Changing Domains - Will a 301 redirect be looked unfavourably for my Ads?

[EvansHunt]

Hey All,

So over the next few weeks we are switching over a clients domain to a new one. Each of the old pages on the old domain will have a 301 redirect to it's new contextual page (with the same content). My question is this, we currently have multiple PPC campaigns running for this client and the ads are pointed towards the old domain so the ads will redirect over to the new domain.

My question is this, will Adwords look at this redirection unfavourably? If so, then I will have to duplicate each ad (100's of ads) with a new destination URL (since if I edit the current ads they will lose all past performance history).  Obviously for branding I'm going to have to probably change the display URL eventually but for now I'm looking at the BIG issues that could occur. I would normally call Google and ask this question but I don't want them to flag anything in my account just in case this is looked unfavourably.

Thanks!

Jon

[Ray-pp]

You're correct and good catch! If you want that Ad History to remain, you'll need to duplicate the ads and update the URLs.

[EvansHunt]

Hey Ray,

That's what I thought you'd say. Been managing campaigns for years but this is the first time this has come up for a client. Was definitely going to use this method to switch them out.

That being said, my ad history will clear if I change the destination URL so won't I need to duplicate the ads and then change the destination and display URL's?

Thanks!

Jon

[Ray-pp]

Hi Jonathan,

Welcome to the Moz community!

You should definitely update the display and landing page URLs to match the landing page the user will eventually end up. Not doing so could be in violation of the Google AdWords policy and negatively impact your account.

source: https://support.google.com/adwordspolicy/answer/6021546?rd=1#027

• Redirects: You can use a redirect for tracking purposes as long as the destination URL's final resulting page uses the same domain as your display URL.

I know that in the above they talk about redirects for tracking purposes, but it remains the same for general advertising guidelines.

Updating the ads shouldn't be much of an issue, though, with Excel and the AdWords editor. I suggest exporting all of your campaign ads into Excel and then doing a Find and Replace to update all of the URLs to the new domain. Then you can easily import those ads back into the AdWords editor.

In fact, I believe the AdWords editor added this as a native function in the 11.0 version.

https://support.google.com/adwords/editor/answer/47657?hl=en