Should we 301 redirect our old domain to the new domain

[sitestrux]

We have a product that when started was under the domain appnowgo.com.  We've since changed the name and the domain is now knackhq.com.  The latter domain doesn't rank nearly as well as the former for many of the keywords we are targeting.   For example... "online database builder" and "web app builder" are two of those keywords.  Obviously having app in the domain is not a bad thing but it is our old name.

The question is, should we 301 the appnowgo.com domain to knackhq.com?   Or should we use that better rank and just link users to knackhq.com from the appnowgo.com site until we can increase our ranking for knackhq.com?  We don't plan to update the content on appnowgo.com anymore and we obviously don't want to drop off rank if at all possible.

Thanks!

Eric

[sitestrux]

Thanks, that most recent answer helped and confirmed our suspicions.  There is in fact a different website for each domain.  We will leave the old site in place for the time being and just link folks to the new one from there.  Thanks again and sorry about any confusion.

[MoosaHemani]

Ok, in a way you are saying you have two different website one is the old one and one is the new one… or both domains open up a single website? If both websites are different then I would advise you to play safe and do not redirect instantly because redirection can cause a dip in conversions…

In that case you should focus on building links for new domain and rank it on keywords where your old keywords are located and then redirect if you want…

If this is two domains open up one website only, then isn’t it redirect already?

Still a little confusing but I am trying to answer!

[sitestrux]

Sorry for any confusion.  The new domain (knackhq.com) is the one that doesn't rank as well.  The old one (appnowgo.com) does rank pretty well for many of our keywords.  This is why we are still getting 60%+ of our converts through that site.  So, while I know we will have to 301 that domain eventually, we are apprehensive about doing it now if we stand to loose a large amount of that convertible traffic.  We are still focusing efforts on the knackhq.com domain but just want to know if we should wait until that domain ranks better before redirecting the old domain, or just switch now.

[MoosaHemani]

Now this is confusing again... you said your old domain is not ranking or any phrases....if this is the case then redirecting 301 to new domain is the option and you will not see any dip in traffic or conversions...

but if you are saying that your old domain is ranking then the strategy will be different.

[sitestrux]

We are getting about 60% of our converted traffic by way of the old domain.  How much dropoff should we expect when we do the redirect.  I'm assuming that all of the result pages for the old domain will just go away instead of adapt to the new domain, right?

[MoosaHemani]

Check the back link profile of your Old domain at step one if it is fine and no junk link is there in the link profile... then go ahead and redirect it 301 to the new URL... It’s always good to get link juice that you are wasting anyways...

But if there is a lot of junk in the link profile of the old URL i will consider dropping that and go for the new URL as a standalone property...

In both the cases your future link building and SEO efforts should be on the new domain.