Some owners have old/existing/legacy websites/domains (with SEO longevity) that are were hosted on OR (such as websites created before OR offered hosted sites), and that is maintenance overhead. It would be nice to have an easy way to move (and retain) existing domain/website to OR host, AND be able to easily re-direct webpages from the existing website/domain to the corresponding OR-hosted website/page.
such as www.mylegacysite.com/awesomehouse > www.myorwebsite.com/awesomehouse and have SEO transfer to the OR hosted.
Or if an owner has multiple domains, to point them all to one OR-hosted website easily.
Currently, the process is not simple and frankly, scares me.
Thanks for submitting this request! Feel free to share it with likeminded users who would be willing to give it an upvote.
I'm confused by this request.
Domain re-directs are a very common internet feature/facility. I have multiple domains that all point to my one original website (not an OwnerRez hosted website by the way, but that doesn't affect this) because guests may not always get my URL correct when typing it in, and/or I want to keep others from riding around on my internet coat tails with similar names or trying to steal my website visitors away. So I have a number of different domains, some similar to my website URL, others very different (to capture other guests who may not have been looking specifically for my site in the first place but I can help them based on the domain they've reached), and they all point to my original site.
This is not a function of OwnerRez, it is a function of setting up the source domain name properly so it redirects to my main site.
You can't 'transfer' SEO. If you have a site that has a great SEO history and reputation established then the only way to maintain that is to fill that site with good, relevant and recent content and keep doing whatever you've been doing to get visitors coming to that site. If you turn the site into a redirect that points to another domain, you will lose all of the SEO 'equity' the referring domain has built up. You can hang on to and use that SEO equity by having a link on that site to your new one, and encourage your visitors to use the link and visit the new site, but why bother? If you're going to go the work of maintaining the referring site, just put your OR widgets directly on the referring or legacy site and engage with your visitors there.
This may mean that you have two different active sites available for your guests, but is there anything wrong with that? It's like running TV commercials on two different stations. More exposure never hurt a business. In fact, some top end marketers recommend having different websites that target different types of visitors. In my own business for example, I could have a website for snowbird retirees, one for families, and another for couples, and still another for honeymooners. They are all guests that we get, but different things and different messages attract them, so having a website designed for each is not a bad idea at all.
The process of redirecting a domain to a different URL is actually fairly simple, and takes about an hour to do, as long as you're the owner/administrator of the referring domain.
If you would like some help with doing this, feel free to reach out to me. I would be happy to assist.
