The theory around the 301 redirect is that you can move from a non-Yahoo! Store to a Yahoo! Store and protect where you sit in the search ranking world (Yahoo! Store urls and naming conventions are different than what your non-Yahoo! Store’s would be). If you’re a non-Yahoo! Store merchant and want to migrate to the Yahoo! Store platform, you’ve already put a great deal of SEO work into your preexisting store and don’t want to lose that hard-earned SEO page ranking, especially for the pages that are currently doing well. The deal maker for many non-Yahoo! Store owners who want to transition into a Yahoo! Store is that they can preserve SEO rankings, or at least find a solution to mitigate the losses.
The way we have worked with non-Yahoo! Store merchants on an SEO transition solution has been to get into their account to create redirects once the Yahoo! Store has been built. We create redirects for the current url to the new store for a two-three month period so that spiders and the calling notice the new store. Over time the new pages begin getting indexed and the old store pages are replaced in the search.
When the 301 redirect occurs, the other store would stay live but wouldn’t be open. Customers who have their bookmarks already set would be redirected to the new store, versus having customers with the previous store information in their cache get a “Page Not Found” notice. The 301 redirect doesn’t just preserve inherit SEO ranking–it also allows anyone who comes across the old site in the search to be able to get over to the new store.
When the final transition is made after going 2-3 months with the re-direct in place, we check the page rankings to make sure its all directing properly, and to make sure rankings are where they need to be. We then close the old store down, and discontinue the redirect. The water is then set for a smooth SEO landing into new Yahoo! Store waters!
One caveat to consider is that while 301 redirects are possible, they are by no means standard solutions, and results aren’t guaranteed. They take a lot of work and access (i.e. alternate hosting environments must be created, etc.). But for those who have poured thousands of dollars and hours into ranking their stores on the first pages of Google, and have already made the commitment to switch to the Yahoo! Platform, 301 redirects are a reasonable strategy to implement.
