Domain Name Switch Considering Special Circumstances

[leslieevarts]

Thank you kindly for taking the time to read this.

The company I work with is a wedding chapel in Las Vegas. They've had the same domain since about 2001. Their organic placement has been stellar since about 2008. With the most recent Panda update some results did slip, but they are still strong & I feel that the SEPRs that slipped will be back up shortly (hopefully!)

The company recently bought the url www.VegasWeddings.com which happens to be a generic key phrase, BUT ALSO IS THE NAME OF THE BUSINESS. They want to switch, but I am in a bit of a conundrum of this. It seems really risky, but also makes a lot of sense.

Help? Insight? Anything?

Thank you dearly!!!

[EGOL]

This has been such a great thread, I decided to add a little more information on my problem redirect and a personal theory....

When I redirected domainA.com to keyworddomain.com, domainA.com had been on the web for nearly ten years with #1 rankings for its products for almost that entire time,  The domain had lots of mentions had, lots of domain queries and a great history with google.

When you do a 301 redirect, I believe that only redirects a fraction of your assets.  It is only a mechanical redirect of the file names on your server and search engines know how to follow it and attribute links.

However, I do not believe that a 301 transfers all of the mentions of your brand that appear on other sites or the domain queries that you have been receiving, any social value and other off-page assets that search engines might give you credit for.  (I don't know what they can do about local, since that is never a concern for me.)

So the more work you have put into your site related to branding the greater your loss will be when you walk away from the domain.  When I put my site up on keyworddomain.com Google's followed the 301s but had every right to ask.... "WHO IS THIS?"...

This new domain was a Nobody.

No one asks for it  by name through the google seach box, nobody is typing the domain in the address bar of the Chrome browser, the name is not mentioned in association with all of my products on many other websites, in blogs and in forums.  I lost all of those assets and that is why I personally believe the rankings dropped.

Robert gives great suggestions for an attempt to reclaim some of these "other offsite assets".  I think he has good ideas that I did not do.

People rarely if ever talk about these "other offsite assests" so we are ringing their bell here.

[MiriamEllis]

Excellent and passionate discussion here, guys! Proud to see this kind of care and growth being exchanged in this thread.

Leslieevarts, you've asked a truly important question here. I would agree with this:

1. EMDs can still help but if you do change over to the new domain, I would expect you to see a drop like EGOL has described. And don't forget that, in Local, you would need to have a plan in action to correct every citation that exists for the business to edit the domain name, too, should you choose to go with this route. Your drop could last months, years, or even be permanent. Tough decision.

2. As Robert has pointed out, it would not be a good idea to run 2 local websites at once. The chaos that can result from this choice would be most unwelcome for the you and the business owner, so steer clear of this.

So, basically, I feel that the answer to your question depends on whether the client determines that he can face an indefinite period of loss because the hoped-for eventual gain will be great enough to make it worthwhile.

[RobertFisher]

Thanks Lesley, and again, with ecommerce it would matter much less.

Best

[LesleyPaone]

I am going to have to go back to the drawing board with this, I was not aware of these issues. I am going to edit my post to reflect.

[RobertFisher]

Lesley,

I know you and like you but this is TERRIBLE advice.

Google is fully aware of Regis and most larger virtual office suppliers. They are also aware of the street address look of UPS stores. I understand that people are doing it; I can show you a client who is large who cannot get his main office into the Local Pack in a major city due to trying to play games with this. He is a service area business in a major US city and he is the largest by double the next two competitors. This is a very competitive vertical. (Like wedding chapel Las Vegas.)

Because we are friends I know your business and I know that you are likely talking about an ecommerce company and that is a totally different issue from a wedding chapel. That wedding chapel will live and die with Local. An ecommerce site by its very nature does not; yes, local may help it and you may be able to game the system for a while, but that does not mean you should do it if you have a true bricks and mortar business.

Trust me this advice you are giving is the most dangerous kind there is with Local. I urge anyone who is considering this to stay far away from it. Do not believe because a few have gotten away with it that you will. If you are a service business and being in a Pack is important, you must consider with the recent update/change/Pigeon poop from Google that some industries in some cities have critical KW terms that now show a one pack. What if that business must be in the one pack to be successful and Google discovers the office is not real? It can affect everything Local.

Please do not give advice like this. Local is a true sub specialty of SEO and if you are not living it daily you should pass your clients to some firm that has a pro.

That is just pure experience talking,

Robert

[DennisSeymour]

If it needs a redesign anyways (since it's ancient) then go do it.

