Moving from a .org to a .com
-
We have been a .org website for as long as the web as been around. We just recently got the .com for our organization and wondered what the transition process would be like. We offer a lot of content to help parents with parenting and so as a content driven site we have about 13k external links and 1,200 linking root domains links to our site. Will we loose all our links in the transition to the .com? Is there a way to do this well that helps our brand and also retains our google ranking? Thanks so much for any and all help.
-
Hi there,
If you have the potential to acquire movieguide.com, that's a great domain name. That said, you're right that this is a crazy competitive space and some of the competitors are giants like IMDB and Rotten Tomatoes!
One option is to buy the .com and redirect it to the .org. If you engage in offline advertising (magazines, on the subway, etc.), you could use the .com because it does look more professional. You could have the .org continue to be the resolving website, after the .com is 301 redirected.
We are always hesitant to recommend redirection (especially of an entire domain) if you don't have to due to the risk of lost rankings. The rankings are usually not too hard to get back, but it's never a sure thing.
-
Hi,
CleverPhD has a great response, but I wanted to add specifically that if you do this move, you will not lose the authority of those 13k links / 1,200 linking domains if you do the 301 redirection process properly. The guides linked to in CleverPhD's comment will help.
301 redirects pass the majority of authority from one URL to another, but you may also want to create a list of the top linking websites from that 1,200 and contact them after you have completed the move, asking them to update their links to you. This will ensure that you retain your best links on top of properly redirecting all the others.
-
Question - why move to the .com? If you are a non-profit, you want to stay .org and just redirect the .com to your .org.
If you are moving to the .com, it would be like any other domain name move. The key, you need to really plan your move and make sure you have your 301 redirects in place that is specific as possible for all of your old pages pointing to new pages. In other words, don't redirect everything to your new home page. Ideally, your redirects should be 1 to 1. Old page A on .org redirects to New page A on .com. Old page B on .org redirects to New page B on .com. Rinse repeat for as many pages as you have. Yes, it is tedious, but yes worth it if you do want to retain your traffic and rankings. The more work you do prior to the switch the better.
I would advise you to read everything about the Moz migration from SEOMoz
http://moz.com/blog/domain-migration-lessons
http://moz.com/webinars/domain-migrations-lessons-from-the-moz-transition
http://moz.com/rand/10-traffic-graphs-seomoz-moz-domain-migration/
Also, lots of Domain Name Transfer - Site Transfer Type Checklists
http://moz.com/blog/achieving-an-seo-friendly-domain-migration-the-infographic
http://www.lunametrics.com/blog/2013/04/29/big-content-site-migration-tips/
Good luck!
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
-
Not appearing when www.domainname.com.au is searched
We are working on an SEO campaign that has an issue, of which we are unsure of the cause. When the domain is searched for in Google as domainname.com.au. The search results show the website just fine. See here for the display of this. http://imgur.com/a/Vcbqs However, when the domain is searched for in Google as www.domainname.com.au. The search results do not display our website. See here to see this issue. http://imgur.com/a/jX692 We are unsure why our website does not appear in Google's listings when the www. is added in search. If anyone can help us here to explain and help us resolve this, that would be much appreciated.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Gavo0 -
.com or .co.uk
I have ownership over the .co.uk and the .com for my brand name and I was wondering which URL I should use. Most my sales come from within the UK, (with only a small amount from the US). Currently I'm using the .co.uk and redirecting the .com URL but should I be doing this the other way around? Thanks,
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | the-gate-films0 -
How to work with schema.org together with Wordpress
Hi schema.org seems to be quite simple when working with a plain HTML website. You just look up the code you need on schame.org and implement it in the HTML file as required. But when using Wordpress things become more complicated. I have to use plugins for schemata and then I can only use the schemata that exist in those plugins which are very limited. How do you deal with this issue? Cheers Marc
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | RWW1 -
Unique Content Below Fold - Better Move Above Fold?
I have a page with a Google Map taking up 80% of space above the fold (rest is content which is not unique to my site) and all unique written content and copyrighted pictures are from a visual stand point right below the fold. I am considering making the Google map 1/4 in size so I can get my unique content up higher. Questions: Do we have any evidence or sound reasoning why I should / should not make this move? Is the content really considered below the fold or will Google see that it is simply a large map I have on the site and therefore will actually consider the content to be above the fold? Thank you
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | khi50 -
Domaim.com/jobs?location=10 is indexed, so is domain.com/jobs/sheffield
Whats the best way you'd tackle that problem? I'm inheriting a website and the old devs had multiple internal links pointing to domain.com/jobs?location=10 (plus a ton of other numbers assigned to locations) and so they've been indexed. I usually use WMTs parameter tool but I'm not sure what the best approach would be other than that. Any help would be appreciated!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | jasondexter0 -
Best link analysis tool before moving to disavow them
I want to use Google disavow tool. I have 2 questions relating it 1. How to use Google Disavow tool? 2. How to use Moz or OSE for deep backlink mining? If Moz not best fit needs alternative for it.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | csfarnsworth0 -
HTTPS moz.org untrusted - invalid cert
https://www.moz.com/ has an invalid cert guys This Connection is Untrusted You have asked Firefox to connect
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | irvingw
securely to www.moz.com, but we can't confirm that your connection is secure.
Normally, when you try to connect securely,
sites will present trusted identification to prove that you are
going to the right place. However, this site's identity can't be verified. What Should I Do? If you usually connect to
this site without problems, this error could mean that someone is
trying to impersonate the site, and you shouldn't continue. www.moz.com uses an invalid security certificate. The certificate is only valid for moz.com (Error code: ssl_error_bad_cert_domain) If you understand what's going on, you
can tell Firefox to start trusting this site's identification.
Even if you trust the site, this error could mean that someone is
tampering with your connection.
Don't add an exception unless
you know there's a good reason why this site doesn't use trusted identification.1 -
Are there any concerns moving a site to https?
I am currently having analytics issues where the non-secured (http) front end of my site is not properly communicating to the backend (https) of my site. When a user jumps between the the secured and non-secured, it will display as a bounce in GA and I get duplicate visits. GA has a work around for this but it is messy and not working. So my question is, has anyone had good/bad experiences moving a non-secured site over to the secured side? Thanks!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | 2comarketing0