Q and A: How will search engine ranking be affected if I change domain names?
Dear Kalena...
As always, I am very much enjoying your insightful newsletters.
I have a question for you: If I change domain names and keep the identical website on the new domain, how will search engine ranking be affected?
Thanks!
Marco
Kalena's Answer:
Dear Marco
If you are moving your site to an entirely new domain, you've got to be careful that your search rankings and link popularity aren't negatively affected. This can occur if you use the standard 301 "permanently moved" redirects on your old pages, or worse, use no redirects at all.
Technically, your new domain is treated as a brand new site, regardless of whether the content you use on it has been published on another domain and therefore, Google will subject it to the aging delay for new sites.
To avoid losing all those hard-earned rankings for the six to nine month Google limbo that is the aging delay, it's recommended that you use 302 "temporarily moved" redirects on your old domain pages until your new domain has aged the required time in Google. You can then safely switch the redirects to 301's. You can read more about this method in Scottie Claiborne's article: Switching to a New Domain Without Losing Your Google Rankings.
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As always, I am very much enjoying your insightful newsletters.
I have a question for you: If I change domain names and keep the identical website on the new domain, how will search engine ranking be affected?
Thanks!
Marco
Kalena's Answer:
Dear Marco
If you are moving your site to an entirely new domain, you've got to be careful that your search rankings and link popularity aren't negatively affected. This can occur if you use the standard 301 "permanently moved" redirects on your old pages, or worse, use no redirects at all.
Technically, your new domain is treated as a brand new site, regardless of whether the content you use on it has been published on another domain and therefore, Google will subject it to the aging delay for new sites.
To avoid losing all those hard-earned rankings for the six to nine month Google limbo that is the aging delay, it's recommended that you use 302 "temporarily moved" redirects on your old domain pages until your new domain has aged the required time in Google. You can then safely switch the redirects to 301's. You can read more about this method in Scottie Claiborne's article: Switching to a New Domain Without Losing Your Google Rankings.
Add to: Digg | Del.icio.us | Ma.gnolia | RawSugar | Reddit
Subscribe via: Yahoo Feeds | Feedburner | Technorati | Bloglines
Labels: 301 redirects, domain names, google aging delay, google sandbox
3 Comments:
Thank you very much for this really nice tip Kalena! It is very usefull to me.
This was super helpful Kalena, thanks so much! Is the a 302 "temporarily moved" response ethical in the search engines?
Hi Talina
302s have a legitimate use if your page is only moving temporarily. But you shouldn't use it to tell the Googlebot that a page or site has moved because Googlebot will continue to crawl and index the original location.
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