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Domain Name Effect on SEO?

Will changing my domain name affect my SEO?

  • I recently got married and changed my last name.  I've had a website for over five years using my maided name http://susancline.com.I have some great seo for that site.  If you type "google apps expert" I come up as #1.  My new name is Susan Metz.  I bought the url http://susanmetz.com.  If I rebuild my website using that new domain, will I lose all my great SEO?  What's the best practice for this type of thing. I imagine this comes up when a business changes their name. Thanks!

  • Answer:

    Hi Susan, Congrats on the marriage! I went through that name change thing too recently. (Hence the triple name - I'm indecisive.) If you're changing your domain name, you definitely need to take a few steps to protect the SEO you've earned over the years.  The biggest thing, in my mind, is to set up a 301 redirect for your site.  A 301 redirect also is often described as a "change of address form" you might get at a post office. It tells the search engines that you've moved and they should channel all search energy to corresponding pages on your new site. My colleague wrote a really good post on it a couple of years back that's still a great resource on how to set them up. Here's the link: http://blog.hubspot.com/blog/tabid/6307/bid/7430/What-is-a-301-Redirect-and-Why-Should-You-Care.aspx Hope it helps.

Meghan Keaney Anderson at Quora Visit the source

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Yes it will affect yo...

Sandeep Biddu

So, the answer is yes... but the good news is that it's usually temporary. The change in your name isn't really the issue... anybody that changes any aspect of the URL, from the domain down to the directory and file names, are going to cause an SEO issue as Google tries to figure out where you moved. Using the 301 redirect that a few people have pointed out is THE way to take away some of the sting... but no matter what, it's going to sting.  Besides Google trying to find you again with a new domain, all of your backlinks are now wrong... and even with the 301 redirect on there, Google still has to think about it when it seems them and make a note that you're not at the old address.  You can always go through all of your old links and ask them to change it, but that will cause another disturbance in The Force for awhile as well. All said... it's a painful thing to do and has caused a lot of companies some real damage on the organic search front.  If the traffic to your site is a major source of revenue for you, I suggest that you augment it with some paid advertising (search or otherwise) while things are still settling back into place.

Jeff Ferguson

I do not see how it would hurt seo. Except your backlinks would need to be 301 redirected to the new domain.

Phil Eisaman

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