Drops will happen. Nobody can tell you exactly what will happen because some experienced big drops. Some, none at all. I've experienced mostly positive with it. Dropping a couple spots but eventually gaining it back

The only thing we know is that there's a lot of work involved.

Just be sure the social branding is changed, make it consistent and be sure the urls are properly directed to the new urls. Let the thin pages die and direct them to a cute 404 page. Be sure to use their list to let their previous clients know.

Just warn them, let them know what's involved, the many hours that theyll need to pay and what CAN happen. Let them sign a contract if needed.

It might even net you some good local PR which will just be great links.

[LesleyPaone]

My thought is this, there is one type of spam that is becoming more pervasive in our industry that I never see anyone talking about. It is address and location spam. Google has a lot of the spam mechanisms together, but this one I think is very hard to combat. Companies without a physical address can basically buy a real address from companies like Regus and then be listed in local results. In reality all they are doing is making up mailbox numbers. Like 123 street Suite 3, there is no suite 3 but Google still recognizes it as a non PO box address and uses it in local results. I have had many clients that operate several facets of online e-commerce sites out of one office. They might have a makeup site, an electronics site, and a sporting goods site, all drop shipping from the same 300 square foot office. Generally I get them to ask their postal worker if there is an issue with changing their address into suites. They never say no, or haven't yet. But all the mail for 123 street suite #1, suite #2, suite #3 all gets dropped at the same box.

I have had a couple clients that sell products that are legal in their country and are now coming online as legal in certain states in the US. By them getting virtual office packages it has allowed them to move their businesses into local markets that they can service as well. In those cases I have seen it work exceptionally because of the strict geographical targeting.

[RobertFisher]

Leslieevarts

First, I like EMD's a lot (even though we all know they have been losing value over time). Also, I think EGOL makes a really important point: with a client you have to lead with, "While typically this will not be a problem, with any change to an existing site, you risk losing some or all of your value." What we add to this is: We keep a complete FTP file of your old site and can put it back up if something goes critically wrong. While that should ameliorate any major issue, not even that is a guarantee you can get back what was lost."

If they question why you say that and that Brand b did not, simply say this, "I would be wary of anyone who can promise nothing bad will happen. I do not know Brand b and they may be a great firm, but guaranteeing anything today on the Internet is really playing with fire."

That said, I would change to the new domain and redirect current urls to the new ones using accepted good practices for 301 redirects. You will need to do a change of address in WMT and resubmit (submit the new) sitemap.

I would not build a new site and also switch as you are adding a variable to the change and that is scary to me. Wait until the change takes effect and you have had time to test it out (2 to 3 months is reasonable). Then if you want to create a new site, you should be ok.

I hope we have not scared or confused you. I can tell you that we regularly redirect sites, and somewhat less regularly we change domains. The most recent was about a month ago and we started seeing the links from the old domain on the new about a month after the change (In GWMT). So don't think it will happen in a day or two. Your change of address should help you with the rankings, but even that is not a guarantee.

All the best,

Robert

[RobertFisher]

Lesley,

I understand fully what you are saying but have to disagree. Remember, if the chapel has only one address you cannot do this and should not do it. You totally endanger the money maker with a plan like this when you add "Local," etc.

Best

Robert

[LesleyPaone]

**The following is bad advice, I am just leaving the text so people can see what it is, so no one follows it. **

If it were me, I would do make a totally different site, on a totally different server (hosting company) with totally different registration information. From there I would basically maintain two sites, maybe get a second phone number, maybe even split the address so you can use local citations.

But, I would not move the main site over to the new domain. The hit you would take would take a long time to recover from like EGOL said.

[EGOL]

This is not advice.  Just a report.

About 12 years ago I built a website on a decent domain and it went to #1 rankings on a number of commercial keywords, beating a couple of well-known manufacturers, amazon, staples and others.  This website's rankings seemed great to me and it was getting over 1000 visitors per month who typed the old domain as a keyword into the google search.

Then about three years ago I acquired the perfect domain and confidently redirected the old domain to the new.  I changed nothing on the website except switching instances of domainA.com to keyworddomain.com.   Oh.. phooey...  I don't know what happened but rankings dropped from #1 to #3 for the good money queries.

Rankings stayed at #3 for several months, then, after over one year finally got back the #1 ranking, occasionally slipping and jumping back up, curiously the recover occurred when domain queries got back up to about 1000 per month on the new domain.  (This was immediately before google started blocking keyword information).  Now after two years, stable again, but I lost a lot of sales and my current ranking at #1 might be because the strong manufacturer might have a Panda problem in my opinion.

So, just saying that things don't always go as planned.  Best to tell the client that there is some risk involved.