In a recent Google Webmaster Hangout, John Mueller from Google discussed the processes involved in splitting or merging websites. He addressed the challenges web publishers face and provided guidance on how to ensure ranking signals are properly transferred. He also explained that merging sites doesn’t necessarily guarantee a merger of their traffic.
Moving Sites is Easy
John Mueller mentioned that transitioning a website from one domain to another is straightforward for Google to handle. Based on experience, moving a site from domains, sub-domains, and transferring hundreds of thousands of pages and images to new folders can be seamless. Typically, it only takes Google a few weeks to process these changes.
John Mueller observed:
"Moving sites is generally a lot easier because we can pass all of the signals one to one."
This point about signal transfer is crucial. It applies to redirecting old URLs to new ones and can be achieved efficiently with canonical tags. A common mistake is redirecting URLs to the home page, which dissipates ranking signals and provides a suboptimal user experience.
Mueller recently confirmed that passing 100% of PageRank with a 301 redirect requires a direct one-to-one match.
He further noted:
"It’s a lot easier for us to debug as well if something goes wrong. Someone can look at it and say… this is the old state and this is the new state and we can compare that."
Splitting or Merging Sites and Google
According to Mueller, splitting one site into multiple sites is complex due to how link and ranking signals are distributed among the new sites. Many websites rely on interlinking components, with links from the homepage, sitewide navigation, and contextual links from individual pages. Once divided, these interconnections often dissipate, potentially counteracting the purpose of splitting.
Mueller remarked:
"Splitting and merging sites is always really tricky for us. …if you’re splitting or merging sites then there’s no really clear and well-defined new and old state. They’re not really mapped one to one there because you’re taking one site and turning it into five and it’s a completely different situation for each of those individual sites. So that’s something that takes a lot longer to be processed and mistakes they tend to be more visible I’d say because it’s like we have to reprocess everything. And if there’s a mistake in there…”
Combining Websites is Difficult
Mueller highlighted that similar complications arise when combining multiple sites into one. Many factors need consideration, such as legacy 301 redirects that can complicate the merging process.
According to Mueller:
“…You have the same situation if you take multiple sites and you merge them into one site. That’s like you always run into that as well.”
Combining Websites and Increased Traffic
It may seem intuitive that merging websites would increase traffic by combining their strengths, but Mueller pointed out this isn’t always the case:
“You have like five sites it’s like what is the final state? You can’t say like add them all up and that’s the traffic you’d get. It’s essentially impossible to guess ahead of time and how long it takes.”
How to Successfully Combine Websites
Mueller advised that ensuring a successful merger of sites involves closely matching old content with new content. This alignment ensures that users looking for previous content can find what they need seamlessly.
He said:
“I think it’s just important to also make sure that… from a content point of view you also make sure you have something that matches the old content. So that people who are explicitly looking for their old stuff they will have some place to go.”
While he didn’t confirm that 100% of PageRank and other signals would pass, aligning content as closely as possible seems to be a best practice. Expecting a traffic increase from merging sites is uncertain, as Mueller pointed out.
Watch the Google Hangout for more insights.
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Screenshots by Author, Modified by Author
