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When 2 Become 1: How Merging Two Domains Made Us an SEO Killing |
When 2 Become 1: How Merging Two Domains Made Us an SEO Killing Posted: 29 Dec 2013 03:15 PM PST Posted by WPMU DEV This post was originally in YouMoz, and was promoted to the main blog because it provides great value and interest to our community. The author's views are entirely his or her own and may not reflect the views of Moz, Inc. This is a story of recovery, despondency, occasional despair, and a pretty big gamble that paid off. It's the why, the how, and the what of the things you might be able to gain from merging two significant domains into one unified site. Regular Moz readers should recall WPMU.org from our fairly dramatic Penguin story from 2012 (tl;dr: the Penguin hit us hard, but then we recovered. It was pretty scary). But all ended remarkably well. After our initial recovery, things went from good to, well, better: Weekly organic traffic at WPMU.org took a nasty slug, and made a solid recovery. Parties all round at Incsub HQ. Hell yeah. Let's go hire a bunch of new writers, let's go wild, let's double this next year, etc. I imagine you can guess what happened next... Dear Search Lords, Why Hast Thou Forsaken Us So? Now, usually I'd be the first to see that and say something along the lines of, "well guys, you're clearly doing it wrong." And in fact that's exactly what I thought, pretty much from day one, so we got bloody busy. Specifically, we:
And yet it was all for naught, we were, to put it mildly, in a hole. Going nowhere fast. We'd tried everything, pulled every string and ticked every box, we were doing stuff better than ever, but still we were failing. So, we figured, let's do something dramatic. Let's kill WPMU.org and merge it with her sister site WPMU DEV. This is where I get to insert the video, right? :) Awesome. Happy now. Moving on. Why on earth would you kill such a well-known site?It's a good question, and it's not one we arrived at lightly. Essentially though we were ready to take the punt for a bunch of different reasons, not the least of which being that seven months of declining organic results are enough to make anyone more risk-friendly than averse. But, more specifically: Latent penguin / penalty IssuesLet's face it, clearly Google had some pretty serious issues with us, and just because we recovered so well from Penguin, that didn't mean we went off their radar, or the strategies we'd been employing (all white-hat, incidentally) weren't falling close to the boundary line. There was every reason to believe that a hex of some sort had been placed on wpmu.org. It was a monkey we just couldn't shift, and to stretch the metaphor a little, those kinda monkeys aren't in the trees, they're clinging firmly to you day after day.
I always knew I'd get to use this image in a post one day We had to shake the chimpguin! Dilution to concentration, juice-wiseBack in the day, I set up WPMU.org as an "independent" site, the main business being WPMU DEV (at the extraordinarily bad, and still bad, premium.wpmudev.org domain).
Same, but different, kinda, look. It's complicated. And it has been that, we take no affiliate revenue, have no editorial agenda as regards any company outside of us and aim to give fair, balanced and decent coverage to all things WordPress. We're really trying to be the same as the Moz blog, for WordPress. But let's face it, it's WPMU DEV's blog, and more to the point, we were generating organic links and engagement with a site that wasn't our main business, while at the same time trying to do the same with WPMU DEV. It was a little nuts; both sites had thousands of unique domains linking to them, so they were both moderately powerful. Why on earth didn't we just merge them together, and have one super-powerful site rather than two middling-to-strong ones. Brand, brand, brandAnd last, but certainly not least, there's the small matter of Google and our brand... and if there's a primary lesson in this piece, this could well be it. Put simply, a search for 'wpmu' or 'wpmu.org' rendered a very different group of results to one for 'wpmu dev':
Somebody's got the SEO right for one of these grabs... I wonder what the impact of all those high-quality and fresh posts could be along with the WPMU DEV brand? Hmmmmm. Technical time: merging two domains into oneIt's actually remarkably straightforward, here's how you go about it: First up, download and print this Moz infographic, and keep it by you at all times. Second, fire up Asana; this will be fabulously useful if you are on your own and even more so if there are a bunch of you. If there are a bunch of you, sit very close, or jump into a hangout, and (here we go)...
