To Redirect or not to redirect?

[lostie]

We're about to launch a new branch (well its always been there but we're doing it up) off our software website (micromail.com) to deal with student software. We've purchased the domain studentsoftware.ie, but im wondering should we hold the software section of our site on the new domain, or should we just use studentsoftware.ie as a redirect to a student section of our own site, say micromail.com/students? I would tend to think the latter would be better as it would rank higher and be a lot easier than starting from scratch, but branding wise, would it be pointless telling people to visit stuentsoftware.ie if it just redirects them elsewhere? Any advice?

 

[louie]

Regarding SEO you'll be better off using the new domain and make a link from the other one to it.

 

[lostie]

Really? I would have thought a page on an old site with lots of back links would rank higher than a brand new page? And we would have to link back to our online shop on the micromail.com for purchases. Overall i think it would be much easier to use micromail.com/students.htm and use the new domain name to make it easier for people to remember the name of the site.

 

[louie]

if you use 301 redirect you won't loose any ranking you have.

I don't see micromail.com/students.htm on your website and BTW have a look at your server cause without the www. your website can not be accessed.

If you don't already have the students.htm page on your website you can use the new domain to build links to the other one.

 

[lostie]

I've only just put up the /students.htm page now (Micromail - Adobe Student Licensing). I know that micromail.com doesnt work but im not sure how i amend that? Is that an issue for the hosting company? So, you think it would be better to have the pages on the new studentsoftware.ie domain rather than just using that domain as a permanent redirect to the existing student pages on the micromail domain? If we were to put the pages on the new studentsoftware.ie domain, would you advise keeping exactly the same design as that of our main site?

 

[louie]

Yes the non www. is the setup on the server.

The new domain is not yet in search engines, so it's a good idea to make the right move with it.
You can use it to give some sort of an-detail description about the products you have, how students can benefit from it, etc, then link to the old one for purchase, so you can use it for information purposes. The old website has a good rank, but very few pages in Google and that's because the title is very common to other pages, same for the description, while the url is changing.

site:www.micromail.com - Google Search

 

[mneylon]

A micro-site using the new domain with plenty of content would be the ideal solution.

Fix the canonical problem as well, or you'll end up with issues further down the line.

If you use the correct techniques you should be able to do well with it

 

[mneylon]

I've only just put up the /students.htm page now (Micromail - Adobe Student Licensing).

The page title is very poor. Who cares that it's Micromail?

You need to place the emphasis on what people are actually looking for.

http://www.micromail.com/chest.htm - the people you are targetting probably don't know what the program is called, so you're not making use of the filename

 

[lostie]

The page title is very poor. Who cares that it's Micromail?

You need to place the emphasis on what people are actually looking for.

I only realised the title when i posted that comment, obviously I didnt mean that title for the student page. Anyway ive changed it now to "Student Software - Massive reductions at Micromail ", still not ideal but it'll do for now anyway. All these pages are new so theyre far from perfect yet. Also since this weekend we've fixed the canonical problem with the .ie sharing the .com's IP, they're now both with the same host and theres a 301 redirect from the .ie to the .com.

So you think I should copy the student pages ive made and put them on the new domain, and link to it heavily from the .com site to build up its page rank? And should I keep an identical design so people who find it though the .com site dont feel theyre on a separate site?

 

[louie]

Yes that will probably be best.
About the design, yes keep it as close as possible to the original site and to make a small difference you should look into a different colour scheme, stronger or softer.

 

[lostie]

Just had a discussion about it with our web programmer, and we've come up with a problem. Say people go to studentsoftware.ie and wish to purchase a product, they will have to be taken to the online shop on micromail.com. No problem there, but say now they want to keep that product in the cart and go back to studentsoftware.ie and maybe buy something else. Theres no way to keep track of their cart as they go between the two sites (as far as i know?). The only solution I can think of is therefore to put a whole online purchase mechanism on the studentsoftware.ie site, or else just go with the other idea and use studentsoftware.ie only as an easy to remember alias which will redirect permanently to micromail.com/students.htm. Are these the only 2 options we have?

 

[louie]

Of course there is a way to keep track of the cart.
Use the database to store the cart details, create an id for each user and add it to the cart item and also save it as a cookie.
The browser will keep track of the cookie itself and just compare it and retrieve cart.

 

[mneylon]

There's more than one way to skin a cat and a competent programmer will be able to work around this sort of perceived issue

 

[lostie]

Well i only briefly discussed it with him, but if its possible he'll know how to do it, the mans a genius when it comes to programming. But I just worry whether going down a complex route could end up in lost sales if there are issues such as disabled cookies etc. Anyway i'm meeting with him again tomorrow so i will mention what you've both said and we'll see what happens. Thanks for the advice.

 

[lostie]

Could someone tell me, would it be advised to get a shared or dedicated IP address for the studentsoftware domain? I would have thought shared since it wont be a very big site but since there will be a shopping cart will i require an ssl and therefore a dedicated domain? Also, should I change micromail.ie to a shared IP since now all it does is redirects to micromail.com?

 

[mneylon]

If you are going to run an SSL on a domain you need a fixed IP.
This shouldn't cost you anything extra.

micromail.ie doesn't matter, as it's being redirected. It would make sense that it was on the same ip as the .com

 

[lostie]

i thought having the .ie on the .com's ip address was bad? I was told by everyone on the last thread not to have the same IP for the two and to set up a proper redirect instead, which is what we've finally done. Do you think i'll need an ssl for the new domain if the actual credit card ordering will be done on the .com?

 

[mneylon]

i thought having the .ie on the .com's ip address was bad? I was told by everyone on the last thread not to have the same IP for the two and to set up a proper redirect instead, which is what we've finally done.

I don't think anyone told you that. The main thing was that your redirects needed to be setup properly

Do you think i'll need an ssl for the new domain if the actual credit card ordering will be done on the .com?

Are you collecting any personal data on the new domain?

 

[lostie]

I don't think anyone told you that.

Perhaps not, i just thought thats what Gavin meant when he said

The .com & .ie should not be on the same domain. You have two dedicated IP's with H365 on a shared server.

So you suggest having a dedicated IP for .com, and a shared IP for the .ie, and have it the same as the .com? Wouldnt that make the .com shared too? (sorry i know thats probably a stupid question to those in the know).

Are you collecting any personal data on the new domain?

Hmm havent decided yet, but originally probably not, it will just be a resource for info, and any orders will go through to the .com, but a month or 2 down the line we'd hope to maybe have an optional log-in? Should I just go dedicated now to keep our options open for later?

 

[Gavin]

Perhaps not, i just thought thats what Gavin meant when he said

Nah you misunderstood what I meant. I was talking in regards to when you uploaded onto one domain it appeared in the other which is down to the configuration.

I was suggesting using the different dedicated IP's as they are there to use so why not make use of them?