Welcome to the Q&A Forum

Browse the forum for helpful insights and fresh discussions about all things SEO.

Your browser does not seem to support JavaScript. As a result, your viewing experience will be diminished, and you have been placed in read-only mode.

Please download a browser that supports JavaScript, or enable it if it's disabled (i.e. NoScript).

Domain Name Change - Best Practices?

Intermediate & Advanced SEO

3

3

2845

Log in to reply

Michael-Goode last edited by

Good day guys,

We got a restaurant that is changing its name and domain.

However they are keeping the same server location, same content and same pages (we are just changing the logo on the website).

It just has to go a new domain. We don't want to lose the value of the current site, and we want to avoid any duplicate penalties.

Could you please advise of the best practices of doing a domain name change?

Thank you.
1 Reply Last reply
Reply Quote 0
KeriMorgret @petrakraft last edited by

This YouMoz post may also help some too. http://www.seomoz.org/blog/web-site-migration-guide-tips-for-seos
1 Reply Last reply
Reply Quote 0
petrakraft last edited by
I would recommend following the step by step guidance of Google in the Webmaster Tools -> Configuration -> Change of Address:
1. Set up your content on your new domain.
2. Redirect content from your old site using 301 redirects.
3. Add and verify your new site to Webmaster Tools.
They offer further guidelines here: https://support.google.com/webmasters/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=83105
1 Reply Last reply
Reply Quote 2

Got a burning SEO question?

Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.

Start my free trial

Browse Questions

View

From

Sorted by

With category

Explore more categories

Related Questions

What are the best practices with website redesign & redirects?

I have a website that is not very pretty but has great rankings. I want to redesign the website and loose as little rankings as possible and still clean up the navigation. What are the best practices? Thanks in advance.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | JHSpecialty

0
When i search for my domain name - google asks "did you mean" - why?

Hi all, I just noticed something quite odd - if i do a search for my domain name (see: http://goo.gl/LBc1lz) google shows my domain as first result, but it also asks "did i mean" and names another website with very similar name. the other site has far lower PA/DA according to Moz, any ideas why google is doing this? and more inportantly how i could stop it? please advise James
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | isntworkdull

0
Redirect multiple domains to a primary domain

Hello that such I make the following query imagine we have three domains on the same thematic or category primary domain: domain-antiguo1.com (3 years) (200 Backlink), domain-antiguo2.net (10 years) (1000 Backlinks) and domain-antiguo3.com (6 years) (500 Backlinks) and decide to redirect all these domains favorite one: domain-principal.com The three domains registered refeccionar this google webmaster, has its respective income sitemap and google webmaster area change of address to the main domain the three domains are my property It would have a penalty for doing this practice?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | globotec

0
Best practice for duplicate website content: same root domain name but different extension

Hi there I have a new client who has two websites: http://www.bayofislandsteambuilding.co.nz
http://www.bayofislandsteambuilding.org.nz They are the same in every regard apart from the domain extension (.co.nz & .org.nz) which is likely to be causing them issues with Google ranking given the huge amount of duplicate content. What is the best practice approach to fixing this? Normally, if I was starting from scratch, I would set one of the extensions as an alias which redirects to the main domain. Thanks in advance. Laurie
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | turnbullholdingsltd

0
Combining two exact match domains under brand name

I run two websites that sell basically the same product which we make ourselves but to two separate audiences. I've made my living off them for the past 6 years or so. I used emd's in both cases to rank for my main search terms. We dropped a few places last October but not too bad. I was thinking of combining the sites under one brand name hoping that they would rank better combined. Both sites have similar link profiles but with some links unique to each. For instance, I buy a yahoo directory listing for each site but each site has some unique product reviews on blogs. Is this a good idea or am I better off leaving them separate?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | JDP

0
Losing Rank As A Result Of Domain Change

I have a client who is wishing to switch from an established, but unattractive domain, to a domain he just purchased that is more attractive. For example purposes, his existing site is "His-Company-Website.com" and the site he just purchased and wants to transfer to is "HisCompanyWebsite.com." The only difference is the old site has hyphens in between the words and the new one does not. He is not making this choice from an SEO perspective, but more of a "I don't want to keep saying all those hyphens when telling people about my website." But he said he doesn't want to lose his search engine rankings as a result. So he knows this won't necessarily increase his ranks, but doesn't want them to drop as a result. When speaking with him, I thought we could simply toss in a 301 redirect at the root level and pipe them over to the other site, but he wanted some actual proof. I went back to look at what I thought would be a similar case that I did earlier in the year (transferring from a .net to a .com) and noticed that we did see some rather substantial drops in at least traffic, so I am not so sure about this plan any longer. So my questions for my far more insightful colleagues... What would be your suggestion on this problem? Transition to the more user friendly domain or stick with the unfriendly domain? If he does elect to transition to the new domain, what all can I do to preserve his search engine rankings? Should a rankings and/or traffic drop be predicting when completing this? Thank you all in advance. Any other tidbits anyone has to offer would be great. Looking forward to your replies.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | ClayPotCreative

0
Changing domain reigstrant - seo impact

Hi there if you get a domain off someone and change registrant details and hosting, to what extent does this affect the power of the site? Any opinions of interest, many thanks.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | pauledwards

0
Domains

I am currently working on a huge website which ranks very well receiving 150,000 visitors every day. I have been offered the chance to buy some more domain names which would suit my keywords in the current site. These domains as a keyword also receive huge amounts of traffic. Would it be beneficial for me to do this....if so why? Thanks
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | wazza1985

0