What's the impact of changing domain names?

[shifts]

Quick domain type question for anyone out there (and heads up apologies for the noobishness of it all)

If you own a domain called examplesiteUK.co.uk

and then suddenly you get examplesite.co.uk

What would be the best way to use the examplesite.co.uk instead of the examplesiteUK.

Can anyone explain the pitfalls of changing domains like that? Would there be a punishment from google for duplicate content or for a sudden change of URL's.

Would it be a 301 redirect or something like a DNS change etc?

Thanks in advance

[Kami-]

Use new domain for server/hosting, have old domain redirect to new domain till it expires... simple?

(After all it's just a friendly name for a location; the only pitfall would be people who bookmark your old domain trying to use it after it expires)

[Gaffney]

Use new domain for server/hosting, have old domain redirect to new domain till it expires... simple?

(After all it's just a friendly name for a location; the only pitfall would be people who bookmark your old domain trying to use it after it expires)

I think he means the SEO impact, the best solution would be looking at several SEO tip websites. If your site currently has good SEO eg been up for a few years and is ranked well on google I don't think it would be worth moving however there could be ways to transfer some of those rankings.

[primexx]

SEO tip websites are vastly more often than not full of ****.

Just start using the new domain and 301 redirect everything from the old to the new. All the automatic stuff (like search rankings) should switch over within a month or two. You'll probably want to keep both domain names forever or at least for a while longer because there's always a couple of humans who will still use the old one.

[brink668]

It's a bigger issue than that. Depending upon how popular your site is your users may remember the url address (it shouldn't stop working). If google.com suddenly changed its name to google1.com that would be a big problem. The best way is to do a permanent redirect and try to track how many people are still typing in the old URL. Depending upon those stats you may not need to do anything.

I had a client who shorted their domain name from thegreatfoodplace.com to greatfood.com (examples) and the old domain name was in use for over 5 years and we still use the old domain but it redirects to the new domain name. We will be shutting that down now as no one uses or goes to that name anymore. The majority of the users understand the name has changed.

Your best bet is to continue renting the domain name until you feel and can see my stats that it is no longer needed after doing a permanent redirect for how ever long you need it for. SEO didn't take long at all about a week and we were in the number 1 spot with no ads being used. Your results may vary.

[primexx]

*face plam* :s

It's not that simple at all and one of the most drastic changes you can make to a website in terms of SEO. For instance, the OP hasn't mentioned if urls structure matches.

The correct way to do this is through a permanent 301 redirect - use something httpfox (a firefox addon) to check a correct 301 header is being set by your server.

There is also the issue of links - are they the using exactly the same url E.g. does oldsite.co.uk/blog/23 mirror newsite.co.uk/blog/23 - if so, a sitewide 301 redirect is fine as oldsite.co.uk/blog/23 would 301 to newsite.co.uk/blog/23. This would need to happen not only due to the urls Google currently has in its index, but also due to external backlinks that you've collected over time. If you've setup the 301 redirect correctly, you can remove all content from your old domain and (in the case nix hosting) just have a single htaccess file there to take care of the redirect. Personally, I'd recomemdn leaving this single file hosted permanently so you lose no traffic (which depending on niche, could mean lost income).

There will be a period whereby your traffic drops whilst Google sorts out the new domain, but it will return eventually. You can help Google and speed things up by getting a few deep links to your new site from some authoratative sites.

I'd also recommend going into Google webmaster tools and submit a change of address request - see http://support.googl...en&answer=83106 and submitting a n ew sitemap using your new domain. If possible, try to contact some of the sites you have backlinks on and get them to change to the new domain.

:huh: you just repeated everything I said in more detail...

edit: if all they're doing is changing SLDs, and there's nothing to suggest otherwise with the info we've got, then presumably they wouldn't be making random structural changes just for the hell of it, so of course the URL structure will be the same.

[TAZMINATOR]

You can redirect the users from old site to new site....

or

you can park the new domain on top of your current site ... for example, visitor types or visit your new site address... they end up visiting your site with/without showing the old domain in the addressbar... your site contents are showing under your new domain but the old domain is invisible by masking feature which is available at your domain provider.

Either way works for you... but if you do not want to keep the old domain forever, then redirect the users from old site to new site and put a bookmark notice on your site to inform the visitors so your old domain will be gone within 3 months or so after new domain is launched.

If you decide to keep both domains, then that's great... use domain parking instead which allows you park new domain onto your current site, that way, you won't screw up on SEO or whatever...

[primexx]

You can redirect the users from old site to new site....

or

you can park the new domain on top of your current site ... for example, visitor types or visit your new site address... they end up visiting your site with/without showing the old domain in the addressbar... your site contents are showing under your new domain but the old domain is invisible by masking feature which is available at your domain provider.

Either way works for you... but if you do not want to keep the old domain forever, then redirect the users from old site to new site and put a bookmark notice on your site to inform the visitors so your old domain will be gone within 3 months or so after new domain is launched.

If you decide to keep both domains, then that's great... use domain parking instead which allows you park new domain onto your current site, that way, you won't screw up on SEO or whatever...

you ALWAYS want to redirect any alternate domains to one canonical one because duplicate content on multiple URIs will hurt your rankings... a lot. No problem with a parked domain, just make sure it's redirected as well.

[TAZMINATOR]

you ALWAYS want to redirect any alternate domains to one canonical one because duplicate content on multiple URIs will hurt your rankings... a lot. No problem with a parked domain, just make sure it's redirected as well.

Either way works for me... but I don't care about SEO right now... because I am not running any commerical sites. Just personal stuff. I don't care who is first in search results, or ranked in number 1 in ranking list.

If I want SEO, then I can get either way works for me which I mentioned above.