Best Way to change domain name
-
Hi,
I have a driving instructor wordpress website called www.drivnglessonsbrightonandhove.co.uk, done a little link building. But before I start this properly, I want to change it to www.drivingbrighton.co.uk (as the first is too long to fit on the car etc!!!!)
Whats the best way to do this? Is there a way to help keep its position in google as just got into top10 for different keywords?
-
Antony,
If your site structure is to remain the same use Google's Step by Step Guide to Migrating a Domain
Google recommends redirecting all pages. After you follow Google's suggestions on the move there are things you can do to speed this up. Tweet every URL on your new site that you want indexed. Check the site: indexation for inclusion of the new pages and don't forget the sitemap and Google Webmaster Tools for your URL preference.
-
Hi Anthony.
Your new URL choice seems like a good choice. The best way to make this change is to add a 301 redirect from your current site to the new site. Your web host can set this up for you.
Whenever a redirect is used you will lose a small amount of link value which could impact ranking. Often the change is made with no ranking change but you can lose a spot or two. You can reduce or eliminate any loss by ensuring all links to your site are updated to your new URL. This would include any signature links, facebook links, etc.
Once the change is made it is entirely possible your site can "bounce" on the search result pages. It may take a few weeks for Google to crawl all of your site and the final rankings to settle.
Since you are making an improvement it's up to you to decide if in the long term the long term benefit would offset any short term set back.
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
-
Multisite domain
good morning I have a wordpress site I have activated the multisite, currently the site has a domain authority of 8, when I publish a post, it is indexed quite quickly, if I publish a post in a language other than the /es subdomain it takes 24 hours why? If the author domain is the same, why does the employee take longer to be indexed on Google? Thank you
Technical SEO | | alainscilly770 -
301 domain name to another site
I had 2 websites. I decided not to maintain one of them and set it to 301 to my main website. However, i see people getting 404 errors when they land on my main website but with a page name from the old site. How can I set things so that anyone who tries to go to the old site goes to my homepage of my main site? http://siteA.com http://oldsiteB.com/oldpagename sends them to http://siteA.com//oldpagename = 404 - I want them to go directly to homepage on siteA.
Technical SEO | | bhsiao0 -
What is the best way to show content in Listing Pages?
If it is e-commerce site and a product listing page there is always a conflict how to show the content? As per my understanding we can show content in two different ways. 1. To show little content and use **Read more. (**In this case there is a direct message to the google: Here is the content visible and rest content is hidden but available for visitors to read more 2. Can use** Scroll bar**. So here is the message to Google and visitors that my full content is available here. So just scroll down to read further. So I want to know that which method of showing content is best and it's impact of SEO where there is UI constraint or both the method is ok without any SEO impact. Please share your suggestions. DCdRJpH
Technical SEO | | kathiravan0 -
For a web agency, can the same WHOIS registrant name information between different domain names hurt SEO?
Hi, I own a web agency and we often register domain names for our clients. When we register those, I just realized that we always use the same registrant name and other whois (ex : Louis-Philippe Dea), for all domain names. Can this hurt the SEO of our clients? Hope that you'll understand when I'm trying to say in spite of my bad english :S Thanks 🙂
Technical SEO | | Louis-Philippe_Dea0 -
Blog.domain or domain.com/blog
My client can't do domain.com/blog because he's on wix. I'm thinking blog.domain.com. Do you have any resources for the pros and cons of this? I understand that google looks at them very similarly now, is that true for google +?
Technical SEO | | tylerfraser0 -
301 for old domain to new domain - Joomla plugin or cpanel?
A client changed domains and both are being indexed. There are thousands of content pages. I can install a 301 redirect Joomla plugin and configure it so that each page redirects to the new domain. I have a feeling I will need to manual set every page. OR I can create a domain level redirect setting in cpanel using wildcards. I think this will automatically pass every old URL to the new URL. Which is the better approach? The cpanel option sounds like less work.
Technical SEO | | designquotes0 -
Keywords in file names vs folder names
We understand the value of a keyword phrase included in the URL. Is there more value to having that phrase in the folder name of the URL or the file name or does it matter? Example: http://www.biztoolsone.com/website-design.php or http://www.biztoolsone.com/website-design/ Which is best? Thanks, Wick Smith
Technical SEO | | wcksmith0 -
Outranking a competitor when their domain name is the keyword
Hi I'd just like to ask the opinion of my fellow members here : We are currently ranking second for a very important keyword and would obviously like the top spot on the SERP - the site that is ranking first has the domain name as the keyword phrase(along with a good amount of quality links from a variety of domains) - now I know it is possible to outrank them since I do remember reading about this in one of Rands posts(I think it was the whole white hat black hat one he posted recently) - bascially we have more domain authority, slightly less links but from double the amount of root domains and a higher page authority too! Does having the keyword as your domain make THAT much of a difference when we are(imo) quite close in terms of great content and link profiles(and all the onpage factors) ? Thanks!
Technical SEO | | DanHill0