately" to find the quote)

[3] Moving your site - Google Webmasters/Site owners Help
http://www.google.com/support/webmasters/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=83105

[4] Telling Google about your domain change
http://www.google.com/support/webmasters/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=83106

[5] Google Webmaster Tools
https://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/home?hl=en

[6] Google Blogoscoped - How This Blog’s Move Went With Google
http://blogoscoped.com/archive/2007-10-27-n88.html

[7] Google Blogoscoped - Telling Google Your Domain Moved
http://blogoscoped.com/archive/2007-07-05-n47.html]]> Thu, 19 Nov 2009 15:58:47 +0000 http://uclue.com/?xq=3466#24828 http://uclue.com/?xq=3466#24828
I want to move my site to a new domain and transfer the link equity.

I would like to use a 301 redirect in the .htaccess file.

I have 6 pages that I want to redirect and then the whole domain itself.

So in my .htaccess file I have the following:

Redirect 301 /wall-mount-toilet-mandarin-p121/ http://www.savewaterproject.com/product/Mandarin
Redirect 301 /dual-flush-toilet-arielle-p118/ http://www.savewaterproject.com/product/Arielle
Redirect 301 /dual-flush-toilet-keewaydin-p120/ http://www.savewaterproject.com/product/Keewaydin
Redirect 301 /dual-flush-toilet-capri-p119/ http://www.savewaterproject.com/product/Capri
Redirect 301 /faq-s3/ http://www.savewaterproject.com/index/faq
Redirect 301 /contact-us-s4/ http://www.savewaterproject.com/index/contact
Redirect 301 / http://www.savewaterproject.com/


In short am I doing this correctly?

I mean I know it works technically, like if I try to access the old page address, it redirects me to the new site.

So it seems to work ok, but does it work for Google?

Am I going to get the old link equity transferred?

Also assuming I have done this right, how long does it take for google to transfer the inlinks, pr, link quity, etc.

Thank you so much!!
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