Changing domain from .net to .se
-
Hi Guys,
We have someone in the process of changing our domain from an 11 year old domain to a newer country domain of .se,
He is not a web expert although he knows a lot of things. I am just wondering is there a checklist anywhere of things that are very important here that we should be aware of or he should be implementing so we can just double check that he is/ we are moving in the correct direction.
Thank you for your Help.
Rootin and Tootin xx
-
Search Engine Land has a blog that features the 10 most overlooked steps when changing a domain: http://searchengineland.com/changing-domain-names-2016-10-easily-overlooked-steps-can-save-seo-248484
I would definitely check that out. But here is the TL;DR version:
- Contact your hosting provider FIRST
- Verify all versions of the new domain in Google Search Console (GSC)
- Change the setting for WordPress address (and site address)
- Mod_rewrite or ISAPI_Rewrite changes
- Back up your site BEFORE you pull the trigger
- Edit backup plugin settings after the domain name change
- Submit a change of address in Google Search Console (GSC) and Bing Webmaster Tools (BWT)
- Change all internal links
- Edit Google Analytics settings and add annotation(s)
- Apply advanced settings in Google Search Console (GSC)
- Reconnect Google Search Console (GSC) and Google Analytics (GA)
Also, don't forget that domain age plays a role in your domain authority and rankings!
-
Hi
Here are few points, I beleive you must have in your mind before you take such action:
- Create a sitemap of your new site, building a hierarchical list of all your site pages (including images, videos and other assets)
- Compile a full list of all the URLs on the current site. This can be done by either crawling the site, extracting from the CMS or exporting URLs receiving traffic from Analytics
- Make sure you have a list of the URLs you’re using in PPC campaigns. Failing to set up redirects on these URLs will result in sending users to broken links and trash your Quality Score
- Compile a list of all the URLs planned for the new site
- Map each individual URL from the current site to new site URLs individually, to be implemented with 301 redirects
- Benchmark the current website’s rankings to measure progress throughout the migration. 20 or 30 keywords is not enough – use several hundred as a bare minimum
- Benchmark organic traffic levels (including visits, bounce rates, conversions) per page on the current website
- Prepare paid ads for keywords that the site ranks well organically for to put live if you run into issues after the site is launched
- Identify the most authoritative links in the site’s backlink profile to be switched to the new URLs once the new website is live
- Register and configure the new domain in Google Search Console (formerly Webmaster Tools)
- Generate an XML Sitemap for the new domain
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
-
Why my Domain Authority (DA) is Decreased from 21 to 19?
Hello, I would like to know how the changes in domain authority is counted by MOZ? Domain Authority for my this domain http://www.grandcrayon.ca/ was 21 and it is decreased to 19 in last week. I have checked the moz report and it shows DA as 19. We already have grandcrayon.ca and we recently redirected our .com domain (http://www.grandcrayon.com also to .ca so all the back links of .com are now showing in webmaster for .ca. So i would like to know the reason behind decrement in DA and is there any connection with redirection of .com domain? How can i increase DA for my website?
Moz Pro | | CommercePundit0 -
Is there any way to get Moz to generate a regular (e.g. weekly) report of new links to my domain, automatically?
I want to know when new people link to my domain. I do not want to log in once a week and use a complex interface to figure this out, I want it in my inbox every week. Is there a way to get Moz to do this? (I am a PRO user) Cheers, Daniel
Moz Pro | | swombat0 -
Oh my gosh a gender change
When I wasn't looking, I became a "Journeyman". Hooray for me, but I kinda liked being female. ;o) Is there such a thing as a Journeywoman? (couldn't resist- please excuse me if anyone objects to completely inappropriate "questions")
Moz Pro | | gfiedel5 -
How to change a Discussions post to a Question
I've opened two discussions recently but they really happen to be more like questions. They were both answered but both posts are still opened : http://www.seomoz.org/q/reading-suggestions-for-a-local-french-small-biz-website http://www.seomoz.org/q/should-i-block-wordpress-archive-and-tag How can I change them back to Question so I can mark them as close? Thanks 🙂
Moz Pro | | Akeif0 -
Is it possible to change the order of my campaigns?
I've just upgraded from a PRO to a PRO PLUS account (as if I need more caffine!) and wondered if it were possible to change the order of the campaigns? They seem to be in alphabetical order - which is no problem, but I'm not actually running all the campaigns - I'm only monitoring a few potential sites, so don't want to see them at the top? it's only a niggle, not a gripe, but wondered it it were possible - or if not, can I show more than 5 campaigns at once rather than scrolling. As always, thanks in advance. G.
Moz Pro | | Gordon_Hall0 -
Domains and sub domains - newbie
Hi Recently set up my SEOM MOZ account so any help would be great! On the competitive domain analysis page the sub domain metrics appear as good (if not better) then the domain.The Moz rank and trust are better on the sub domain. I know the website copy is appearing on both non-www and also www (which I assume is being referred to as the subdomain) on the competitor domain analysis page). Should I now 301 the WWW site to the non-www.... which will then concentrate the SEO and SEOMoz then will only have the root domain metrics appearing? Many thanks for your help in advance!
Moz Pro | | Richard5550 -
Rankings Feature Changes
Hi guys, Is there a way that the Rankings tool within the campaigns could show a monthly comparison rather than weekly? Possibly a drop down just to choose weekly or monthly. At the moment, when someone outside of the team involved looks at the results, it looks as though the website is in a downward sprial, where as we could be lower than ever, just with one bad week. Thanks for your help! 🙂
Moz Pro | | RPIDigital0 -
Press Release - using moz bar/OSE is reading domain not page? How? Why?
A question posed by Christopher Glaeser from early today:low PA high DA, had a follow up response from him providing 2 urls from PR WEB for separate press releases: http://www.prweb.com/releases/2011/11/prweb8923419.htm (HP White) On moz bar Page Analysis/Link Data = PA - 47 DA - 36 http://www.prweb.com/releases/2011/12/prweb9051351.htm (Golfer's Advice) On moz bar Page Analysis/Link Data = PA - 1 DA - 96 I kept scratching my head as to how a press release of 6 weeks ago had garnered such attention from a company that would not seem to have a huge traffic due to more obscure product offering and scientific subject (Analyses of Armor Industry versus Golf Advice).
Moz Pro | | RobertFisher
Then I realized that for HP White, Link Data was not about the PR. The url from mozbar was HPWhite.com not the above, I did not notice until I used OSE where same thing was happening. When I cut and pasted the above press release url for HP White and placed it in OSE this changed: PA - 49 DA - 96 (2 links 2 linking root domains) For Golfers advice (0 links from 0 linking domains) Note to all: the links to the PR WEB release for the HP included a low end directory type link and a link from PR WEB (. For Golfer's Advice there was not a link back to the release from PR WEB: Note that Golfer's Advice is a newer release (6 weeks). So, any link from HPWhite release would equal more juice to HP White and PR Web and Vocus. Any link to Golfer's Advice from release offers......???? to Golfer's Advice and who cares to Vocus and PR Web. So, I guess this begs a couple of questions: Why the mozbar link analysis difference for one versus the other? Does PR Web treat some differently than others? Who benefits most from me paying a PR Web to do press releases for a client, PR Web and Vocus or my client and I???? I have tried to order the images to make sense: L to R top, then bottom is last. [](<a href=)" target="_blank">a> [](<a href=)" target="_blank">a> [](<a href=)" target="_blank">a> [](<a href=)" target="_blank">a> [](<a href=)" target="_blank">a> [](<a href=)" target="_blank">a>0