Change Domain Restore Search Engine Rankings & Content

I have two websites which are on the same niche and have similar content, but only 1 of these is performing great in the Search Engines and the other website is almost dead with no visitors from the SE’s and iam planning to shut it down to make sure i don’t have to worry about it continuously. But what about the huge amount of content i have posted in it and what about the efforts i have made on it? Is there any value for this or would i have to forget about all this just because my SEO on this website didn’t work? I think Google has Penalized this website and it is still in sandbox and i don’t want to continue with it. What is the best suggestion for me?

This is a situation which comes for many website owners because not all websites started by webmasters would become Famous, Top Ranking ones and many of these would even go almost dead. Hence what i would recommend is to perform a 5 step procedure to make sure you can maximize the value of the dead website and make sure you lose almost nothing and make the most of what you already have.

Website 1 Status : Dead, Not Ranking in Google, Penalized / Sandbox Stage, Not Indexing Properly, Has got Backlinks and Good Content
Website 2 Status : Top Ranking in Search Engines, Instantly Indexed, Good Number of Links & Content

Step 1 – Backing up the Dead Website Pages & Information : If you are running a Blog then in wordpress you have a Export Feature where you can download all the Blog Posts which come along with the Categories, Comments and the Post Settings. Download the Exported File on your Computer. Next download all the Media Files ie Images, Videos, Documents etc which were previously hosted on this website and keep a backup of everything on your Computer. Once you have made sure everything is backup onto your Local computer now you are ready for the Next Step. If you are running a normal Static Website, you need to download everything through the ftp software and keep a copy with you.

Step 2 – Importing Content to Website 2 : Now this step would make sure that you restore your Website 1 Stuff into Website 2. Make sure that both of the websites have had similar content and you are having the same CMS because this can make your blog easy. This means that if your Website 1 is based on WordPress and Website 2 is also on WordPress then this can save your time and a lot of settings. Next again use the Import feature of your blog and import the previously Exported Backup File. In case of a Static Website, you need to make sure that the URL of the files ie in Html or PHP format are not the same in both the website, if not the previous pages would be replaced when you upload the file. Once the Restoration of Content & Images is completed you need to proceed to the next step.

Step 3 – Article URL Setup : Different Blogs have different Permalink Structures and if you are having different Permalink Structures then whenever you Import the Articles, the URL Structure can change. Here is a example –
website1.com/category/old_article/
website2.com/new-article.html
Now when you Import the articles, the URL would get changed and this can be retained using plugins like Advanced Permalinks. Once you are done with this step you need to proceed with the next one.

Step 4 – Redirecting Your Old Website 1 : In order to Redirect your Old Website you need to make sure that you Completely Redirect everything which is a Permanent System and is completed through the use of a .htaccess file which has to be created using a notepad file. Just open a Notepad or any Text Editor and enter the following Code with the location of the new website in it. Given is a sample code which can help you in understanding how to create the file and redirect your website to a new location maintaining the current rankings and transferring all the Links Juice to the Website 2.

RewriteEngine On
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ http://www.yournewdomain.com/$1 [R=301,L]

Replace “yournewdomain.com” with your actual new domain name. Then save the file as: .htaccess and upload it to the ‘public_html’ folder in your web hosting account of the Website 1. Once this is done you need to first verify that the Redirect is successful or not. Try to access your Website 1 and check if its instantly redirecting to the new website and opening its pages or not. If this is done then you have completed one of the most important Step in moving a website.

Step 5 – Finally you need to Recreate a new Sitemap and Submit it to Google and notify the Search Engine of the newly added content on your website and get it indexed as soon as possible.

That’s it, you have successfully moved your website to another domain and have retained the rankings of the same. Its recommended to move a dead site to a established domain instead of the Vice Versa. Other reason why people perform this is when they acquire a better domain name or else when they have to change the current domain name for Copyright or other Legal issues. You can ask any questions you have got regarding this tutorial using the Comments Form below.