Website change of address
-
Hi Everyone,
I apologize if the answer to this questions is obvious, but I wanted some input on how changing our web address of our site will affect our SERP.
We are looking to change our website address from a.com to b.com due to rebranding of our company (primarly to expand our product line as our current url and company name are restricting). I understand that this can be done using 301 direct and via webmaster tools with google.
My question is how does this work exactly? Will our old website address show in SERP rankings, and when a user clicks on the listing are they redirected to our new address?
With regards to building new links from press releases etc, do we have links point to our new web address or the old one in order to increase SERP? Does google see our old address and new address as the same website and therefor it does not matter where inbound links point to and both will increase our ranking positions?
It took 6 years of in house seo to get our website to rank on the first page of all the major search engines for our keywords, so we am being very cautious before we do anything.
Thanks everyone for your input, it is greatly appreciated
-
Hi,
There was just a great post on Google Webmaster Central about this very topic - http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com/2012/04/how-to-move-your-content-to-new.html
Register both domains with webmaster tools, make sure the new domain is crawlable by googlebot, 301 redirect the old pages/site to the new pages/site, and in webmaster tools of the old domain, use the change of address option under site configuration to tell Google that your site has changed domains and is now on the new domain.
Make sure to check out Google's post, as they give some good tips and walk you through the process.
Good luck!
-
As long as you use a 301-redirect and report the change to google via google webmasters tools you will be fine. The rankings should transfer fine to the new domain.
As long as the old domain stays active and redirects the incoming links to the new domain using a 301-redirect it shouldn't matter whether they point to the old or the new domain.
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
-
Does making a copy of website harm my SEO?
We have made a demo server on a different domain than our main website domain to test new features on it before updating codes on the main domain. Does it hurt our SEO activities? Thanks Everybody
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | AlirezaHamidian0 -
One website, multiple service points
Hi all Wondering if anyone could offer an opinion on this..am talking to a new client who offer kitchen installation and design. They have a central headquarters and cover a 100 mile radius of their location. A lot of search terms they are aiming to target - Kitchen Design, Kitchen Fitters etc offer localised results. This is where my issue lays. I have worked with plenty of clients in the past which have physical presence in multiple locations and have marked up the site so that the site ranks for each of the stores, but trying to make one site appear in many locations where it doesn't have an address is a different issue completely. Not only do they only have one address, they also only have one phone number. We will target, as best we can, the non localised keywords but need to work out what to do to cover the locations 20/30/40 miles from the office which they cover. I welcome any opinions on this please.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Grumpy_Carl0 -
Backlinks from one website to my 3 websites (hosted in 1 c-block) ?
We are making some linkbuilding. And have very nice backlinks offer. So we are planning to put our 3 websites in it. Our 3 websites are on separate IP, but same C-block. Can it be a red flag for google? Can i put my 3 backlinks in one blog post?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | bele0 -
Splitting one Website into 2 Different New Websites with 301 redirects, help?
Here's the deal. My website stbands.com does fairly well. The only issue it is facing a long term branding crisis. It sells custom products and sporting goods. We decided that we want to make a sporting goods website for the retail stuff and then a custom site only focusing on the custom stuff. One website transformed and broken into 2 new ones, with two new brand names. The way we are thinking about doing this is doing a lot of 301 redirects, but what do we do with the homepage (stbands.com) and what is the best practice to make sure we don't lose traffic to the categories, etc.? Which new website do we 301 the homepage to? It's rough because for some keywords we rank 3 or 4 times on the first page. Scary times, but something must be done for the long term. Any advise is greatly appreciated. Thank you in advance. We are set for a busy next few months 🙂
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Hyrule0 -
Site changes lead to big questions
I'm making some changes to my business that will cause me to move my blog to a new domain. The existing site will serve as a sales campaign for our full service programs and I want to keep visitors focused on that campaign. The old site will serve much like a mini site with a sales letter and video sales letter. In moving the blog content to another page - I found a post from Rand from a few years ago http://www.seomoz.org/blog/expectations-and-best-practices-for-moving-to-or-launching-a-new-domain. The way I wanted to approach this was to remove the content from the old site, and then resubmit the site map to Google for indexing. Of course they'll notice that the blog pages are gone. (probably a load of 404's) After perhaps a week, I'd repost the content (about 50 posts) on the new domain, which will be little more than a blog. I'd like some input on the way to approach this. Should I... a) Follow Rand's formula? b) Go with my idea (sort of the brute force model)? c) Consider an alternative method? It's probably worth mentioning that none of these posts have high search engine rankings. I appreciate your input Mozzers!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | sdennison0 -
How the hell do you find good PR websites?
Hi Guys Can someone please help! How do you find high relevant PR sites that can be easiliy located using the SEO MOZ tools? How can I best use the SEO MOZ tools to locate good websites that will help me with linking building? Are the SEO MOZ tools any good?? Please can you help guys..?? Thanks Gareth
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | GAZ090 -
Changing domain extension to detoxify a domain
Hi there, A linkbuilding company that has been building links for us has not gained any sustained results. They have advised that our domain may be toxic, and that we should consider permanent redirecting from .co.uk to another domain extension in order to remedy this. Is this a recommendation worth considering?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Maximise0 -
Website rebranding, what should I worry about?
Hey guys, A client of mine will be doing a rebranding exercise, this include changing their brand name and their domain name. They are considered a well known brand within their industry (Their brand name shows up in Google's "Search Related to..." section) My question is: Apart from making sure all 301 are put in place,changing all the links to point to the new domain and doing PR exercise, is there anything else I should keep in mind / be aware of to ensure a smooth transition? Also can anyone come up with possible issues we might encounter during the move? Apart from having a significant drop in traffic and rankings? Thanks, Clement
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | NextDigital510