juliemelon
New Member
How will changing the domain name of your website affect your standing, Ive heard you can do a redirect on each page to each new page, does this transfer your PR and link building campaign etc? What can you do to help the new domain get to where the original one was? Quote: Originally Posted by visionwindowfilms How will changing the domain name of your website affect your standing, Ive heard you can do a redirect on each page to each new page, does this transfer your PR and link building campaign etc? What can you do to help the new domain get to where the original one was? Hello,
If you set the permanent 301 redirect on old domain it wont hurt your rankings. As 301 permanent redirect is search engine friendly, if you need help on setting up redirect see this http://www.website-development-training.com/301/ , start link building campaign with new domain afterward as it wont affect your campaign that much. Is there any dos and donts Id need to now, such as keeping the original domain open for a set amount of time? If you are going to do this (assuming you are keeping your hosting),
1) You need to park the new domain at the hosting.
2) You then have to 301 permanently redirect the old domain name to the new one (link provided in nightcrawler's post above)
3) Go to the domain registrar account for the new domain and change the DNS information. The DNS (Domain Name Server) information is available from your web hosting co.
4) Sit back and wait. The stock answer is 24-48 hours for all the DNS servers to catch up. I would also say that once you point the 301 redirects, you should then point some fresh links to the old pages so that the search engines can find the redirects faster. From my experience if you wait for the search engines to recrawl the site it can take awhile before the new domain takes over the rankings.
Once rankings have been transferred to the new domain remove the old pages from your server and then send a request to remove the old pages from the google index via webmaster tools. You will then also want to start sending emails to have all the links switched to the new domain. Good luck. Quote: Originally Posted by banless I would also say that once you point the 301 redirects, you should then point some fresh links to the old pages so that the search engines can find the redirects faster. From my experience if you wait for the search engines to recrawl the site it can take awhile before the new domain takes over the rankings.
Once rankings have been transferred to the new domain remove the old pages from your server and then send a request to remove the old pages from the google index via webmaster tools. You will then also want to start sending emails to have all the links switched to the new domain. Good luck. Hi, banless
Agree on your opinion of "... then point some fresh links to the old pages ..."!
This is really important if such new backlinks are from those sources with high PR (above 6).
All the best, I am not as quick to jump on the bandwagon of it not being a big deal to change domain names without a whole lot more information. As an example, are you changing out an older domain that has had time to age with a brand new domain?
This is something I have tested a few times over the years and feel it takes a lot of consideration before making this type of decision. Yes, in many cases you will find that the site recovers from the change, but it can take time and I have seen cases that took a lot of time, with or without a permanent 301 in place, so there really needs to be a compelling reason to change, one in which the eventual benefits outweigh the possible risks. Quote: Originally Posted by visionwindowfilms How will changing the domain name of your website affect your standing, Ive heard you can do a redirect on each page to each new page, does this transfer your PR and link building campaign etc? What can you do to help the new domain get to where the original one was? I'm with Cricket, changing domain names on established sites needs to be done carefully, if at all.
First be clear on the reason for making the change and the benefits you are trying to obtain, they may be available by less drastic methods.
Second, understand that there is "many a slip twixt the cup and the lip", even when you "know" what you are doing. I say this as a professional who has successfully renamed a few mature domains, and, who has also spent several dreadfully anxious months restoring the ranking of one major insurance company website whose domain renaming was, um err, LESS successful!
A site such as the one in your sig contains a thousand links, some age, and presumably a good deal of "brand equity" - be careful with it! htmlbasictutor has covered everything I possibly had to say. Once your transition is complete, start a link building campaign with the new domain. But as Cricket has said, you need to decide carefully whether you want to switch domains at all, because the original domains carry 'brand factor' which may not be available in the new domains. Quote: Originally Posted by visionwindowfilms Ive heard you can do a redirect on each page to each new page, does this transfer your PR and link building campaign etc? What can you do to help the new domain get to where the original one was? A simple #301 redirection will help you to get the link-juice back to your website from the previous one. I think if theres any chance of causing a problem it may not be worth while looking into this, I really don't want any possibility of loosing ranking. Quote: Originally Posted by Jeff Collision A simple #301 redirection will help you to get the link-juice back to your website from the previous one. @Jeff Collision
This is potentially dangerous advice.
At a minimum when moving a domain, each moved page should have its own 301 redirect to the equivalent page at the new location. If you don't know how to do this, or are are unwilling to make the effort, you should not move a domain of any financial significance.
To quote Will Rogers, "it ain't the things we don't know that causes us the trouble, it's the things we DO know, that ain't so!" The reason Im thinking of chqanging names is because back in June I dropped from 1st on page 1 to unranked on google, Id employed a company to do SEO work and dont know if its something theyve done or google. It still seems as if Im being penalized, I got up to 23rd but then yesterday I disspaeared again (for the search term window film). Now Id been doing the SEO work since December and know I havent done anything dodgy or black hat. I'm really not sure whats wrong. However I have another domaion name www.protekfilms.com which is a year and a half old. If I was to do a 301 redirect would I transfer the penalizeation if there is one, is there a chance this will help, then I know all the link buildin are good as only I have done them?
