Rebranding a Website to a new Domain Name

[Mark_Ch]

Hi All,

I'm looking to rebrand my current website to a new domain name.
In short the current website has out grown it's potential. The domain name is not memorable nor is it attracting a wider audience.
I will create my new website and 301 redirect the old website to the new, hence pass SEO value.

Google Places
Having spoken to Google they tell me that I can simply change the URL in Google Places to the new URL.

Articles on my current website
I have a number of rich content articles on my current website, can I simply create my new website and copy & paste these previously written articles?

Google+, Twitter, Facebook, etc.
What should I do for accounts associated with the current website?

Any other useful information would be much appreciated.

Regards Mark

[Carson-Ward]

If you do have links sending traffic, those should be the first to update to avoid the slight but unnecessary burden and delay of a redirect. For Google, though, it doesn't really matter. As long as you 301 the whole site correctly to new URLs and change the address in Webmaster Tools, there will be no additional load time.

It's true that you want to avoid big .htaccess files, redirect chains, and inefficient redirects, but that's a rule for live sites. For example, if you were wanting to maintain the domain but move the entire category around, you wouldn't want to add 3000 lines to .htaccess. You should still write a rule rather than going line by line, but it doesn't really matter if it's on an old site that's moving. Search engines will only have to access it once per bot before they get the message and start crawling the new site.

In any case, redirects from the old site to the new won't impact load time unless the redirect is happening all the time, which should never be the case in a site migration. Do make sure to get the right redirect rule and check that it's working, especially on your most-trafficked pages.

[Alex-Harford]

Where possible it's best to group your URLs with pattern matching. If you're only changing the domain name and no other aspect of the URLs you should be able to handle all redirects with one line of code. This is linked in the guide I posted: www.webconfs.com/how-to-redirect-a-webpage.php - scroll down for htaccess (but double check that's the correct formatting for page-to-page redirects).

[Mark_Ch]

Hi Ruben and Alex,

Many thanks for the great advice.
I'll be making a strong coffee and reading your article very shortly! ... Thanks Alex for the link.

I have one question that comes to mind.
You redirect many urls via your .htaccess file.
Your .htaccess file growns in size.
Search engines take considerably longer to read and process this information.

Surely the read + process overhead would be classed as poor site speed and therefore subject to some form of penality by the gods of Google?

Regards Mark

[Alex-Harford]

For when you launch the new website, Google have a change of address tool: 
https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/83106?hl=en

As mentioned, 301 redirecting the exact old page to the exact same new page is the most important step. Plan ahead and map out your 301 redirects. You want to be sure of what's happening when the domain is transferred to give your rankings and traffic the best chance of remaining intact (or even increasing, which I've seen with some website redesigns).

I think you can change your Twitter handle more than once. If you have a good existing following I'd recommend updating your existing profile to the new handle, and (if possible) re-registering the old Twitter handle at another account - linking in the bio to your new Twitter account. That'll make sure you retain some of the link authority your current Twitter profile has built up and ensure people can still find you through any old links. I think custom Facebook URLs can be changed once.

I actually wrote a site migration guide last week, there should be a few points in there you'll find useful: insideonline.co.uk/website-migration-guide/

[KempRugeLawGroup]

Moz actually wrote a detailed post about their transition (your probably already read it, but in case not, it's easy to find). Also, just because you 301 the exact page, does not necessarily mean you will rank as highly with the new page as you did the old ones...at least not in the beginning, that's for sure.

Best,

Ruben

[Mark_Ch]

Hi,

Thank you for your response.
I'm glad to see that you can simply 301 the exact old page to the exact new page.

My fears were that all the hard work and cost associated to creating these feature rich articles would be wasted.
I suppose this is exactly how large organisations would tackle such a move. To mention an example SEOMOZ to MOZ.

I would appreciate any further information from anybody who has experienced such a move and how they carried out the migration. Additionally and issues and drop in traffic resulting to a new domain name move.

Thanks in advance

Mark

[Houses]

Hi,

If you copy and paste the article content, make sure you 301 the exact old page to the exact new page.

For your social sites, you could mention that you are moving to a new brand name soon and then the change over will be expected. For Google+ if you have already used a custom URL you currently can't change it (as far as I know) so you would be stuck with the old brand name.

Hope that helps.