So, how was it for us?I was expecting that we'd take a hit. Before the move I'd said that up to a 30% hit would be manageable; we could build back from that, and it was to be expected by the dilution of link juice coming from 301s. Anything more would be a big problem, but we'd battle through. Here's how it actually went: Before and after organic shots On the Monday before we picked up 10,371 organic visits. On the Monday following, 14,627. On the Tuesday prior, 10,458, and after, 14,546. The two days taken together were almost exactly 40% up. Not. Bad. :) However, we did note that there was no significant change in organic visits for non /blog/* results at WPMU DEV, in fact over the two days (mostly Tuesday) we saw a slight decline of around ~1000 visits (around 2.5% of the overall traffic, but around a 6% variation in the original WPMU DEV traffic), which might indicate that the whole "concentrating juice on one domain" theory might not be the right one. In conclusionFrom this experience we've learnt a bunch of stuff, which I'm going to try to summarize in three main areas. You can move and not lose, so move awayA well-managed and carefully executed move from one domain to another, or in this case from one domain onto another, can clearly work well. This is super-important, because honestly, when I brought this up with most people prior to this venture they were very very dubious as to whether this could be pulled off without some serious collateral. When Google says that you can retain your ranking, it's true, you can. And then some. This may be a successful tactic to escape domain toxicityThe lack of any positive organic bump in the root domain we moved to as /blog/ could indicate that the success of this domain move was not due to the amalgamation of link juice between the two sites, but could in fact be due to the content having escaped some negative/toxic algo penalties that wpmu.org had accrued as a root domain. However, Google is not stupid. You would expect that they would happily pass along the bad with the good on a 301, and it's often recommended you don't redirect (another thing that was making me nervous). Branding could be the single most important factorYou don't need to be a multinational; having a relatively established brand like WPMU DEV is enough. Sure, we're no Moz, let alone a Pfizer, but it could be that moving content from a well-established site (but not brand) to our more-established position is literally worth a 40% bump. If so, the importance of building and managing a brand alongside your content strategies could well be top of your agenda. At least that's my takeaway... what's yours? Sign up for The Moz Top 10, a semimonthly mailer updating you on the top ten hottest pieces of SEO news, tips, and rad links uncovered by the Moz team. Think of it as your exclusive digest of stuff you don't have time to hunt down but want to read! |
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Every sub-topic has its geeks. There are geeks who are into pencils, Bob Dylan, futures pricing. There are geeks who obsess about Wikipedia edits, journalism and even geek culture.
When you do something that matters, it will probably matter to the geeks most of all, and the geeks will speak up, dissect, analyze and perhaps extol or criticize. It's a symptom of doing good work.
The question is this: will you spend a lot of time listening to them?
The more you listen to this audience, the more likely it is you will delight them.
On the other hand, if you want to reach a much larger audience, you have no choice but to figure out when to ignore them.
