Answers
Jul 23, 2018 - 09:24 AM
Congrats on getting the .com. Domain switches, site mergers, https rollouts, and subdomain switches all have very dire consequences if not done properly. As someone who has helped businesses through these changes dozens of time, and sometimes came in after the switch to patch things up, I would point out that website owners should always bring in an experienced SEO to make these kinds of changes.
Link equity (backlinks gained over time) is hugely important for SEO and not providing search engines proper directions/instructions to preserve all the inks you've acquired can shrink your site's SEO prowess tremendously.
Without knowing your site & the details, your particular switchover should be fairly simple. If you aren't using https already, now would be a great time to make the switch at the same time. If you were thinking about doing a redesign, or using this opportunity to cut sections or alter the content, now would be a very bad time. The goal with any switchover or merger is to make it as easy as possible for Google to understand the URL change and trust that it isn't some sort of expired domain purchase or other trickery that black hat SEOs or spammers use to trick Google.
Here are the most important parts of a successful domain change to preserve SEO:
Link equity (backlinks gained over time) is hugely important for SEO and not providing search engines proper directions/instructions to preserve all the inks you've acquired can shrink your site's SEO prowess tremendously.
Without knowing your site & the details, your particular switchover should be fairly simple. If you aren't using https already, now would be a great time to make the switch at the same time. If you were thinking about doing a redesign, or using this opportunity to cut sections or alter the content, now would be a very bad time. The goal with any switchover or merger is to make it as easy as possible for Google to understand the URL change and trust that it isn't some sort of expired domain purchase or other trickery that black hat SEOs or spammers use to trick Google.
Here are the most important parts of a successful domain change to preserve SEO:
- All 301 (permanent) redirects. Even if some will be temporary, make them permanent or they won't be trusted. Don't use meta refreshes or domain masking.
- 1 for 1 content match. Each old page 301 redirects to its new home - the exact same page on the new domain.
- If content must go away, which I don't recommend, find its best match. Don't just redirect to the homepage (many sites have made this mistake & paid the price). Sometimes the homepage will be the only suitable choice, by try to find a similar piece of content, or at least the parent section so the topic is similar.
- Avoid 404 errors - if you see these after the switch, either you made a mistake, or someone linking to your site made one, but you want to preserve that link, so fix it ASAP.
- Try handling all the redirects on your own server. This is usually done in a .htaccess or webconfig or redirect handling service. Usually you set up the new domain on your same web hosting account, then point the new domain to the same server using DNS, then set up the file with the redirect instructions. Using just a DNS service, like domain forwarding, etc. isn't as reliable. I've run into situations where services like GoDaddy say they will serve a 301 redirect, but actually serve a 302 to a 301, which you don't want.
Jul 23, 2018 - 09:11 PM
Thanks so much Dustin! Can we expect a dip in traffic as we follow the process you have laid out above? I also came across this older answer on the site but some of the information seems dated:
https://capitalandgrowth.org/questions/117/will-ch...
What do you think about it?
https://capitalandgrowth.org/questions/117/will-ch...
What do you think about it?
Add New Comment