SEO penalty for changing domains by simply switching DNS on Wordpress and adding 301s server-side?
-
Working on a domain change for a client. They're hosted on Wordpress and their developer wants to simply switch out the DNS for the new domain to point to wordpress, and then have the old domain use 301s to redirect to the new domain. The url structure will be the same, but there will be no CMS connected to the old domain after the switch.
Is this dangerous for SEO? A significant portion of their customers are from organic traffic and losing SEO value would be very bad.
-
Hi David,
Not having a CMS on the old site will not cause you any issues.
The main thing you need is the 301 redirects to the new domain. You should also make sure that the redirects from the old domain are redirecting to the corresponding page on the new domain.
IE. You shouldn't be redirecting all pages from the old domain to the homepage on the new domain.You might see some decreases in organic traffic for a week or two after the change, but it should pick up to its previous levels once search engines have properly crawled and indexed everything again.
Cheers,
David
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
-
Does having multiple Domain aliases hurt SEO rank ?
Our company having multiple domain aliases (DIfferent TLD) like example.com, .net, .org, .club, .win to one site (Same Content). We do this because our country ISP is blocking a few of the domain aliases. Question: Does this hurt the SEO rank? What approach is the best for us to gain SEO Rank?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | missionunpossible0 -
Domain.com/old-url to domain.com/new-url
HI, I have to change old url`s to new one, for the same domain and all landing pages will be the same: domain.com/old-url I have to change to: domain.com/new-url All together more than 70.000 url. What is best way to do that? should I use 301st redirect? is it possible to do in code or how? what could you please suggest? Thank you, Edgars
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Edzjus3330 -
Changing website framework: Any negative SEO ramifications?
Hello! We have a website that is built using Asp.net. My colleague and I are wondering whether or not changing the framework from Asp.net to php or html would have any negative impact on current rankings. My colleague was told by an SEO company that doing this would have a big negative effect, but we just can't see why that would be. The URLs of the site do not have an .asp extension, so we don't feel there would be any issues with 404s after the migration. The content, meta data and URL structure would remain the same. We posted this question in the Webmaster Central Forum and were told by a top contributor that it wouldn't have any negative impact, but we wanted a second opinion here. Thanks!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | BBEXNinja0 -
Switching Url
I started working with a Roofer/Contractor about a year ago. His website is http://www.lancasterparoofing.com/. The name of his business is Spicher Home Improvements. He used to have spicherhomeimprovements.com, well he still does. He was focusing on Roofing and Siding but now would like to branch to other areas like Interior remodeling. So adding interior work under LancasterPaRoofing.com is not applicable. I do not think starting another domain and having two is the best option. I think he should go back to using SpicherHomeImprovements.com and I assume he would take a small hit but in time he should be better off. Plus the url is more applicable to the real name of his business. Thanks for any feedback I receive. Chad
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | ChadEisenhart0 -
Domain Alias SEO
We have 5 domain alias of our existing sites
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | unibiz
All 5 domain alias are domain alias of our main site. It means, all domain alias will have exactly same site and contents
Like Main domain: www.mywebsite.com
DomainAlias: www.myproduct.com, www.myproduct2.com, www.myproduc3.com
And if anybody will open our site www.myproduct.com, it will open same website which I have in primary site what can i do to rank all website without any penalty....i s there any way? This is domain alias of in hosting industry Thanks0 -
Changing Domain / Site Name - An SEO Nightmare?
My company will be changing its name and moving to a new domain in about a month. What can I do from an SEO perspective to get ready for the big move? Do I just need to 301 redirect all my URLs to their new corresponding pages? Thanks!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Travis-W0 -
Mobile SEO vs. normal SEO?
Hi everyone, I wanted to ask you abour your opinon on mobile SEO. Do we already have two different Indices, one for mobile, one for desktop? Except a few mobile listings I don't see a difference yet. If yes, do I need to do special mobile SEO for my site or is it enough to have e.g. a responsive webdesign which detects the device and shows a different page? Are there any other extra Mobile SEO measures that should be considered? I know of the Mobile Sitemap and directories but is there anything else? Best regards
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | CrazySEO0 -
Local SEO (Rankings) + UK-wide SEO (national rankings) - achieving both
Hi All, For clients wishing to sell online / generate leads nationally, yet still want to have a local online presence to attract town / county-wide customers, I've often placed Town / County locations within both the Title Tag (or just County if space is limited) and Meta Description, plus within the Hx headings, Alt-text and within the footer of every page. My question is, does adding the location of the client within these fields really infringe their attempts to rank nationally, as some nationally ranked pages have no mention of location while others have their location (Town, County or Both) shown within them? Any help, insight or feedback greatly appreciated 🙂 Happy New Year Tony
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Tony-Dimmock0