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Mish's Global Economic Trend Analysis |
Toxic Smoke Cloud Engulfs Greece; Six Years of Relentless Recession; Horrific Statistics Posted: 29 Dec 2013 11:35 PM PST Please consider a mass of grim statistics regarding Greece, via translation from the El Pais article: Ruined Greece takes the helm of the EU in the first half of 2014. On January 1, Greece assumes the rotating presidency of the European Union in a state close to suffocation, not only via austerity adjustments since 2010, but also literally, by a toxic cloud fueled by wood fires that replace conventional heating. Horrific Statistics
Political Setup
How much longer the "New Democracy" government of Prime Minister Andonis Samaras can hang together remains to be seen. Should Samaras lose a vote of confidence for any reason, the Greek house of debt that that cannot and will not be paid back all comes crashing down. For those counting, Greece received 240 billion euros in aid, in a foolish attempt by the Troika to keep Greece in the eurozone. Most of the loan has been earmarked for the recapitalization of banks and the payment of interest on the debt, which now accounts for 157% of GDP. Germany and the ECB are adamant there will not be writedowns on that debt. Both are in fantasyland. Default, accompanied by a messy eurozone breakup awaits. Mike "Mish" Shedlock http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com Mike "Mish" Shedlock is a registered investment advisor representative for SitkaPacific Capital Management. Sitka Pacific is an asset management firm whose goal is strong performance and low volatility, regardless of market direction. Visit http://www.sitkapacific.com/account_management.html to learn more about wealth management and capital preservation strategies of Sitka Pacific. |
Posted: 29 Dec 2013 12:03 PM PST In what is decidedly a good thing for California as well as the nation at-large, a recent Field Poll shows California Voters Take Negative View of Labor Unions. According to the latest Field Poll, California voter views of labor unions have taken a decidedly negative turn over the past two and one-half years. Whereas a March 2011 survey found voters by a four to three margin, believing that labor unions generally do more good than harm, opinions about this have shifted, with more voters now saying they do more harm than good, 45% to 40%. Overall Results click on any chart for sharper image Demographic and Political Breakdown Union Household Trends
Primary Union Support
The age demographic is interesting. Are teachers pounding pro-union propaganda into kids heads from age six through college? Support for Ability to Strike Those in Favor of Ability to Strike
Those Against Strikes
These results are extremely interesting. Of course we see the expected political breakdowns. Aging Population an Anti-Union Force? Those 40-64 are against strikes by a 49-43 margin. Those 65 and older are against strikes by a 50-39 margin. Those over 65 may be increasingly dependent on reliable public transportation and may be on fixed income as well. Those on fixed income budgets do not like price hikes because their income cannot keep up. Implications suggest that an aging population is an anti-union force. Liberals in Favor of Strikes (Until Strikes Happen) On the humorous side, take a good look at San Francisco which suffered through a massive BART (Bay Area Transportation) strike. For details, please see my October 18 post BART Holds San Francisco Hostage; Best Way to Deal With Public Unions The San Francisco Bay area, a bastion of liberal foolishness, is now against the ability of public transportation strikes by a 52-41 margin. Conclusion: Liberals are all in favor of strikes until they are personally affected by them! What follows is a repeat of things I have stated earlier. Some might not be aware but even FDR saw the light regarding public unions. Message From FDR Inquiring minds are reading snips from a Letter from FDR Regarding Collective Bargaining of Public Unions written August 16, 1937. All Government employees should realize that the process of collective bargaining, as usually understood, cannot be transplanted into the public service. It has its distinct and insurmountable limitations when applied to public personnel management.For more on public union slavery, coercion, bribery, and scapegoating please see ...
Best Way to Deal With Public Unions The best way to deal with public unions is to not deal with them at all. Ronald Reagan had the right idea when he fired all of the PATCO workers. Scott Walker had the right idea in Wisconsin when he ended collective bargaining of some public unions. Unfortunately, Walker failed to include police and firefighters. Actual Wisconsin results prove Union-Busting is a "Godsend"; Elimination of Collective Bargaining is the Single Best Thing one Can do for School Kids It's time to implement national right-to-work laws and put an end to public union collective bargaining nationally. Mike "Mish" Shedlock http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com Mike "Mish" Shedlock is a registered investment advisor representative for SitkaPacific Capital Management. Sitka Pacific is an asset management firm whose goal is strong performance and low volatility, regardless of market direction. Visit http://www.sitkapacific.com/account_management.html to learn more about wealth management and capital preservation strategies of Sitka Pacific. |
