How to proceed with domain switch AND url change
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Hi,
in a few weeks we'll do a major change on our website. This involves over 1.5 million pages indexed in Google driving substantial amount of our traffic.
Basically we have 2 types of changes:
- subdomain switches to domain:
ex. product.company.com will become www.product.com
for this we know how to manage DNS and Apache rules - different url patterns, basically replacing ugly urls by pretty urls
for this we have advanced 301-mapping rules set up
Here is the question - what is best way to proceed with these 2 changes in order to preserve rankings and organic traffic:
- Do both changes simultaneously?
- First do url changes, than the domain switch
Can you please share your thoughts?
- subdomain switches to domain:
-
I would do both at the same time that way if you take any hit/penalty for the changes it is only once. You may also want to submit a change of address through webmaster tools for the subdomain switch.
-
As long as you have your 301 redirections setup correctly and your sitemaps updated appropriately, I don't think there will be any additional penalty for making both changes at the same time.
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