Changing domain names but still ranking as old one
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Hi there,
I have a client who changed domain names back in November 2015 but is still coming up in search engines with their old domain name not their new one.
For example, I search for my clients name, let's call them Example B. So I search for "Example B" and within the search results they come up top and the title tag is correct as it says something along the lines of "Welcome to Example B". However the URL underneath is actually their old name which is Example A. When you click on the link, it redirects over to the new name so thats fine, but it's just annoying that Example A is still appearing when it should be Example B now.
I don't think they have a new Webmaster Tools account setup for their new domain (I need to check still), but they do still have their old one setup. Is there something I can do within Webmaster Tools to tell it that Example A is now gone and to start indexing and referring to them as Example B?
What else should I do to make sure their new name is coming up not their old one anymore?
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Hi ,
Did you follow all of Google's Change of Address instructions? If redirects are in place, chances are you missed something else minor that can have a big impact.
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Whenever you move domain names, you should make sure that you use 301 Permanent Redirects (you may want to verify this by looking at the server headers, doing a server header check).
Then, you need make sure that the Google Change of Address Tool has been used to tell Google that they moved from the old domain to the new domain. You'll need to verify the old domain and the new domain in the same Google Search Console account, and then do the Change of Address.
Whenever you move to another domain like this, the old domain name will still remain indexed for at least a year or so (sometimes longer), as that's just how Google handles it. So if the old domain name still shows up for certain search queries then that's normal.
In any case, though, 301 redirects must be used and the Change of Address Tool should be used, as well.
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