Hi Andy,

I just wanted to say, I followed your advice and now every single page I've submitted via webmaster tools in the xml sitemap (for Commercial Trust) has been indexed! Thank you for helping with this, you are a super-star!

Amelia

Thank you, much appreciated! Have a fab day

Andy,

There is a new xml sitemap on the new domain: www.commercialtrust.co.uk/sitemap.xml, this is a directory xml sitemap.

The old xml sitemap can be accessed here: www.turnkeylandlords.co.uk/sitemap.xml.

I was wondering if I should redirect the TurnKey Landlords xml to the Commercial Trust xml?

Thanks,

Amelia

Hi Andy,

Everything in the old XML sitemap redirects to the new site.

So, I should redirect the XML as well?

Thank you,

Amelia xx

Hi Mozzers,

We have recently rebranded with a new company name, and of course this necessitated us to relaunch our entire website onto a new domain.

I watched the Moz video on how they changed domain, copying what they did pretty much to the letter. (Thank you, Moz for sharing this with the community!)

It has gone incredibly smoothly. I told all my bosses that we may see a 40% reduction in traffic / conversions in the short term. In the event (and its still very early days) we have in fact seen a 15% increase in traffic and our new website is converting better than before so an all-round success!

I was just wondering if you thought I should redirect my XML sitemap as well? So far I haven't, but despite us doing the change of address thing in webmaster tools, I can see Google processed the old sitemap xml after we did the change of address etc.

What do you think? I know we've been very lucky with the outcome of this rebrand but I don't want to rest on my laurels or get tripped up later down the line.

Thanks everyone!

Amelia

Hello Lee,

Are you using Google+ Authorship? If you aren't then I think you should be.

Are you sourcing the sites manually, and maintaining a direct relationship with the site owners (as in you don't go via a 3rd party)? Are you adding value to the sites you guest blog on? If you are doing this things then I would have thought you'd be OK.

I think the slippery slope is when the link matters more than the content, the site it's published on, the audience who read it and something Rand didn't mention: if you paid for it or not. So long as your content is good and it is being published on sites that send you relevant (converting) traffic then it ticks more boxes than just being there for the links. I try and think of all links like this: If Google stopped counting this link, would it still provide value? If it's on a high-traffic site and is relevant to that site's audience then it doesn't matter whether Google gives credit for it or not because it still brings in traffic, hopefully my site does it's job properly and turns that traffic into customers. Because it's customers that make a difference to my business NOT rankings!!

I hope this is helpful.

Best wishes,

Amelia