Changing Domain Names, Important Things You Should Know!

From time to time companies need to change their website url for different reasons. Here we will cover what you should do with your old domain (and content) and what is in store for you with your brand new url. Also, you should only change your domain name if it is absolutely necessary!

First off, new websites in Google will see some sort of aging delay or it will be in the Google Sandbox. These are essentially the same thing, the sandbox name is used so the majority of people will know what is being talked about. That being said, there are those that believe it exists, and those that don’t. As for myself, I think there is some sort of aging delay for new websites starting up, as compared to 2 years ago with Google.

Ok, now on to the domains. First off, you will want to keep your old url. Why? Because that url will most likely still be getting traffic of some sort from the search engines for a bit of time, so you will want to keep the url and place a 301 redirect on it going to your new url. Now, it is totally safe to move the content that was on your old site to your new website. You will not need to worry about any duplicate content issues as long as your old site is down, and you are using the 301 redirect method.

Generally, when you change your domain name, you are starting over from scratch with your link building. All the links that use to link to your old site, you will need to contact all those sites and see if they will update your link to the new url. It will take some time to get the site back off the ground, but this is a natural phase that the majority of sites have to go through. You are looking roughly 6 – 12 months for the site to get off the ground and start seeing results in the search engines (SE). Some search engines update faster than others, so it will vary from SE to SE.

Check out this article on switching domain names and keeping your Google Rankings.

Gerard Manning
Search Engine Placement Specialist
Search Engine Marketing Agency :: Manning Search Marketing