Thread: Change to new domain - how is your SEO ranking affected?

I was always advised never to change the domain for a well ranked website, as it always downrated your ranking. So I have never done this. But I have been supporting a small community owned business in West Wales, and the Directors want to change from a Welsh Language Domain to an English Language Domain, as they think the Welsh language is putting off visitors. Our current Domain is quite well ranked, and the domain appears on the first page of the Google and Bing search results. <<snipped>> We had loads of publicity when the shop was purchased and have links from most of the local media, for example.
We are also supposed to be committed to promoting the Welsh Language! The site is being improved and moved to a new server, but that shouldn't affect ranking, I believe.

I have advised that the domain should not be changed as our ranking will be affected, but it is being claimed that if the right processes are followed, our ranking will not be affected. Is this true? I was always advised that one should never change domain as it did severely affect the ranking. But maybe Google et al are smarter these days?
You can find lists of what to do (301 permanent redirects etc.) in Google Developer - for example https://developers.google.com/search...th-url-changes

Any advice? Am I being over-cautious on this?

Theoretically, but I have not tested it, if you use permanent redirections from the old domain to the new and the content is the same your search engine rankings should shift over to the new domain/urls.

I do know permanent redirections can cause Google to update the URL in their search index from the old destination to the new one.

Thanks - and yes, that's the theory. Unfortunately the site is planned to change at the same time - new pages, page structure and menu. I just wonder if anyone has any practical experience of trying this change, and what actually happened to the ranking.

Thanks for the theory - but what about practical experience? Is it really the case that no-one is able to report a positive experience when changing domain? I would also like to hear of practical experience from anyone who changed to a new domain, and found their new domain had ranking issues? I need some real world practical experience, as I am being told to change domain against my better judgement! Maybe changes of domain are rarely attempted?

If you migrate it over keeping everything the same and do 301 redirects from each old URL to its corresponding new URL, the impact will be minimal typically. It may take a little while for Google to figure out what is going on, longer on larger sites, but things usually bounce back right to where they were or pretty close.

You may lose a lot of brand related searches eventually if the brand name changes.

Interesting to see that no-one has responded to say that they have made this change, following the advice about keeping everything the same, and that the SEO ranking was not affected. I guess very few people change domain?

Originally Posted by wbjb

Interesting to see that no-one has responded to say that they have made this change, following the advice about keeping everything the same, and that the SEO ranking was not affected. I guess very few people change domain?

I suspect most people that manage sites large enough to worry about this - did their own research, made the change, probably had no major issues, and then didn't come running to WHT to tell you about it.

Then again there are a lot of people that see most "SEO" as "voodoo". Yes - there are things you can do to optimize your search engine results - but the large majority of what I've seen really has no impact but trying to tell people that believe that it does, otherwise, has never gone well.

So you have two options:

1. Move to the new domain, do 301 redirects from the old to the new, and hope.
2. Stay with the old domain.

I don't know there's much if anything more you can do - if your intent is to move from one domain to another.

Thanks for the advice, Michael. You're right that when it goes well, then you won't often see reports here. But if things go badly, then there are usually complaints! There's don't seem to be any of those posted either. Maybe it is unusual to change a well ranked domain. I don't want to change and am looking for evidence not to. But our directors want to move away from a welsh language domain.

Originally Posted by wbjb

Thanks for the advice, Michael. You're right that when it goes well, then you won't often see reports here. But if things go badly, then there are usually complaints! There's don't seem to be any of those posted either. Maybe it is unusual to change a well ranked domain. I don't want to change and am looking for evidence not to. But our directors want to move away from a welsh language domain.

Honestly - I really think if you do the redirects as permanent [301] and nothing changes in the URLs but the domain [or perhaps the domain extension] you'll be 100% OK.

I have experience with migrating from an old domain to a new domain and I can confidently say that the site does not experience negative consequences in SEO after the migrating. Do it right, set up redirects and you'll be fine.