Changing a domain name can affect SEO rankings, as Google’s crawlers respect and rank quality content and relevant keywords and reward years of consistent performance.
However, when a domain is changed, the SEO history of a website is reset, causing fluctuations in SEO metrics. To minimize the effects of a domain change on SEO, a new domain name should be chosen wisely, and a 301 redirect should be set up to divert visitors to the new domain. You should also inform Google that the domain is being migrated to a new domain.
We have ourselves moved our domain from Weboptimisers.com.au to mojodojo.io and we outline some steps below to migrate your domain name.
Here are things we considered before we made the move.
- link equity: Changing domains can lead to a loss of link equity, as backlinks to the old domain may not be transferred to the new one.
- Page authority: Page authority is tied to the domain, so changing domains can reset page authority to zero.
- Search engine rankings: Rankings may fluctuate or drop temporarily due to the change.
- Crawl rate: Search engines may crawl the new domain at a slower rate, affecting indexing and ranking.
- Canonicalization: Ensure that canonical tags are updated to point to the new domain.
- Google Search Console: Update the domain in Search Console to maintain analytics and tracking.
- Bing Webmaster Tools: Update the domain in Bing Webmaster Tools as well.
- Domain age: The new domain may not have the same age and trust as the old one.
- Content duplication: Ensure that content is not duplicated across both domains.
Many years ago when SEO was much simpler than it is today, the domain name you chose could have a massive impact on the rankings of the website.
However, things are more complicated now, and Google has essentially modified their core algorithm to reflect an abuse of exact match keyword domain names.
The practice may have originated from companies buying a domain name that was a little bit more than a keyword. Before, it was enough for a site to rank. These days, however, things are different.
Keyword rich domains abuse
It was in 2012 when Google decided to end the tactics performed by companies that try to improve their rankings using weak websites.
These sites augment their SEO using Exact Match Domains or EMDs.
For instance, if a business wanted to increase their rankings for the keyword “car insurance quotes,” it could purchase the domain “carinsurancequotes.com,” and it would start to rank.
These sites, however, did not contain much content for them to even be on the first ten pages of the search results.
They would only have a few pages that contain lots of keywords.
Since Google was never a fan of these schemes, it made a move to drop the value of such domain names significantly.
How Your Domain Can Influence Your Online Marketing Efforts
Websites should be able to give quality answers to user questions, respect search engine best practices, and make sure content does not get stale.
While EMD can no longer contribute to your site’s rankings like before, your domain name can still provide some benefits, including:
- More potential for your brand
- More attention in the results pages when people search for a related keyword
- More trust
- Higher click through rates
Even scarier is the thought of moving your site to a new domain, which can be a terrifying prospect but may be necessary for the business that is rebranding or restructuring.
There are hundreds of TLDs and GTLDs now available. The truth is you will likely experience a drop in rankings shortly after your move to a new domain if you haven’t been careful enough.
It is undoubtedly frightening, but the reduction should only be temporary, especially if you know what you are doing.
Google’s John Mueller says that you should really have some patience when you make a domain move. It does take a bit of time for the full migration to happen.
Other reasons may include you want to consolidate your other sites into one. If you have other sites that deliver the same content types to almost the same audience, it may be the right choice to bring them together as one.
Additional Tips
- Use a SEO-friendly redirect strategy (e.g., 1:1 redirects).
- Keep old domain active for a short period to ensure smooth transition.
- Use Google Search Console’s “Change of Address” feature.
- Update social media and other external links.
- Consider using a domain migration tool to simplify the process.
Changing domains can affect your search referral traffic, but your site and your rankings should recover if you performed all the necessities in making sure your move is properly executed.