Questions on switching domain name of my site
-
Hey guys,
I purchased a domain name on May 1st and have been running my site on it since then. At the time when I added the domain name to the shopping cart, I felt that it was the best domain name a human could possibly come up with.
But now, after two months, I am not so sure about it. And that means I am thinking of getting a new domain name and redirecting the old domain to the new one.
Give that the domain is only two months old, there is not much to lose. However, my domain name does have some valuable backlinks, and has built some credibility in the eyes of search engines. According to MOZ Open Site Explorer, its Domain Authority is 10 and Page Authority (homepage) is 20. It's not much, but I fear that if I switch the domain name, I will reset the clock and the new domain name will have to earn the rankings from scratch
That said, after searching this forum, I come across articles like this one from google and this 2012 article from MOZ that gave me some confidence.
The MOZ article is from 2102, and there have been several changes since then. Is there an updated version of that article, or another legit article on the internet that you can point me to?
As you can tell, I want to be more than sure that we don't take any hit during the migration process.
Also want to mention that the site is on WordPress -- in case that is relevant.
Thank you for your help.
-
Thank you John, Marcus:
The situation is exactly what MArcus described.
Seems like the process is going to be rather straightforward.
To answer this, "is this a brand change or just a URL change?" -- it's just a URL change for a news site and there is no official label or brand behind it.
I am familiar with the tools your mentioned, so I should be able to handle it. If anything comes up, I will update this thread.
-
anybody can help me ?
i have web site one old can not change anything with good ranking one new no ranking and work with wix
what should i do?
-
Hey
If you are simply changing domain and not actually moving or redesigning the site then this is a pretty simple process. There is much to learn from the Moz article linked above but this goes into detail beyond your requirements.
- We are not moving anything.
- Page names wont change
- All that will happen is that www.old.com becomes www.new.com
If that is the case I would suggest three main steps here
- Change the URL and implement a catch all 301 redirect to enforce that
- Add the new and old URL in Webmaster Tools (Search Console) and inform Google of the change of URL
- Conduct a link audit and request updates to links where possible
I would like to have a rank check as well so I can measure the success and you could be lazy and not worry too much at this point about the link audit or only change key links.
There is likely some nuance here and I would want to crawl the site using Screaming Frog or some such once you have actioned the change to ensure there are no hard coded URLs (widgets in WordPress can cause a few issues here). If you review screaming frog crawl data and look for all 301's you should be able to iron out any kinks that are not sorted by steps 1 and 2 above.
The only other implication is whether the actual name of the business changes - that is, is this a brand change or just a URL change? If the brand is changing then I would want to make sure you factor that into any external platforms and mentions (this is a bigger issue if you are a local business).
If you take the right steps and inform the search engines using redirections and the search consoles then you have little to worry about here.
Hope that helps
Marcus -
The 2012 article from Moz is still current. There are other more current dated articles but in short same outcome.
From what you are describing you are on the right track. Make sure you address the backlinks correctly. http://searchenginewatch.com/sew/how-to/2207168/how-to-conduct-a-link-audit
You sound like you are in safe territory by taking a considered approach. Well done.
Let me know if any more queries.
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
Domain Change
What is the average organic traffic loss one can expect after switching to a new domain? We went from .com to .org and are seeing 50% decline in organic traffic and 25% in Google news traffic. 301s were implemented from site.com/some-page to site.org/some-page and change site was completed in WMT. This traffic drop seems excessive...
Technical SEO | | SoulSurfer80 -
Is it problematic for Google when the site of a subdomain is on a different host than the site of the primary domain?
The Website on the subdomain runs on a different server (host) than the site on the main domain.
Technical SEO | | Christian_Campusjaeger0 -
Hyphenating a Domain Name - What would you do?
So I have some chums setting up their own digital outfit. When discussing SEO, naturally domain names came into play. They were looking at 'Gray Digital'. So, initially they jumped to the conclusion that they ought to buy 'graydigital.com' and the .co.uk variant. But a best practice post: http://moz.com/learn/seo/domain - Leads me to think that 'gray-digital.com' may be the better option as far as readability is concerned? Then of course you start thinking - 'should we just make it 'Gray-Digital-Marketing.com' instead?' From your experience, what would you ladies and gents do? Kind regards, John. (EDIT: Having read more around the subject I realise more than one dash is a bad idea. So instead would you bother with the singular hyphen?)
Technical SEO | | Muhammad-Isap0 -
What should I do with 10 Similar Domains pointing to one site?
Hello,
Technical SEO | | thealika
I was recently put in charge of one website with about 15 extra Domains. I previously asked if Domain Parking hurts your SEO as duplicate content - and i learned that the answer seems to be yes. My next logical question is:
What should I do with all those EMD, keyword friendly domains? As I understand, 301 redirecting the domains to the root domain is a safe bet, but that means the extra domains will point to the original root domain no mater what comes after the forward slash. So www.ExtraDomain.com/AboutUS will point to www.OriginalDomain.com - is there a way to keep the forward slashes relavent to the content on the original root domain, if so How? Your Advice, Links, and Comments are greatly appreciated.
Thanks
Nikita0 -
Questions about root domain setup
Hi There, I'm a recent addition to SEOmoz and over the past few weeks I've been trying to figure things out. This whole SEO process has been a bit of a brain burner but its slowly becoming a little more clearer. For awhile I noticed that I was unable to get Open Site Explorer to display information about my site. It mentioned that that there was not enough data for the URL. Too recent of a site, no links, etc. Eventually I changed the the URL to include "www." and it pulled up results. I also noticed that a few of my page warnings are because of duplicate page content. One page will be listed as http://enbphotos.com. The other will be listed as http://www.enbphotos.com. I guess I'm not sure what this all means and how to change it. I'm also not really sure what the terminology even is and something regarding root domain seemed appropriate but I'm not sure if it is accurate. Any help/suggestions/links would be appreciated! Thanks, Chris
Technical SEO | | enbphotos0 -
TLD as part of word in domain name?
What is best practice regarding domain names? Assuming I would target the keyword "example" examp.le or example.com I guess the latter is preferable, what could be the issues with the first option? /Lars Eriksson
Technical SEO | | LarsEriksson0