: Decision to change domains to one that's almost the same - effect on Results? I have a decision to make about whether to use a new domain for a business site that has been completely redesigned.
I have a decision to make about whether to use a new domain for a business site that has been completely redesigned. The reason a new domain is needed is that the current one contains a small grammar mistake(missing letter 's'). The client has told me that he plans to expand his business, so I advised him that it would be better to change it to the proper spelling. However, I have discovered that this current domain is doing ok in the SERPs for various keywords. He has been using this address for over 2 years, advertising it and so on..
I have done some good SEO on the new site, and I'll do the 301 redirects for each page if we decide to change it. I know that if we move it that the rankings will probably be affected for a few weeks at least, but is it a safe bet that they will recover within a short time? I am thinking that it should be, as the redirects will mean that it's associated with the old site, and the domain name will be very similar(just adding the extra 's' at the end). But I have not done something like this before, so I'd really appreciate some insight from someone who has experience. I would hate to destroy the search ranking, or have it wait a long time to recover to a good position. But at the same time, the new address would be better for the future...
More posts by @Vandalay111
2 Comments
Sorted by latest first Latest Oldest Best
As far as I know, the only differences a properly done site move is likely to make to Google rankings are that:
links going through a 301 redirect used to lose a small fraction of their PageRank (but that doesn't happen any more), and
your hostname itself will affect the ranking of your site for keywords that match it (e.g. cheapwidgets.com for "widgets").
Fortunately, Google does fairly aggressive stemming of their keywords anyway, so it's unlikely to see much difference between cheapwidget.com and cheapwidgets.com. If anything, the pluralized form is likely to score better, if that's what users typically search for. As for the PageRank loss from redirects, the effect is minor to begin with, and likely to disappear over time as other sites start linking directly to your new address.
Why not register the other domain as well and have it point to the already successful domain or vice versa?
Terms of Use Create Support ticket Your support tickets Stock Market News! © vmapp.org2024 All Rights reserved.