We're moving our company website to a new domain and a new hosting provider as part of a re-branding project. We intend to create completely new content for the new website, remove all content from the old one, and only leave a generic URL redirect in the old domain, which directs to the main page on the new website.
While it is not a reason for the domain change, we had a lot of DDoS attacks on our old domain. I'd like to know if we can do something with URL redirect to reduce the amount of attacks on the old domain that get directed to the new domain?
A 301 redirect is the best option SEO-wise, but does it just relay any attacks to the new domain?
What about meta refresh? Or just a static anchor link to the new website? Are there other options?
Best Answer
On balance, I would probably go either with a 301, or replace the previous site with a single page providing a link to the new location.
Although I understand your concern about migrating the DDOS attacks along with legitimate traffic, I think it may be a false concern:
Ultimately, I am not sure there is much you can do to avoid being attacked again.
However, that doesn't mean there isn't something you could do:
Although I couldn't find anything specific to answer your question about the role of 301s in 'migrating' a DDoS, I strongly suspect the answer is 'it depends'.
Notably, it would depend on: