Domain change, SEO and new oscommerce site version

[valquiria23 105]

Hi all, hope all good there!!

I have a question, I want to change the domain of a site from www.sitio1.com to www.sitio2.com, what impact does that have on SEO? What recommendations can you give me?

What impacts at SEO level can it have? Any recommendation?

I also want to start trying a new version of oscommerce, My question is whether to do it with Frozen (and fix all the bugs that it have), go to EDGE BS4 or wait for H to publish a new official version (hopefully fast!)

What would you do? what it scares me is to move to BS4 are the addons (the current addons none is compatible with BS4, and I do not know how to transorb them from BS3 to BS4 haha ).

Besides changing the front page maybe it would be good to use the Bootstrap V4 Oscommerce Administration v2.3.4.1 CE?

Thank you very much,

Valqui

[Hotclutch 120]

The new domain will be considered a new site. If you own both domains then you can implement a 301 redirect of the old domain to the new, that will preserve most of the value built up by the old domain and transfer it onto the new domain.

38 minutes ago, valquiria23 said:

I also want to start trying a new version of oscommerce, My question is whether to do it with Frozen (and fix all the bugs that it have), go to EDGE BS4 or wait for H to publish a new official version (hopefully fast!)

fixed.

[valquiria23 105]

1 hour ago, Hotclutch said:

The new domain will be considered a new site. If you own both domains then you can implement a 301 redirect of the old domain to the new,

thank you very much Ashley!  

How can I create a 301 redirect ? I appreciate your help.

Valqui

[MrPhil 635]

If your products, SEO, directory structure, etc. are identical between the two sites, and the domain name is the only difference, it's very simple. In .htaccess,

RewriteEngine On
Rewrite ^(.*)$  https://<www.newdomain.com>/$1  [R=301,L]

This assumes everything on the old site is to be sent over to the new site. If you want only part of traffic (to the old store) to be redirected, or the old store is in a directory of its own (a good idea), it would be done a bit differently.

[valquiria23 105]

Thank you very much Phil @MrPhil

I'm going to try the Rewrite and I'll tell you what the result was.

Best regards

Valqui

[MrPhil 635]

Of course, that's on the old store's site, pointing to the new store site. If you've lost access to the old site, you're probably out of luck.

[valquiria23 105]

Hi Phil @MrPhil

Yes, I have access to the old site !!!

For how long do you recommend "leave alive" the old domain?

[MrPhil 635]

Without logging visits to the old site (new code needed: maybe add something to the Query String during the redirect, and process it in new code at your new store), all you can do is guess how long people will continue to use bookmarks to the old site. Search engines should be gone within 2 or 3 months at most... maybe allow 6 months for people not to show up at the old site? Someone is bound to follow an old link or bookmark two years from now, but at some point you've got to cut your losses of maintaining a redundant site (cost of extra domain name registration, but you ought to be able to share hosting with the new store [see "add-on domain" on most servers]).

[peterbuzzin 32]

Domain registrations are fairly cheap, if you're not bothered by the cost and there's no bad back-link SEO associated with the old domain then leave it running indefinitely.  That way if you have any back-links associated with the old domain such as in forum posts etc then they'll still be active/valid instead of 404s and you may get the odd order from it.

Although MrPhil has mentioned about old site/new site, you haven't actually said there is a new site just an old domain and a new domain so I'm assuming the new domain will point to the existing site (until you have completed a build with a new version of osC Frozen/Edge etc that you did mention).  So just set the new domain as primary (update your includes/configurare.php files in root and admin to the new domain), set the old domain as an alias and 301 redirect all traffic from the old domain to the new in .htaccess.

Edited May 23 by peterbuzzin

[Hotclutch 120]

If you have any external links of value you will need to keep the old domain (as a parked domain) indefinitely. Otherwise you just need to wait for Google to crawl out the old site completely, this could take a few months to few years - this is because Google attaches a low priority to old junk URLs such as 404s and will only crawl these once a year or less.

^^ With that said, you might want to consider using a redirect at all. If you don't have much of a SEO position to protect, then this is a good opportunity to get rid of these old junk URLs like 404s, because with the redirect in place these will also be transferred.

