Domain Change for a well positioned website... I'm a-scared
-
Hello,
A few years ago I have "inherited" a website about a particular touristic area in Italy (the Langhe region) called langhe.net.
The website is very well positioned, the domain has been registered in '97 and the overall SEO performance is pretty good (it ranks in the top #3 positions for all the main search queries in our niche).
We are currently redesigning the whole thing, and one of the idea was to change the domain (and the name) of the website from langhe.net to lovelanghe.com (which we already registered).
The reasons behind this decision are the following (most important first):
- Google prefer brands over keywords and "Langhe" is just a keyword
- LoveLanghe looks more memorable and "marketable" than just Langhe.net
- All our social presence is branded already as LoveLanghe (they were created years back under this name - I don't know why)
We will do our due diligence work (301 everything, domain change in Search Console etc. etc.) but I'm still kind of worried that we will lose some ranking.
So my question(s) are:
- do you think it's a good idea to change the domain when ranking is good and original domain is so old?
- how much ranking (approximately) are we going to lose?
Thanks in advance
Best
-
Hi Roman,
thank you for you exhaustive answer
Best
-
One more thing ....you are looking for a more brandable domain
if you get success on the migration process and you can improve your CRO. A better CRO means better user experience and lower bounce rate. that's a higher ranking and better page authority.
you will have a better ranking than the original.My swissknife for that are
- Optimizely
- Crazyegg or Hotjar
If your create a plan for improve a convertion rate (Im not talking about a simple a/b tets) Im talking about a serius plan
1- Build an optimization strategy for your company
2- Align your program’s testing efforts to your company goals.
3- Create a goal tree. This is a map of the metrics that are critical to your company’s success. The discovery process for creating a goal tree helps you translate business metrics into concrete optimization goals.
4- I recommend that you start by focusing your testing program on achieving quick wins with impactful tests that affect the bottom line.
Each goal breaks down into a set of smaller goals. For example, "Revenue" in the tree above cascades into "Revenue per Visitor" and "Number of Visitors." Top-level metrics roll directly into smaller KPIs that you'll optimize for.
A goal tree helps you:
decide where to focus your optimization efforts
break down broad organizational imperatives into bite-sized tests
find multiple avenues to generate impact through optimization
optimize for smaller KPIs and understand how these impact your business goals
help stakeholders grasp the value of your optimization efforts in a language they understand
-
Sometimes it's necessary to move your site to a new domain. Often it comes down to maintaining consistent branding; for instance, changing your domain to match your company's new name.
While transferring your site to a new domain isn't something you should do on a whim, it is possible to do it without suffering permanent damage to your search rankings.
Be aware that you are likely to experience a short-term drop in rankings immediately following your move.
So If you did your homework probably you will notice some changes
in the beginning but at the end your rank will come back.ANWERSING YOUR QUESTION
Yes, It is possible to change your domain without losing your SEO Juice. -
Hi Roman, thank you for your answer!
yeah, the plan is to follow that checklist
My doubts are more tied to the question if the ranking loss due to the domain switch outweights the advantages of having moving to a more "brandable" domain.
-
Moving domains can make a tremendously negative impact on search engine rankings. This is because the major search engines use metrics on both the domain level and the page level to determine rankings.
This is the mini-guide from MOZ to Properly Move Domains
1 Redirect all of the pages from one domain to an entirely different domain.
2 www.example-old-site.com/ and all of it's pages redirect to www.example-new-site.com/ and it's corresponding pages.
3 Create a sitemap for your old domain.
4 Set up the new domain and make it live.
5 Register and verify your old domain and new domain with Google Webmaster Tools.
6 Create a custom 404 page for old domain which suggests visiting new domain.
7 In a development environment, test the redirects from the old domain to the new domain. Ideally, this will be a 1:1 redirect.
8 301 redirect your old domain to your new domain.
9 Submit your old sitemap to Google and Bing. The submission pages are within Google Webmaster Tools and Bing Webmaster Center
10 Fill out the Change of Address form in Google Webmaster Tools.
11 Create a new sitemap and submit it to the engines.
12 Wait until Google Webmaster Tools updates and fix any errors it indicates in the Diagnostics section.
13 Monitor search engine results to make sure new domain is being properly indexed.
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 isn't the canonical tag on my client's Magento site working?
The reason for this mights be obvious to the right observer, but somehow I'm not able to spot the reason why. The situation:
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Inevo
I'm doing an SEO-audit for a client. When I'm checking if the rel=canonical tag is in place correctly, it seems like it: view-source:http://quickplay.no/fotball-mal.html?limit=15) (line nr 15) Anyone seing something wrong with this canonical? When I perform a site:http://quickplay.no/ search, I find that there's many url's indexed that ought to have been picked up by the canonical-tag: (see picture) ..this for example view-source:http://quickplay.no/fotball-mal.html?limit=15 I really can't see why this page is getting indexed, when the canonical-tag is in place. Anybody who can? Sincerely 🙂 GMdWg0K0 -
I'm invisible!
