Moving to a new domain
-
Hi,
We are about to rebrand.
This means we need to move all of our content on to a new domain. I want to make sure this process is as smooth as possible and we don't lose too much by way of rankings.
I have read this page: http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.co.uk/2008/04/best-practices-when-moving-your-site.html and plan on following the instructions to the letter, but was wondering if anyone had any additional tips? Also, the article linked above is OLD. From 2008, is there anything'new' that I should know?
Thank you (in advance) for any help you can offer, it is much appreciated!
Best wishes,
Amelia
EDIT: I forgot quite a big element when first posting this question!
We are merging two existing websites into the new URL. The two sites are for two different products we offer, but we'll now be offering both products under the same URL.
-
Hi Everett,
Thank you - this is great info.
Have a great day
Amelia
-
Hello Amelia,
Here's another Google piece about how to move to a new domain for rebranding:
https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/83105?hl=en
Also don't forget to use the change of address form in Google Webmaster Tools, as discussed here.
You can use an HTTP status code checker to make sure the response codes are correct (e.g. 301 instead of 302).
-
Thank you K. - Very useful and informative.
-
Hi Amelia -
One important thing here is the 301 forwarding. You should do this in two steps -
- On your web server for all the old URL (for the domain as a whole), please do a 301 forwarding of all old URLs to your new ones.
It's simpler if your URL structure is going to remain the same, because that ensure all credits for a given page from old domain goes to the same page on the new domain.
Here is a simple code for apache to pass a given URL on old domain to the new URL on the new domain
RewriteEngine on
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^www.old_domain.com$ [NC]
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ https://www.new_domain.com$1 [L,R=301]- Go to google webmaster and do a 301 forwarding from old domain to new.
Regards,
K
-
Thank you Devanur
-
Hi Amelia, while the link you mentioned covers it all, here you go for more insights while moving a domain:
http://moz.com/webinars/domain-migrations-lessons-from-the-moz-transition
and
http://moz.com/blog/domain-migration-lessons
Hope they help.
Best,
Devanur Rafi
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
-
The pros and cons of subdomain or new domain for a new brand?
Hi there Moz experts, We're launching a new brand and product offering for a completely different audience than we've worked with before. We're expected a significant amount of business to come from inbound marketing, so we're wondering whether we should launch the new brand as a subdomain of the parent company or as a completely separate domain. The parent company's website has thousands of inbound links and is over 10 years old, so I'm thinking in the short term it would be easier to get new content ranked there. However, in the long term I think it would be better for the new brand to have a separate TLD. Thoughts or other things I should consider? Thanks!
Branding | | EveryActionHQ0 -
New site just launched - would appreciate some feedback!
Hi, Some may have seen me around the forum recently asking a few questions about my website which was being re-vamped. Well its now live. www.followuk.co.uk Would love some actionable advice / constructive criticism. Website background: It started life as a website displaying dates for UK bank holidays, noticed some good traffic/sharing so decided to open it up to UK occasions. This resulted in more traffic and social sharing so over the last month I have re-built the whole website to be responsive and 'I hope' professional / interesting to visitors. I also opened it up further into other UK dates such as sporting events and festivals - these categories will gain more pages as well as new categories to come. I'm hoping to turn it into a little UK resource for this type of content. Thank you.
Branding | | followuk1 -
Branded Domain Names - Keep or Sell?
Hey guys! My company is sitting on a number of branded domains to ensure we have control over the URL in case we ever want to do anything with them and/or to protect brand integrity. However, we are sitting on a total of 24 domains, which seems somewhat excessive. What are you thoughts about .info and .net domains? Or keeping branded domains in general? Is there a good rule of thumb to follow? We have a few up for renewal soon, so it'd be terrific to get your thoughts! Thanks much, Clarissa
Branding | | okatieo0 -
.re or .com domain
I am thinking about changing the name of my site. The new name is available with .re domain (that spells the name) or a .com. I have registered the .re and the .com is parked and for sale so my question has 2 parts. Is it worth buying the .com or do I really not need it? How much does it matter in terms of losing traffic and other factors? If I do buy it which should I use as the primary domain? Thanks!
Branding | | yojimbo230 -
ECommerce Sites: Sub domain vs. Unique Domains
Hello everyone! I manage 3 large eCommerce sites that sell textbooks, digital learning solutions, electronic teaching resources, etc., to three different markets in the education space (K-12, College, and Post-College/Career Search). Currently, the 3 sites live on three different sub domains of the companies main domain. Is this best practice? I assume we want all three under the same domain to consolidate domain authority. But... What if I told you that we have dozens of sub domains of the companies main domain? Some are for marketing sites, some are for digital products, some are customer-specific sites, etc. We probably have close to 100 sub domains that are used regularly. Then what if I told you that the company doesn't hardly even use the root domain (other than a handful of old pages)? Even the root domain redirects to a sub domain. Just looking for some insight on this, as I will be doing an SEO/marketing/conversion overhaul going forward. On a side note, we use Magento as an eCommerce platform, and it's rampant with duplicate content, duplicate page titles, pages with too many links, and so on and so forth. That's another problem for another day...
Branding | | brad.s.knutson0 -
Two domains for different countries? or one big domain with folders?
I know this might sound as a newbie question or maybe not, here it goes. I've had a client for the past 2 years, and we have accomplish many good things for his local website .com.ve (venezuela). It's been so good that he is opening a branch in Dominican republic .com.do. The content, strategy and even the services are exactly the same, but the owner wants to have different site for each country. Of course he only wants to pay for one domain. I do want to share our success ont the .com.ve with the other domains and he actually owns the "global" domain .com with his brand name. So, what should I reccomend... Develop a second site and start from scratch? Migrate my blog from the .com.ve site to the .com site and give each country a separate folder? /ve /do?. What it's the best scenario for me to have all the traffic we have earned transfer to the global brand and to have separate info for each country... Thank you so much for your answer that I kno would be great. Dan
Branding | | daniel.alvarez0 -
301 or 302 for one of our domains
We have one of our sites that we got rid of and incorporated into our "main" site. We left a 302 redirect from the old sites URL to a landing page on the new site. It act as a branded stub page before registration. We are currently using a 302 to redirect from www.oldsite.com -> www.newbigsite.com/old-site Should I change this to a 301? I loose my google SERP ranking for www.oldsite.com if I do the 301 and it will be replaced by www.newbigsite.com/old-site correct? Thanks
Branding | | GeorgeLaRochelle0 -
A new form of competition with self
Today I discovered a new type of ranking competition. I'm still investigating, so I don't know all the details, but I think it's like this. In addition to our online store, we also sell our products via Amazon Merchant. We are the only distributor in the US, so I was surprised to see our products offered at a modest number of other sites, often with very elevated prices (not linking to Amazon, but actually selling our product on their site). I shot the product images and the images are mine. Now Sears is selling our product on Sears.com through one of their merchant sellers. The prices are grossly inflated, and the Sears Google ranking are pushing us out of places we used to be. I'm guessing that if someone actually purchases our product via Sears.com, the order will be forwarded to our Amazon listing for fulfillment, and the reseller will pocket the price difference minus a percentage for Sears. I will follow up with both Amazon and Sears, but regarding the competition with your own Amazon merchant product listings, is this a known problem? Best,
Branding | | ChristopherGlaeser
Christopher0