After having gone through posts on this forum and read loads of
articles on SEO websites, I still don't know how to proceed with
changing the domain of my website without loosing my rankings.

Most self-proclaimed SEO experts will tell you something like "just do
301 redirects on all your pages". Well, that all sounds very good -
but why then is this forum - not to mention others - flooded with
posts from webmasters sharing their stories about how they did their
by-the-book 301 redirects, and then found most of their pages gone
from SERPs for months?

I think Google staff should speak up with some guidelines for making a
domain change in the best possible way. Anyone can figure out that
many - maybe even most - businesses at some point is going to need a
domain name change for their website. If this goes wrong - as it
seemingly often does - it can have devastating consequences for that
business.

Google almost never gives out advice on anything that has to do with
their indexing algorithms. When giving interviews on SEO, Google
always just repeats standard common knowledge about writing good
content and tops it up with mindnumbing blabber about the - for most
purposes - useless robot.txt.

Google's secrecy is sensible and neccesary in most cases, but I can't
really see how black hats can abuse guidelines on how to change
domains.

I know that Google can't provide support for every odd issue that
webmasters have, but this problem is so common and shared by so many
people, so why not get it over with and tell us - how should we change
our domain name?

On 9 avr, 09:22, patrickb wrote:

You are paying attention to the wrong people who complain for the
wrong reasons.

Hi patrickb,

When moving your site from one domain to another, the best way to tell
Google about this is via a 301 redirect. One of our engineers, Aaron
D'Souza, has provided some guidance for making the move in this blog
post:
http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com/2007/05/musings-on-down-un...

I hope this clears things up.

- Wysz

On Apr 9, 6:45 am, webado wrote:

On Apr 9, 7:22 am, patrickb wrote:

Howdy,

Google does not handle this well if you try to do it in one leap.

http://seo.bizycart.com/BIZyCart.ASP?GROUP=Changes&CLIENT=SEO#CHNG-11
explains how to stage a move to retain as many ranking points as you
can.

Chris

Hi Wysz

Thanks for clearing this up. I'm glad that I've finally heard this
advice coming from Google staff.

It still seems though, that this method is not clean and risk-free.
The blog post suggest that you move a section at the time, giving
Googlebot time to catch up. This indicates that there will be some
disturbance in the rankings because of this, and that your pages wont
just stay in the same spots on the SERP, only now with a new domain
name.

It seems that ranking drops during an unknown period - maybe months -
could easily occur. This will be devastating for a web portal such as
ours. Because so many webmasters face this problem, I think you
(Google) shoud consider integrating an actual system for changing
domains without all these problems.

For instance it could be a feature in Webmaster Tools. Users that had
verified their ownership of both the new and the old domain could fill
in some form, telling Google that the site had moved. When stopping by
next time, Googlebot could then verify that the content was in fact
still the same, and thereafter just replace the pages in the index.
This would spare webmasters from having to risk everything they have
built up, trying the hazardous 301-method.

Until then, could anyone comment on this approach:

1. Firstly, the new domain is simply pointed at the old domain at DNS-
level. The site is re-designed with the new name, and users are given
some explanation to why the site (with the new name) still shows up on
the old domain name in their browser.

We wait 3 months... During this time, link partners are contacted and
asked to change links to the new domain name, even though the site is
still on the old domain name.

2. Then we make a switch. The new domain name is now the domain of the
site, and the old domain name is now set up with 301-redirects for all
the pages, pointing to the new name.

Will this make for a more smooth transition or will it just make
things worse? ... anyone?

On Apr 9, 8:04 pm, Wysz wrote:

On Apr 10, 6:28 am, patrickb wrote:

Howdy,

You are quite correct.  See my message above.

This will not work well on the server.  The new domain name should be
hosted under its name and the old site redirected to it.  Get your new
domain name set up separately and everything working.  THEN start
making the move.

Chris

Hi Chris

I don't think I saw your other post before. That article of yours
really sounds interesting. But at the same time, I'm surprised to see
302 used at all. Most other people posting in here - and Google staff
also - all advice against using this and recommend just using 301 from
day one. However your advice sound logical, and at this point I know
that even though it's universally recommended, using just 301 WILL
cause significant ranking drops over a long period.

Will this mean that I can't just change the domain name on my current
hosting, but instead I have to buy a new hosting package and set up
the new site on this?

@Wysz
Is it possible that you could take a look at Chris Gunn's article and
give an opinion?

On Apr 10, 9:33 pm, Chris Gunn wrote:

Hi patrickb

The redirection with a 301 permanent redirect is the preferred method.
One way to calm the nerves is to do the redirect incrementally, folder
by folder or whatever makes sense within your website structure. By
splitting it up, you can confirm that each step is working and getting
indexed correctly before moving on to the next.

Using a 302 redirect is not recommended. A 302 redirect is technically
a temporary redirect which tells the client that the OLD URL is the
one that should be kept. Using it in an attempt to move a site can
result in our crawlers getting confused regarding your intent.

A bit before joining Google I helped to move a site with something
over 100,000 URLs to a new domain, using normal 301 redirects. After a
few days most of the site was indexed with the new domain name, there
were no measurable, negative long term effects.

Hope it helps!
John

I'll throw in a penny on this as well...

Log at your logs.
See a pattern of how often the bot visits?
Now have a guess of the time you really Don't want to start moving!

Get every thing read, make sure everything is set... wait till the
bots have been and gone... then go go go.
301 a chunk at a time... instantly check (yes, it's a pain, but do
it!) every page.
Check header resposnes with online toold (don't just browse and assume
it's correct!).
Check your robots file is correctly updates, as is the XML sitemap.

Then wait a bit for the visit from the bots.

Something else to consider is "new content" ... is there somethign you
could add that would increase the "attention" span?  MAke that part of
hte site you jsut moved a little mroe interesting/useful?
If so... hold off adding it till just after the move.
Then, once you are sure the 301's are working... add that new content
as well.

Then, after time, and keepign an eye on the bots, you should see a
fairly easy transition (yes, you may get a drop... for a period of
time... but if you think about it... it's usally due to the new domain
name... and the words in it, or hte TLD attached!!!!  It is not due to
the 301 most of the time!).

Thanks John and Autocrat

I see that maybe just 301-redirecting is the best way. It just seems
odd that moving a chunk at the time can be the best way. I would think
that splitting up the site would just split its value too. Also, it's
difficult for me to split up a website that's meant to function as a
unit. What if, for example, users reach a subpage on one of the
domains and edit the URL in their browser because they want to go to
the main page, only to find out that the main page is actually on
another domain!?

Also, how can I edit the sitemap xml-file? - I assume that the sitemap
can only contain URL's from the same domain as the sitemap is on?!