Hm, I am used to read that if you permanently redirect content or domains on the Web, you should use a 301 redirect to tell the search engines that the content or domain has permanently been moved. I merged 2 websites into one and did a 301 redirect, but what I am seeing in regards to traffic numbers makes me believe that the 301 redirect is not working.
I did the same on another website. And again, I merged the 2 websites and I am seeing the same thing. I verified my 301’s and they are setup correctly. Given that my domains are in fairly competitive niches and eventually trigger a manual review by Google (main source of traffic), I am still disappointed how a correctly implemented 301 redirect is not working as anticipated. In both cases I own(ed) both domain names and I made sure I am not having duplicate content out there. So, I am not sure what is going on.
I am using the 301 redirects to consolidate some of my websites and domains to a) save money and b) to save work and c) to use combined forces of 2 websites to increase my exposure of the content.
If you are looking for an example – here you go. This blog was initially hosted on my domain “seoker.com” and I did a 1-to-1 move to this domain you are reading this article on (smartmoneymarketing.com). If you try to access anything on seoker.com you are redirected to the other website with a 301 redirect. However, traffic is 30%-50% compared to what seoker.com had before – even though I am fairly active with posting new content here.
I am getting ready to consolidate 2 more domains/websites into 1 and now I am concerned that I am losing out by doing so. So, what would you recommend? Be more patient?
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