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
-
Best way to deal with 100 product pages
It feels good to be BACK. I miss Moz. I left for a long time but happy to be back! 🙂 My client is a local HVAC company. They sell Lennox system. Lennox provides a tool that we hooked up to that allows visitors to their site to 'see' 120+ different kind of air quality, furnace and AC units. They problem is (I think its a problem) is Google and other crawl tools are seeing these 100+ pages that are not unique, helpful or related to my client. There is a little bit of cookie cutter text and images and specs and that's it. Are these pages potentially hurting my client? I can't imagine they are helping. Best way to deal with these? Thank you! Thank you! Matthew
Technical SEO | | Localseo41440 -
Old domain vs. New keyword domain - Thoughts?
Okay. I'd like to get opinions as to what everyone thinks about domains lately. Here is any example: The current domain is general in nature, in fact, it's a persons name because they are a real estate agent. So the domain is something like JohnDoe.com. Current stats: Has approx. 130 linking domains pointing to it. Has over 300 incoming links from these linking domains. The link profile is clean and not spammy (not to say there are not a few that might be here and there) Was bough in 1994 The new domain would have very little value except it would be keyword rich such as PortlandHomesForSale.com (just an example). What are your thoughts. Thank you.
Technical SEO | | JordanRussell0 -
Domain Aliases
Hi there, I've got two sites mysite.com and mysite.org .org is indexed by google, .com doesnt seem to be. .com is used for some material that is sent out, and accounts for about 20% of incoming visotors. (80% end up on .org) Is there any positive or negative effect from this? Would I benefit from 301'ing the .com to .org?
Technical SEO | | dencreative0 -
Parking Domains
I currently have a website domain.com.au, an American branch of the company who own domain.com are currently having their site built and want to forward there domain.com to domain.com.au while construction is taking place. Are there any negative effects to parking the domain.com on my domain.com.au? What is the best method to do this without causing any problems for my domain.com.au?
Technical SEO | | Pork0 -
What is the best way to upload an image for SEO
I have a site that is largely based on images. It runs on Wordpress. Each page has about 10 images. What is the best way to upload images? As a WP gallery. As another gallery (with a gallery plugin) As seperate images uploaded via WP (it shows a thumbnail which is links to the larger image). That way each image can have a title. As seperate images uploaded via FTP in which case I would then make a thumbnail which will link to the larger image. This option would only be good if WP does not optomize the thumbnail images that it creates. As a text title which links to the image. Since most of my content is based on images and mostly comes from Google images I was wondering what the best method to use is.
Technical SEO | | nicolebd0 -
Should I create mini-sites with keyword rich domain names pointing to my main site?
Hi, I'm new to seomoz (and seo in general) and loving it so far. My main domain name is more of a brandname than a search engine friendly list of keywords. I rank well for some keywords I optimized for, and less so for the more competitive keywords. I was wondering if making one page minisites hosted on keyword rich domain names could help in this respect? What I want to do is just have a single page with a few paragraphs of content and links to the main site. I am not looking for links to boost the main site, just for the minisites to do better for several keywords. Will this help? Is this ok, or against some Google policy? Can this hurt the main site rankings? Thank you! **Edit: **I noticed that sites ranking above me on the first page for some keywords have much less on-page elements than my page, have about the same domain trust and also very little inbound links. The only factor I can see is the exact match of keywords in the domain name.
Technical SEO | | Eladla1 -
Geolocation has changed targeted domains, or has it?
I am monitoring two domains; a .com and a .com.au in quite a competitive sector (men's underwear online sales) last month the .com site completely dropped from rankings sight in Google International SERPs but, the .com.au site is actually ranking (quite respectively too) in the International/US Google SERPs. I have no idea how, when or why but it's now been the case for two months. Help please?
Technical SEO | | Vovia0 -
Exact match domains
I know buying new websites hoping to 301 redirect them to achieve higher rankings before they’re established is not a good idea, but what about uploading a info pages + on-page SEO + some link-building and when the site is established (it ranks) direct visitors to a landing page? Buying a new domain for the SINGLE purpose of 301 redirecting won’t boost the rankings (don't think it would get penalties either, unless it’s the only link building activity). Not planning to redirect to the homepage, but to the related sub page on our main site (specific landing page). Will this pass the appropriate anchor text and link authority to the right page on our website and help those pages to rank for their keywords? Only thinking of a few pages (no more than 3).
Technical SEO | | Diana.varbanescu0