Changing a domain name, pages redirection

[bigrat95]

when changing a domain name, should we redirect all the pages to their new pages or only the indexed pages?

Thanks

[EricaMcGillivray]

If you've removed all the spammy links and got back into Google's good graces, you should be fine.

[Gatonegro]

I should have stated that the spammy links will be removed before the migration.

[bigrat95]

I dont know if it would change if you redirect the domain

[Gatonegro]

I read the post and wanted to know how much it would have changed if you had a domain that had over a thousand spammy links. We are contemplating using another domain (no change of brand) that has no spammy links.

[EricaMcGillivray]

A mix of both depending on your business cases is best. I suggest reading this post from Ruth Burr Reedy about the domain changes and 301s that she did for Moz during our rebrand when she was head of SEO here. We did a mix of both killing pages and 301s depending on the page itself and its use.

[Lumina]

That I'm not too sure about, sorry.

[Lumina]

Definitely. It's important to always keep track of the criteria for any project - no matter how simple it may be. Just make sure that whenever you update or change the structure of your site(s), that you update the excel as well.

I would also recommend you take this transitional period to commit an audit of your site, structure, keywords, titles, metadescriptions, etc. Not only will that help you measure the differences in traffic and conversions between the old site and new, it may expose weaknesses in your site that you can improve.

Good luck!

[bigrat95]

Thanks for your awanser!

Should I create an excel sheet of all the old urls and 301 redirect each one of the to the new domain?

[Lumina]

I would say that depends on whether or not there are non-indexed pages that visitors to your site may still see. If the answer is yes, then you should redirect all of your pages. If not, then while I'd still recommend doing so, it's not inherently necessary.