Digital Library, Domains, Podcast, SEO Optimization

How to change the domain name without the SEO being affected?

Posted on - 4 min read
Contributors
Pratham Yogendra
Content Writer
Pratham Yogendra
CTO - NexGi

the domain name without affecting the SEO Agility and development are two key aspects of building a digital brand. And in certain cases, development might be the reason for an overhaul in the branding.  

For instance, your eCommerce brand abcdebooks.com might evolve from just selling books to selling an entire array of products. And, you might want to change the domain name. But, you’ll have to change the domain name without affecting the SEO.

Step 1: Stabilizing the base

Now, there are two ways to purchase a domain, you could either purchase one from an auction or purchase an entirely new domain.

Case A: An auctioned Domain Name

These are the domains you might have purchased via an auction. And, the goal is to make sure that these domains don’t come pre equipped with backlinks that promote spam or any illegal content.

You could use services such as ahrefs backlink check tool to determine if the website using the domain relied on promoting spam or practicing black hat SEO Practices. 

Case B: New Domain Name

If it is a new domain, you could skip step 1 and purchase it from either GoDaddy or BigRock at your preferred terms. But, we’d suggest for you have an insight about 20 important factors to consider whilst purchasing a perfect domain name.

Preferring a new domain makes it easy to change the domain name without affecting the SEO.

Step 2: Backlink inventory and review

Moving on, we’d recommend for you maintain a list of backlinks that you’ve used on your old domain. Segregate the links that I’ve been ranked on the search engine from the ones that haven’t been. 

And, here’s a little introduction to a catalyst in the process. It is called Google Search Console. Ok! We know that a few of our readers might be familiar with it. But, hey, revising the root helps. You could use the Google Search Console to analyze the SEO data of your website and understand the pages that’ve ranked. It also provides performance and indexing reports of your old domain.

Why do you need this data? 🤔

Well, in the digital age, any form of data is gold. And, SEO is an important factor for any website. Knowing about your performance at any time is important as it helps you to learn from the results and improve with time. And, learning from your results is most important during the migration of a domain.

Step 3: Migration + Redirection

Speaking of migration, it’s the next step in the process.

Before you proceed, you’ll need to understand that the process is dependent on your hosting provider and the services they provide in this aspect. And, we’d honestly recommend you to consult a web developer who also understands the SEO aspects of the process.

Note: If you ever need help with the process, We are just a call away at 📞 +91 783585111four/eight or 📧 contact@nexgi.com.

In a brief, the process involves cloning your site’s files over to the new domain. As we stressed earlier,  this process depends upon the hosting and the domain. It has two case scenarios.

1. New domain name with the same hosting:

If your case scenario lies around this method, you really will not have to stress much as the hosting company will segregate the domain as an addon domain. And will place it in a separate folder where the only process remaining will be to transfer the site files from one place to another.

2. New domain name with different hosting:

You could perform this task manually by exporting the website files from the old hosting services and uploading it to the new hosting service. Or you could either use a seamlessly automated migration plugin which might be a bit buggy. 

If not, we’ve always got your back. Feel free to consult us at NexGen Support.

The final step of this process is to set up 301(Permanent) Redirects for your consumers who are accustomed to the old website. This will allow them to directly reach out to your new website without any problems.

The advantage of using a 301 redirect is the fact that it doesn’t lower your link equity or ranking power on the pages that’ve ranked.

Step 4: Ok Google, we’ve changed our domain name! 🖥️

Remember the Google Search Console? We spoke about it in step 2. Well, the final step also requires Google Search Console. You could either use the Change of address feature ( in the old version) or submit the sitemap to the Search Console for it to understand all the 301 redirects that you’ve set up.

It would then successfully understand that you’ve changed your domain and would lead the consumers via search to the same.

Do note that Google Search Engine prefers to rank the website based on differences in UI/UX, colors, typefaces, and readability. You could work on these to improve your ranking.

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