Edited May 23 by Hotclutch

[valquiria23 105]

On 5/20/2019 at 7:53 PM, MrPhil said:

RewriteEngine On Rewrite ^(.*)$ https://<www.newdomain.com>/$1 [R=301,L]

Dear Phil @MrPhil ,

I wanted to know if this rule could add an exception.

I want it not to affect the main domain because I'm going to place a banner to notify the clients that the site moved.
That is, access to www.oldsite.com/catalog/index.com is accessible.

I also want to be able to access the admin located at: www.oldsite.com/catalog/admin/

Thank you very much for your help.

Valqui

[peterbuzzin 32]

25 minutes ago, valquiria23 said:

I want it not to affect the main domain because I'm going to place a banner to notify the clients that the site moved.

Having this in place would mean it's not a redirect.  The redirect will instantly reroute traffic from your old domain to the new, this will transfer any/all SEO merit/credit to the new domain.

If you prevent that from happening the SEO credit remains at the old domain and the new domain will be treated as a brand new site without any SEO value, essentially starting from scratch.

Is there a need for a banner to say the site has moved when if you had the redirect in place they would instantly arrive at the new site when typing in your old domain?  With the redirect in place you if you wanted to add a banner to the site on the new domain saying "xyz.com is the new home for abc.com please update your bookmarks"

 

With regards to /admin if you changed your rewrite rule to the following it should prevent redirecting URL's with catalog/admin/ in the path.

RewriteEngine on
RewriteRule !^catalog/admin($|/) https://www.newdomain.com%{REQUEST_URI} [L,R=301]

[valquiria23 105]

Thank you very much Pete @peterbuzzin

Excellent explanation!

[valquiria23 105]

Dear  @peterbuzzin,  @MrPhil ,

I was testing the RewriteRule and it did not work.
It gives me the following error message:

Internal Server Error

The server encountered an internal error or misconfiguration and was unable to complete your request.

Please contact the server administrator at webmaster@newtekuy.com to inform them of the time this error occurred, and the actions you performed just before this error.

More information about this error may be available in the server error log.

In both sites I have OSC installed inside the catalog directory.
www.oldsite.com/catalog
The new site is also in the catalog directory: www.newsite.com.uy/catalog.

I also use the addon: Ultimate SEO URLs

I appreciate your recommendations to apply the correct RewriteRule.

The configuration of the file www.oldsite.com/catalog/.htaccess is:

RewriteEngine On 
RewriteBase /catalog/

RewriteRule ^(.*)-p-(.*).html$ product_info.php?products_id=$2&%{QUERY_STRING}
RewriteRule ^(.*)-c-(.*).html$ index.php?cPath=$2&%{QUERY_STRING}
RewriteRule ^(.*)-m-([0-9]+).html$ index.php?manufacturers_id=$2&%{QUERY_STRING}
RewriteRule ^(.*)-pi-([0-9]+).html$ popup_image.php?pID=$2&%{QUERY_STRING}
RewriteRule ^(.*)-t-([0-9]+).html$ articles.php?tPath=$2&%{QUERY_STRING}
RewriteRule ^(.*)-a-([0-9]+).html$ article_info.php?articles_id=$2&%{QUERY_STRING}
RewriteRule ^(.*)-pr-([0-9]+).html$ product_reviews.php?products_id=$2&%{QUERY_STRING}
RewriteRule ^(.*)-pri-([0-9]+).html$ product_reviews_info.php?products_id=$2&%{QUERY_STRING}
RewriteRule ^(.*)-i-([0-9]+).html$ information.php?info_id=$2&%{QUERY_STRING}

From already thank you very much.

Valqui

 

[Hotclutch 120]

so how did you put it down in htaccess that it throws the error ?