If you set the permanent 301 redirect on old domain it wont hurt your rankings. As 301 permanent redirect is search engine friendly, if you need help on setting up redirect see this http://www.website-development-training.com/301/ , start link building campaign with new domain afterward as it wont affect your campaign that much. Is there any dos and donts Id need to now, such as keeping the original domain open for a set amount of time? If you are going to do this (assuming you are keeping your hosting),
1) You need to park the new domain at the hosting.
2) You then have to 301 permanently redirect the old domain name to the new one (link provided in nightcrawler's post above)
3) Go to the domain registrar account for the new domain and change the DNS information. The DNS (Domain Name Server) information is available from your web hosting co.
4) Sit back and wait. The stock answer is 24-48 hours for all the DNS servers to catch up. I would also say that once you point the 301 redirects, you should then point some fresh links to the old pages so that the search engines can find the redirects faster. From my experience if you wait for the search engines to recrawl the site it can take awhile before the new domain takes over the rankings.
Once rankings have been transferred to the new domain remove the old pages from your server and then send a request to remove the old pages from the google index via webmaster tools. You will then also want to start sending emails to have all the links switched to the new domain. Good luck. Quote: Originally Posted by banless I would also say that once you point the 301 redirects, you should then point some fresh links to the old pages so that the search engines can find the redirects faster. From my experience if you wait for the search engines to recrawl the site it can take awhile before the new domain takes over the rankings.
Once rankings have been transferred to the new domain remove the old pages from your server and then send a request to remove the old pages from the google index via webmaster tools. You will then also want to start sending emails to have all the links switched to the new domain. Good luck. Hi, banless
Agree on your opinion of "... then point some fresh links to the old pages ..."!
This is really important if such new backlinks are from those sources with high PR (above 6).
All the best, I am not as quick to jump on the bandwagon of it not being a big deal to change domain names without a whole lot more information. As an example, are you changing out an older domain that has had time to age with a brand new domain?
This is something I have tested a few times over the years and feel it takes a lot of consideration before making this type of decision. Yes, in many cases you will find that the site recovers from the change, but it can take time and I have seen cases that took a lot of time, with or without a permanent 301 in place, so there really needs to be a compelling reason to change, one in which the eventual benefits outweigh the possible risks. Quote: Originally Posted by visionwindowfilms How will changing the domain name of your website affect your standing, Ive heard you can do a redirect on each page to each new page, does this transfer your PR and link building campaign etc? What can you do to help the new domain get to where the original one was? I'm with Cricket, changing domain names on established sites needs to be done carefully, if at all.
First be clear on the reason for making the change and the benefits you are trying to obtain, they may be available by less drastic methods.
Second, understand that there is "many a slip twixt the cup and the lip", even when you "know" what you are doing. I say this as a professional who has successfully renamed a few mature domains, and, who has also spent several dreadfully anxious months restoring the ranking of one major insurance company website whose domain renaming was, um err, LESS successful!
A site such as the one in your sig contains a thousand links, some age, and presumably a good deal of "brand equity" - be careful with it! htmlbasictutor has covered everything I possibly had to say. Once your transition is complete, start a link building campaign with the new domain. But as Cricket has said, you need to decide carefully whether you want to switch domains at all, because the original domains carry 'brand factor' which may not be available in the new domains. Quote: Originally Posted by visionwindowfilms Ive heard you can do a redirect on each page to each new page, does this transfer your PR and link building campaign etc? What can you do to help the new domain get to where the original one was? A simple #301 redirection will help you to get the link-juice back to your website from the previous one. I think if theres any chance of causing a problem it may not be worth while looking into this, I really don't want any possibility of loosing ranking. Quote: Originally Posted by Jeff Collision A simple #301 redirection will help you to get the link-juice back to your website from the previous one. @Jeff Collision
This is potentially dangerous advice.
At a minimum when moving a domain, each moved page should have its own 301 redirect to the equivalent page at the new location. If you don't know how to do this, or are are unwilling to make the effort, you should not move a domain of any financial significance.
To quote Will Rogers, "it ain't the things we don't know that causes us the trouble, it's the things we DO know, that ain't so!" The reason Im thinking of chqanging names is because back in June I dropped from 1st on page 1 to unranked on google, Id employed a company to do SEO work and dont know if its something theyve done or google. It still seems as if Im being penalized, I got up to 23rd but then yesterday I disspaeared again (for the search term window film). Now Id been doing the SEO work since December and know I havent done anything dodgy or black hat. I'm really not sure whats wrong. However I have another domaion name www.protekfilms.com which is a year and a half old. If I was to do a 301 redirect would I transfer the penalizeation if there is one, is there a chance this will help, then I know all the link buildin are good as only I have done them?