Old domain isn't picking up external links within Google Search Console

branb141 · Oct 19, 2021

Hi! I bought a domain recently and restored the website and all of its pages using Wayback Machine so that it could get reindexed by Google, along with all the backlinks that the site had. I'm aiming to set up a 301 redirect from this domain to my main site.

It's been a month/month and a half since the website was restored and I've had decent backlinks pointed toward the domain to help get it reindexed, but only a fraction of the external links have been picked up within Search Console. I've also noticed the number of external links going down at times too, when the links themselves aren't actually being removed.

How can I speed up this process to make sure all of the best links to the site are being picked up by Google for when I redirect it?

Turbo B. · Oct 19, 2021

Does your domain is indexed at all ?

branb141 · Oct 19, 2021

Smeklinis said:
Does your domain is indexed at all ?

The majority of the site is indexed. For some of the pages that have backlinks, however, I get the following message when inspecting it: URL is not on Google. This page is not in the index, but not because of an error.

Under the coverage section as well, it'll say "Crawled - currently not indexed"

DeadJoe · Oct 19, 2021

I use old domains for all of my projects and this is pretty normal. Whenever I do a restore, GSC usually only picks up links to the root domain. Recreate all of the pages that have links pointing to them and set up 301s if you're using a new URL structure. If you're using ahrefs to fetch links, don't just rely on the live index, look at the historical index as well. Ahrefs has a glitch where it kicks live links into historical (dead/removed) links section. It may be that their crawler is blocked from those sites or something. Over time you'll see the links will show up. Even then, GSC may not pick up all of the links. You'll see GSC show more links, then less links, then more Lol. It's pretty shit tbh. Don't worry about it.

Be careful with 301s. Remember the purpose of a 301 is to move from URL 1 to URL 2. This is incredibly hard to do. I have seen people destroy their high performing websites with niche relevant 301s. You need to create the perfect illusion that the old website is now living on the new domain. It's like playing with fire. If you want you can PM me and I will show you a couple of sites that got destroyed with 301s.

branb141 · Oct 19, 2021

DeadJoe said:
I use old domains for all of my projects and this is pretty normal. Whenever I do a restore, GSC usually only picks up links to the root domain. Recreate all of the pages that have links pointing to them and set up 301s if you're using a new URL structure. If you're using ahrefs to fetch links, don't just rely on the live index, look at the historical index as well. Ahrefs has a glitch where it kicks live links into historical (dead/removed) links section. It may be that their crawler is blocked from those sites or something. Over time you'll see the links will show up. Even then, GSC may not pick up all of the links. You'll see GSC show more links, then less links, then more Lol. It's pretty shit tbh. Don't worry about it.

Be careful with 301s. Remember the purpose of a 301 is to move from URL 1 to URL 2. This is incredibly hard to do. I have seen people destroy their high performing websites with niche relevant 301s. You need to create the perfect illusion that the old website is now living on the new domain. It's like playing with fire. If you want you can PM me and I will show you a couple of sites that got destroyed with 301s.

Thanks a lot for this - gives me some hope. I've set up 301 redirects in the past and had success with them but the domains were never expired for this long, so the majority of the links were still active when I acquired them, hence why I'm stumped on this one. I'm trying to be as safe as possible throughout the whole process to avoid it having any negative effects though.

So essentially you're saying to just let it sit for however long is needed? Is there any way to speed up the process at all or are we just better off leaving it alone?

The only other question I had on this was whether or not we can set up the 301 redirect to our main site while the old domain is still gathering it's old external links. Will they still get indexed overtime or are we just better off leaving the site in it's restored state until we get the links we need?

DeadJoe · Oct 19, 2021

branb141 said:
Thanks a lot for this - gives me some hope. I've set up 301 redirects in the past and had success with them but the domains were never expired for this long, so the majority of the links were still active when I acquired them, hence why I'm stumped on this one. I'm trying to be as safe as possible throughout the whole process to avoid it having any negative effects though.

So essentially you're saying to just let it sit for however long is needed? Is there any way to speed up the process at all or are we just better off leaving it alone?

The only other question I had on this was whether or not we can set up the 301 redirect to our main site while the old domain is still gathering it's old external links. Will they still get indexed overtime or are we just better off leaving the site in it's restored state until we get the links we need?

No problem! you just let it sit for 30 - 60 days until it's indexed and google understands the website is back. I would then create the pages of the domain on your money site and 301 on page level as well as the root domain. At least that's how I would do it. I don't do 301s though, but if you've done it in the past then you know what you're doing, go for it if it makes sense!

Old domain isn't picking up external links within Google Search Console

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