New Law in France: Limos Must Wait 15 Minutes Minimum Before Picking Up Rides Posted: 29 Dec 2013 10:51 AM PST Want to arrange a limo in France to take you to the airport or go on a private tour? Thanks to a new law in France, you have to wait a minimum of 15 minutes except at 4 or 5 star hotels. The reason: taxis persuaded government that chauffeur driven limos are "unfair competition". Via translation from Les Echos, please consider Taxis against VTC: the conflict continues. Note: "VTC" (Voiture de Tourisme avec Chauffeur) translates roughly as chauffeur driven touring car. Starting January 1, limos must wait 15 minutes before they can pickup passenger. According the Minister of Crafts, Trade and Tourism and the Interior Minister, the delay helps distinguish the activity of VTCs from taxis.I had to look this up because it's the first I have heard of France's "Competition Authority". Wikipedia explains "The Autorité de la concurrence (English: Competition Authority) is France's national competition regulator." It's shocking the Autorité de la concurrence actually translates its rulings and opinions into English. Here are some examples. Opinions translated into English
What's even more shocking than decisions translated into English is the fact that the Autorité de la concurrence appears to be on the right side of the issue (Does someone at the Autorité de la concurrence operate a VTC on the side?) Regardless, Hollande's Minister of Crafts, Trade and Tourism and the Interior Minister ruled in favor of taxis. But the taxis are not fully appeased either. Taxis don't want competition from VTCs at all. This is the way things "work" in France. Mike "Mish" Shedlock http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com Mike "Mish" Shedlock is a registered investment advisor representative for SitkaPacific Capital Management. Sitka Pacific is an asset management firm whose goal is strong performance and low volatility, regardless of market direction. Visit http://www.sitkapacific.com/account_management.html to learn more about wealth management and capital preservation strategies of Sitka Pacific. |
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The difficult task is to turn around a no.
Not, "no, I've thought about it, but I'm not interested," but, "no, I feel like saying 'no', whatever you're offering, the answer is no."
If the fractious child or the skeptical prospect or the frightened boss is coming from a place of no, your proposal just isn't going to work.
Shaking that rattle or waving that spreadsheet isn't going to work, because it's not going to be judged on the merits. The facts are irrelevant... if your partner (and yes, the person you're with right now is your partner, engaged in a dance that will end with yes or no) is in search of a no, nothing is going to go right.
The best path, then, is to first work on the 'no'. Not the pitch or the facts or the urgent thing you need approved right now. First, talk about the dance, and the goals, and how it feels to get to a yes.
Then tell me your story.
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Mish's Global Economic Trend Analysis |
France Seeks Another Tax on Facebook, Google And YouTube, to Finance "French Culture" Cinema Posted: 28 Dec 2013 12:12 PM PST The economic stupidity in France is astounding. It's hard keeping up with all the inane ideas of President Francois Hollande's socialist administration. Here's another one of Hollande's ideas for your amusement. RT reports French broadcasting watchdog CSA eager to tax YouTube, Facebook, Dailymotion France's Superior Council of Audiovisual, an independent broadcasting authority, wants to impose taxes on media giants like YouTube, Facebook and Dailymotion to force them to contribute to financing French culture.Culture Tax Bloomberg reports France's 'Culture Tax' Could Hit YouTube and Facebook Should YouTube subsidize le cinéma français? France's audiovisual regulator thinks so. In a report this week, the Superior Audiovisual Council (CSA) says that video-sharing websites should be subject to a tax that helps finance the production of French films and TV shows.Subsidies For Films No One Watches Forbes has some interesting comments as well. Please consider French Try Another Tax On Facebook, Google And YouTube France is trying to impose another tax upon Facebook, Google and YouTube. It's going to go into subsidies for all those French films that no one ever watches. Which is, of course, why they need subsidy.The moral of the story is "Don't base websites, start businesses, or expand businesses in France". Mike "Mish" Shedlock http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com Mike "Mish" Shedlock is a registered investment advisor representative for SitkaPacific Capital Management. Sitka Pacific is an asset management firm whose goal is strong performance and low volatility, regardless of market direction. Visit http://www.sitkapacific.com/account_management.html to learn more about wealth management and capital preservation strategies of Sitka Pacific. |
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