Moving a Domain Name

16th April 2007

At the 2006 Las Vegas Webmaster World I stood up and asked Matt Cutts from Google a question that actually got applause from he crowd.

I asked “Why do we have to lose rankings for so long if we change domain names, and might the Google Webmaster Tools team be working on a way to minimize our pain?”.

Even if everything is done the “right” way, with 301 redirects etc. there is always a significant traffic and rankings drop, and it’s very frustrating.

I have several clients , (including myself) that want to use a different domain name for their business, but are afraid to lose current search engine visibility.

Look at the URL in your address bar here on my blog, and you’ll see it says pdxtc.com. I’d much rather use Searchcommander.com, but I likely can’t do that without dropping off page one SERPS for a lot of phrases.  Therefore, I’ve been reluctant to change it for nearly two years now, and that’s ridiculous.

When Rand Fishkin offered on his blog to ask Vanessa Fox some questions that readers submitted, I asked the question again there, and Rand got to it in near the end of the interview from last weeks SES New York.

Happily for webmasters all over the world, she responded favorably, and even mentioned something similar to the www vs. non-www option that’s in Webmaster tools now,  as a possible solution.

The business community of the world should be able to change their web address like they change their street address - as needed - and they shouldn’t suffer a loss of revenue as a result.

Rand even held his hands together and begged for Google’s cooperation, but I might have gotten on my knees too!

This video has great tips about moving a domain the “right” way, as well as valuable other insight that you need to hear if you’re an “SEO”. Thanks Rand, thanks Vanessa, and thanks Google.

For a list of all the questions asked, check out Rand’s blog