Dear all, Earl 2015 i launched www.taobao.nl. Its a platform that shows the products of chinese marketplaces in our local language (auto translated) and provides the option to pay in our local currency & methods. (i blocked all the auto translated product pages via http://www.taobao.nl/robots.txt) All content (category pages, general pages etc) are unique and written by us. In the past I've set up several websites and shops and i know it always takes time and effort to get a site to good positions, but i never experienced that my efforts did not pay of. Until now 😞 The url is not blocked by Google and i see a (very) limited amount of traffic in WMT & Analytics, but the site is >page 30 on its most important keyword 'taobao'. This, while the competition on this keyword is low in my country (google.nl). My main competitor (taobao.com.nl) seems to do worse on most SEO elements i was able to check, but they rank very well on 'taobao' and all related keywords. What could be the reason of this very poor ranking and what should i really adjust / improve?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | benhond
(besides backlinks: i'm working hard on that) Your input is deeply appreciated!! Sander1 -
Does link equity to a page that is 301'd to a new domain pass juice on?
If we build some quality inbound links to certain pages, that are a later date 301'd to another domain, does any equity or juice get transferred across? Or is the inbound link's value wasted? Thanks
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | bjs20100 -
Impact of simplifying website and removing 80% of site's content
We're thinking of simplifying our website which has grown to a very large size by removing all the content which hardly ever gets visited. The plan is to remove this content / make changes over time in small chunks so that we can monitor the impact on SEO. My gut feeling is that this is okay if we make sure to redirect old pages and make sure that the pages we remove aren't getting any traffic. From my research online it seems that more content is not necessarily a good thing if that content is ineffective and that simplifying a site can improve conversions and usability. Could I get people's thoughts on this please? Are there are risks that we should look out for or any alternatives to this approach? At the moment I'm struggling to combine the needs of SEO with making the website more effective.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | RG_SEO0 -
Does Having 3 Websites On Magento Affect Domain Authority?
We have a client who has 3 separate websites targeting the US, Australia, and the UK. Each of them has relevant ccTLD's such as: .com .com.au and .co.uk. Our client wants to use the Magento multi-site function so it combines all the stores (which are the exact same products) and merge it into one through Magento. Will this affect his Domain Authority? Or would they be treated as individual when receiving link value, trust, authority? There doesn't seem a lot information out there about this can anyone help? Thanks, Matt
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | HigherthanSEO0 -
Content Marketing: Should we build a separate website or built in site within the Website itself?
Hi Mozzers, Client: Big carpet cleaner player in the carpet cleaning industry Main Goal: Creating good content to Get more organic traffic to our main site Structure of the extra content: It will act like a blog but will be differentiated from the regular site by not selling anything but just creating good content. The look and design will be different from the client's site. SEO question: In terms of SEO, what would be the most beneficial for us to do, should we built in this new section/site outside or inside the client's site? I personally think that it should be separated from the main site because of the main reasons: A followed link to the main site Anchor texts implementation linking back to our service pages If we would to choose to build in this content, it would be highly beneficial for getting organic traffic within the main site but I am afraid this will not provide us any link juice since anchor texts won't be accounted the same since all of those would be located in the Nav bar of the main site. Can someone tell me what would be the best in terms of SEO? P.S: My boss doesn't agree with me and would rather go the second option (build in within the main site) that's why i am asking you guys what would be the most beneficial? Thank you Guys
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Ideas-Money-Art0 -
Splitting one Website into 2 Different New Websites with 301 redirects, help?
Here's the deal. My website stbands.com does fairly well. The only issue it is facing a long term branding crisis. It sells custom products and sporting goods. We decided that we want to make a sporting goods website for the retail stuff and then a custom site only focusing on the custom stuff. One website transformed and broken into 2 new ones, with two new brand names. The way we are thinking about doing this is doing a lot of 301 redirects, but what do we do with the homepage (stbands.com) and what is the best practice to make sure we don't lose traffic to the categories, etc.? Which new website do we 301 the homepage to? It's rough because for some keywords we rank 3 or 4 times on the first page. Scary times, but something must be done for the long term. Any advise is greatly appreciated. Thank you in advance. We are set for a busy next few months 🙂
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Hyrule0 -
Multiple Domain names pointing at one website
Hello, A collegue has asked if we can buy multiple domain names which contain keywords and point them at our website. Is this good practise or will it be seen as spam? Will these domains actually get ranked? I'm sure I'm not the first person to raise this but can't seem to find any questions and answers about this. Thanks Mark
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | markc-1971830