I think it could be like this, but not 100% sure:

RewriteEngine On 
RewriteBase /catalog/

RewriteRule ^(.*)-p-(.*).html$ product_info.php?products_id=$2&%{QUERY_STRING}
RewriteRule ^(.*)-c-(.*).html$ index.php?cPath=$2&%{QUERY_STRING}
RewriteRule ^(.*)-m-([0-9]+).html$ index.php?manufacturers_id=$2&%{QUERY_STRING}
RewriteRule ^(.*)-pi-([0-9]+).html$ popup_image.php?pID=$2&%{QUERY_STRING}
RewriteRule ^(.*)-t-([0-9]+).html$ articles.php?tPath=$2&%{QUERY_STRING}
RewriteRule ^(.*)-a-([0-9]+).html$ article_info.php?articles_id=$2&%{QUERY_STRING}
RewriteRule ^(.*)-pr-([0-9]+).html$ product_reviews.php?products_id=$2&%{QUERY_STRING}
RewriteRule ^(.*)-pri-([0-9]+).html$ product_reviews_info.php?products_id=$2&%{QUERY_STRING}
RewriteRule ^(.*)-i-([0-9]+).html$ information.php?info_id=$2&%{QUERY_STRING}

RewriteRule !^catalog/admin($|/) https://www.newdomain.com%{REQUEST_URI} [L,R=301]
Rewrite ^(.*)$  https://www.newdomain.com/$1  [R=301,L]

 

Edited June 7 by Hotclutch
typo

[valquiria23 105]

Hello  Ashley, I hope you are very well.

Yes, I test each of the Rewrites  below: 

RewriteRule ^(.*)-i-([0-9]+).html$ information.php?info_id=$2&%{QUERY_STRING}

First, only the 
RewriteRule !^catalog/admin($|/) https://www.newdomain.com%{REQUEST_URI} [L,R=301]

and then only the  Rewrite  ^(.*)$  https://<www.newdomain.com>/$1  [R=301,L]

And it did not work

What is the difference between RewriteRule and Rewrite? Or is it the same?

Best regards

Valqui

Edited June 7 by valquiria23

[Hotclutch 120]

It should be RewriteRule

Note those tags on the rule that MrPhil gave - and how i put it in my post above

Rewrite ^(.*)$  https://<www.newdomain.com>/$1  [R=301,L]

Rewrite ^(.*)$  https://www.newdomain.com/$1  [R=301,L]

 

[Hotclutch 120]

I just checked what i wrote above - Rewrite - but it should be RewriteRule 

[valquiria23 105]

the RewriteRule

RewriteRule  !^catalog/admin($|/) https://www.newsite.com.uy%{REQUEST_URI} [L,R=301]

work fine and send the old site : www.oldsite.com to https://www.newsite.com.uy.

but the other links the RewriteRule do not transform them and it give the  Internal Server  Error, for example:

http://www.oldsite.com/catalog/first-article-p-103.html to 

http://www.newsite.com.uy/catalog/first-article-p-103.html do no work

I thank you for your support.

Valqui

Edited June 7 by valquiria23

[Hotclutch 120]

Does this rule work when you have it on its own - the one MrPhil gave ?

RewriteRule ^(.*)$  https://www.newdomain.com/$1  [R=301,L]

Try to get that one to work first, then you can add the admin exclusion rule afterwards. 

[valquiria23 105]

I did it. the same effect / result

It send the old site : www.oldsite.com to https://www.newsite.com.uy.

but the other links the RewriteRule do not transform them and it give the  Internal Server  Error, for example:

http://www.oldsite.com/catalog/first-article-p-103.html to 

http://www.newsite.com.uy/catalog/first-article-p-103.html do no work.

 

[Hotclutch 120]

Hang on ...

The rule that Pete gave excludes and redirects, so you only need that one rule. That one works confirm ?

Then you don't need to add anything else.

[valquiria23 105]

I only have one active rule :

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

It only redirect the old site : www.oldsite.com to the new site http://www.newsite.com.uy.

but not redirect the other links

like http://www.oldsite.com/catalog/contact_us.php to http://www.newsite.com.uy/catalog/contact_us.php

 

Edited June 7 by valquiria23

[Hotclutch 120]

ok, then i advise you to turn it off, until somone can post the htaccess that you need. the rules are complex and can mess up your SEO.

 

[MrPhil 635]

Can you show us the full .htaccess file on both sites, and which directory they're in? ***-out any sensitive information. You don't have anything on your new site redirecting back to the old site, do you? Your description of what is happening is very confusing. Is this happening on the old site or the new site? If it's on the new site, it should have nothing to do with the redirection from the old site. Are both sites on Apache servers, or did you change server types?