Moving to New Domain - Ranking impact
-
I understand that when migrating to a new site, even if done perfectly (page level 301s etc) that rankings will drop in the short term and each site will be impacted differently. I picked up the following comment and was wanting to get a few experts thoughts on whether I can quote this to my client:
"In our experience, even when 301's are correctly executed, we see a short term fall back (7-30) days and then about a 90% carry through after that period for about 90 days and then back to full strength. "
-
Hi Conrad,
Unfortunately every migration is going to yield different results in terms of how well the redirection goes and how long you have to wait to get your rankings back if they suffer. Thomas' experience is fairly typical (and the resources he cites here are good too). It's impossible to say what will happen - a particularly large site (let's say a big e-commerce site for a high-street retailer) might suffer due to the sheer volume of URLs that need to be moved and picked up by Google; a small website may have an easier time. However, metrics like the age and authority of the moving website may well play into how successful the move is as well. As such, it's really hard to say exactly how a migration will go without seeing the sites (and even then, ranking problems can crop up that were unexpected).
Cheers,
Jane
-
If the hosting company changed servers or you changed hosting companies it should not matter in terms of domain switching unless you forgot to update something like the database file for all the URLs if you are using Word press or another CMS that has a MySQL database.
Obviously moving to a new domain has a lot of complications and switching the hosting can just really add to it. However, sometimes it must be done.
I have swapped hosting companies and not seeing a drop in any way shape or form many times. In fact I cannot recall a time that I have ever seen a drop from swapping just hosting.
I am not saying it is impossible but when done right it should not make a difference.
Having said that if you are a hosting company that gives you a staging server that you are supposed to incorporate into your DNS to get rid of the possibility of duplicate content that could be a huge issue. All staging server should be no follow no index robots-X
if it is a company that had an alias or staging server be certain that URL is not in a database somewhere.
however if you find you have a database and you have not updated it to reflect the new domain I would recommend a tool like this
https://interconnectit.com/products/search-and-replace-for-wordpress-databases/
Any CMS to CMS
http://www.cms2cms.com/supported-cms/wordpress/
For WordPress
http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/velvet-blues-update-urls/
-
I think this post from a few months back will help shed some light on the situation. In my experience from moving a company using a .de to .com it was a drop time of only 3 1/2 weeks to a month however we constantly told Google that we were changing domains remember to do that.
I hope this helps as well
http://moz.com/blog/domain-migration-lessons
http://moz.com/community/q/how-to-keep-old-url-juice-during-site-switch
http://moz.com/blog/achieving-an-seo-friendly-domain-migration-the-infographic
sincerely,
Thomas
-
That almost sounds like the result of a host changing servers on you. I hate it when that happens. That would be the absolute smoothest transition. I would account for a little error.
But as the man said, that's with painstaking attention to detail - all things being equal - and some off-site concerns. I would be careful about how you link clients. It seldom hurts to have a new domain with greater age and a good history. A new or younger domain will likely be a little more difficult.
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
-
Redirect multiple domains to 1 domain or not?
Hi there, I have client who has multiple domains that already have some PA and DA. Problem is that most websites have the same content and rank better on different keywords.
Technical SEO | | Leaf-a-mark
I want to redirect all the websites to 1 domain because it’s easier to manage and it removes any duplicate content. Question is if I redirect domain x to domain y do the rankings of domain x increase on domain y? Or is it better to keep domain x separately to generate more referral traffic to domain y? Thanks in advance! Cheers0 -
301 Domain Redirect And Old Domain to a New one including pages
Hi, I need to 301 an old domain to a new one (new website) I need to 301 the domain to a new page not the new domain direct for example www.olddomain.co.uk to www.newdomain.co.uk/pagenew Then I need to also 301 all the other pages on the old domain to the new one for example... www.oldmain.co.uk/oldpage to www.newdomain.co.uk/newpage Issue is I can do one or the other not both, I can get the other pages to redirect but then the main domain wont redirect to the correct new page. Or I can get the old domain to redirect but not the internal pages. Thanks
Technical SEO | | David-Sharpe0 -
English and French under the same domain
A friend of mine runs a B&B and asked me to check his freshly built website to see if it was <acronym title="Search Engine Optimization">SEO</acronym> compliant.
Technical SEO | | coolhandluc
The B&B is based in France and he's targeting a UK and French audience. To do so, he built content in english and french under the same domain:
https://www.la-besace.fr/ When I run a crawl through screamingfrog only the French content based URLs seem to come up and I am not sure why. Can anyone enlighten me please? To maximise his business local visibility my recommendation would be to build two different websites (1 FR and 1 .co.uk) , build content in the respective language version sites and do all the link building work in respective country sites. Do you think this is the best approach or should he stick with his current solution? Many thanks1 -
Subdomain Ranking Question
Hi All - Quick question that I think I know the answer to, but I feel like I've been going around in circles a bit. My client is launching a new product and wants us to build a microsite for it (product.clientname.com). My client really dislikes their brand website, and wants to use paid media to push their audience to this new microsite. However, they also said want it to rank well organically. I feel uneasy about this, because of the subdomain vs. subfolder argument. I believe that the product will also be listed/featured on their main brand website. What is the best way forward? Thanks!
Technical SEO | | AinsleyAgency0 -
Is it a good idea to use an old domain name for a new product
Hi guys, I have a domain name XYZ.com which hosts the site of a technology service company as of now. The company however didn't do well and shut down a few years ago. Now, that company wants to launch a new set of technology products and wants to use the same domain name. Is it a good idea. The issues that I can see here are: 1. Google has previous pages indexed 2. There are a couple of subdomains totally irrelevant to the business. like employees.xyz.com there. 3. Can the previous indexing be completely undone. Regards, Mayank
Technical SEO | | mayanksaxena0 -
Forwarding kw rich domains to main domain
Hi My client has a clutch of kw rich domains that want to point to main domain, apart from being good for promotional reasons is there any seo benefit for doing so (i know there used to be years ago but under impression hasn't been any benefit for a long while) Most importantly though can any bad come from doing this ? Best Rgds Dan
Technical SEO | | Dan-Lawrence0 -
Keyword in Domain or not?
My on page optimization grade is an "A" with the following factors; Factor Overview <dl class="scoreboard clearfix"> <dt>Critical Factors</dt> <dd>4 / 4</dd> <dt>High Importance Factors</dt> <dd>7 / 7</dd> <dt>Moderate Importance Factors</dt> <dd>8 / 9</dd> <dt>Low Importance Factors</dt> <dd>11 / 11</dd> <dt>Optional Factors</dt> <dd>5 / 5</dd> </dl> The main thing I appear to be missing is keywords in my URL. How truly important is that in today's SEO world and how much time or ranking would be lost if I do not have control to change the external links to my website if I decided to migrate to a keyword relevant url?
Technical SEO | | classa0 -
Subdomain and Domain Rankings
I have read here that domain names with keywords might add a boost to your search rank For instance using a completely inane example monkey-fights.com might get a boost compared to mfl.com (monkey fighting league) when searching for "monkey fights" There seems to be a hot debate as to how much bonus the first domain might get over the second, but leaving that aside for the moment. Question 1. Would monkey-fights.mfl.com get the same kind of bonus as a root domain bonus? Question 2. If the answer to 1 above was yes would a 301 redirect from the suddomain URL to root domain URL retain that bonus I was just thinking on how hard it is to get root domains these days that are not either being squatted on etc. and if this might be a way to get the same bonus, or maybe subdomains are less bonus prone and so it would be a waste of time Thanks
Technical SEO | | bThere0