Moz Q&A is closed.
After more than 13 years, and tens of thousands of questions, Moz Q&A closed on 12th December 2024. Whilst we’re not completely removing the content - many posts will still be possible to view - we have locked both new posts and new replies. More details here.
Cons and pros of changing your e-commerce store domain name?
-
We have an online toy store, the domain is old over 10 years and we have some traffic, we are considering to change our domain name. There are two reasons why. First of all, we expand our product category, before we were only a puzzle store now we sell almost any kind of toy. And at this point, our current domain, PuzzleZoo.com is not representing our capacity. We also have toyzoo.com domain registered, that is also an old domain but there has been no activity with that domain.
Our concern is, how do we avoid to lose ranking and keyword authority, are we going to start from the ground? What are the correct procedures to follow during this switch if we prefer to switch?
As an alternative scenario, if we decide to keep both and open another e-store with toyzoo domain name and continue operating PuzzleZoo.com, with same products, will taht be a duplicate issue? If it is what are the consequences? (Just to add a note here, our PuzzleZoo is also a small brick and mortar store chain in CA and TX) ToyZoo will only be an online store. Even in this case at the eyes of Google, are we going to have a duplicate store that can potentially be penalized or PuzzleZoo being a brick and mortar store chain might help us to avoid being penalized?
Should we switch the domain and redirect PuzzleZoo to ToyZoo, should we keep them both and running separately?
We need to give a decision and I was wondering if there are any expert here that can give us a good intelligent advise on which path to go?
-
Thank you for sharing this blog post.
-
I don't have enough knowledge to respond to that question, sorry.
-
Keri, what do you think about this: http://moz.com/community/q/changing-domains-from-net-to-com-after-7-month-of-traffic-loss
-
We have a little experience with a name and domain change recently.
Ruth wrote a post about it at http://moz.com/blog/domain-migration-lessons that may also help.
-
To add to that response when you do the 301 redirects , please ensure you do them at the page level not just at the domain level. Each page should be redirected to it's corresponding new page on the new site. I would also suggest replicating the title tags and the content for the pages that are ranking high on the current site.
-
If I were you, I would consider switching to ToyZoo. Having 2 domains will require separate SEO efforts and Google will penalise you for having duplicate content on both sites. It wouldn't be worth the effort to try to make both sites "unique" in content. It would be a better idea to consolidate your SEO juice in just one domain for both your eCommerce and brick & mortar presence.
That being said, the act of changing domain name for rebranding purposes will affect your SE ranking temporarily. To minimise such effects, you would have to 1) Redirect PuzzleZoo pages to ToyZoo using 301 redirect, and 2) Use the Change of Address tool in Google Webmaster. Here's a link by Google that will help you: https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/83105
Hope that helps!
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
-
Redirect domain or keep separate domains in each country?
Hi all Hoping this might be something that can be answered given the number of variables 🙂
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | IsaCleanse
My main site is www.isacleanse.com.au (Obviously targeted to Australian Market) and also www.isacleanse.co.nz targeted to NZ. The main Keywords im targeting are 'Isagenix' for both and also Isagenix Australia, Isagenix Perth, Sydney (Australian cities) and Isagenix NZ, Isagenix New Zealand, Isagenix Auckland etc.. for NZ The Australian site gets a lot more traffic and Australian market gets a lot more searches - I also have a section www.isacleanse.com.au/isagenix-new-zealand/ on the Australian site. The question is am I best off redirrecting the .co.nz domain completley to the Australian Domain to give it extra SEO Juice?0 -
How to recover google rank after changing the domain name?
I just started doing SEO for a new client. The case is a bit unique as they build a new website and for some reason lunched in under another domain name. Old name is foodstepsinasia.com and new one is foodstepsinasiatravel.com OLD one is a respected webites with 35 in MOZ page authority and with +15000 incomming link (104 root domains) NEW one is curently on 0 The programmer has just that build the new website has set it up so that when people write or find the old domain name it redirect to the front page of the new website with the new domain name. this caused that my friends lost a lot of their rankings was so I believ it was a very bad solution. But I also think I can get most of the old rankings back, but my question is what to do now to get as much back of the rankings as fast as possible?? A) I believe I must change the domain name back to foodstepsinasia.com on the new website ? O B) Should I on the old website try finding the url of the pages with most page authority and recreate these urls on the new website or should i redict them to a page with related content? Looking forward to feedback from someone who have experience with similar cases. Thanks!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | nm19770 -
Changing my pages URL name - HELP NEEDED FAST
Hello, I need to change the URL name for a few pages on my site. The site was launched just recently, so it has no obvious ranking and traffic. My question is, what is the best practice for changing/deleting the page name? after deleting the page, should I go to Google webmaster tool and use URL Removal and remove the old page? I know that I have to also create a new XML sitemap file, but not sure about the old pages in google search result Thanks!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | mdmoz0 -
What is the best practice for URLs for E-commerce products in multiple categories?
Hello all! I have always worked successfully with SEO on E-commerce sites, however we are currently revamping an older site for a client and so I thought I'd turn to the community to ask what the best practices that you guys are experiencing for url structures at the moment. Obviously we do not wish to create duplicate content and so the big question is, what would you guys do for the very best structure for URLs on an E-commerce site that has products in multiple categories? Let's imagine we are selling toy cars. I have a sports car for sale, so naturally it can go in the sports cars category and it could also go in to the convertibles category too. What is the best way you have found recently that works and increases rankings, but does not create duplicate content? Thanks in advance! 🙂 Kind Regards, JDM
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Hatfish0 -
Is .ME domain is effective in SEO ?
I am always listening about TLD. com. org .net but what about the .me domain. Can this will be effective in SEO. Can i able to beat down my competitors, if i choose .me . I also have a .com or other TLD option but if i am making my name than .me is for me but i need your suggestion for the seo purpose. Is there really domain affective in term of SEO.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | pnb5670 -
Pros and cons of video onsite or youtube
what are the pros and cons of placing videos on the native website as opposed to pushing the you tube channel? If I move the youtube and vimeo to the native website will i loose all the link juice? is there an easy way to have transcript of the audio as html in the site?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | bakergraphix_yahoo.com0 -
Primary Domain or Redirect?
We are starting a new travel guide for a resort town. I have bought an expired domain with decent related links and PR (which seems to have survived the transfer (4 months ago). Beofre we launch the new site I am trying to decide if we should use this expired domain as the primary URL for the new site or just do a permanent redirect and buy a new domain that better matches the theme of the site. I am obviously concerned with starting from scatch with a new domain. I am confident we can build some good rellevant links in a short time but this space is very competetive. Any input would be greatly appreciated.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Locals0 -
How do I list the subdomains of a domain?
Hi Mozers, I am trying to find what subdomains are currently active on a particular domain. Is there a way to get a list of this information? The only way I could think of doing it is to run a google search on; site:example.com -site:www.example.com The only issues with this approach is that a majority of the indexed pages exist on the non-www domain and I still have thousands of pages in the results (mainly from the non-www). Is there another way to do it in Google? OR is there a server admin online tool that will tell me this information? Cheers, Dan
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | djlaidler0