Switching Domains Without A Hassle
Building up a site is a lot of work, a lot of work goes into a site with a lot of traffic. But what happens when all the work and effort building a following is interrupted by a necessary domain change? A site’s domain is the way users connect, it’s the only connection you have to customers, and when you have to move, you will find traffic becomes a serious issue. Still, while switching domains, a few practices can take the hassle out and help retain visitors. Without a well thought out domain switch, you may risk disrupting traffic and possibly losing a large number of visitors. Of course, it is always a good idea to make sure your domain is right for you when you first set it up, lest you need go through this disruptive process. But, unforeseen factors can always be a problem, so be prepared.
First, you are going to need to have two domains, your previous one and a new one. If you immediately lose your previous one, you do not have a chance to use the tips following. By maintaining a presence on your previous domain a little while longer, you can redirect traffic and hopefully show the major search engines your site isn’t gone, it’s just moved. It is best to make the transition following an update, as your site needs to have each of its links checked to ensure they ware pointed to the right domain. First, you should maintain noindex/nofollow in your robots.txt file on the new site, which will prevent your old site from losing search engine rank immediately. When you complete the whole switch, you should remove noindex and nofollow from the new site and add it to the old site.
You should do a 301 redirect on your main site following this, which will send all the traffic from your old links to the new site, avoiding losing traffic for a time while your new site starts to establish itself on the search engines. In the meanwhile it is important to contact as many known linkers as possible in order to eliminate the old domain and add inbound links to the new one. This step is extremely important because your site will likely never return to its old position without attention to links. By focusing on that you can maintain your inbound traffic with the 301 and hopefully reestablish the pagerank that drove extra traffic your way previously.
There is no simple way to make this transition, it is inherently difficult to pick up and move, but if you manage it well, you can reduce the harm done to your site. Take it slow and don’t abandon your old url until you have to, just in case some old links still exist. By following these simple steps you can regain your sites prominence quickly without too much harm to your site.
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