Anyone switched to new domain?

[AidanLCFC]

I'm looking at possible moving a site from what it's on now to a new domain. Last time I did this was about 2008 so things have changed since then. Has anyone got any experience of doing this? How long did it take google to recognise it and get your site ranking again? Where there any issues etc etc? I know @Zuga @Guard Dog @MissExposé did this with LCB, what were your experiences guys? would you do it again if you could roll back time?

 

[preditor]

I have done it quite a lot actually!

1. Put both domains under the same google webmaster - account
2. Prepare domains for the move by making shore you have "an copy" of your old site on the new domain.
3. 301 all your content on your old domain to your new domain using htaccess.
4. Check that olddomain/some-post 301's to the newdomain/some-post
6. Make shore you have sitemap, robots.txt etc on the new domain.
7. Notify google about the domain transfer in the webmaster - tools.

Wait and be patient

After maiby around 1 week you should see some stuff related to the move such as new domain name on google searches / and / or signals on google webmasters that the indexing has started.

Overall a move takes from 1m to 9m to finalyze.

 

[xecutable]

I've done it in 2015 and 2017.

The 301 redirects can be done in the cPanel of the host. In fact most hosts these days will assist you with a domain move these days.

If the domain change is part of a business plan, I'd say do it. I was pleased with the results both times.

Besides making sure you have the correct nameservers, I'd say the most important step is to get in the Google Webmaster Tools and notify Google about the move.

Again I would highly suggest contacting your host to assist you with the backend redirects. Saves time and does not involve htaccess messing around.

For me it took a few days to see changes and around three weeks to completely see the old domain drop from serps. Each experience is different and unique, these r just basic time frames I've seen.

 

[xecutable]

Making a new post instead of editing, just so u get a ping. Make sure you edit your Wordpress admin config beforehand. I remember forgetting this and proceeding with the changes losing access to my WP Admin backend and had to go through the cPanel the wp-config.php and change it from there. Again something your host support should/would be happy to assist you with. (Assuming you are running wordpress)

 

[Lucy CBC]

In general it's a safe practice, we've done it a few times from 2004 to 2019....and never had issues. You'll do fine, as long as the domain has a permanent 301 redirect, you can also inform google via the search console, but not sure if it makes any difference. Still, gambling related domains might be affected by other factors, so the timeframe can differ, we'd say never less than 2 months timeframe....You're still indicised with the old domain in this time so you won't be affected...

 

[melcb]

@AidanLCFC - It was a good decision for us and worked out well in the long run, but always risks involved.

 

[AidanLCFC]

@AidanLCFC - It was a good decision for us and worked out well in the long run, but always risks involved.

Do you mind me asking what sort of time range it was before google was treating the new domain the same way it did the old one? Did you have to wait for any core updates for example?

 

[melcb]

A couple of months, we didnt have to wait for any core updates it was more just waiting for google to index all pages.

 

[Zuga]

I'm looking at possible moving a site from what it's on now to a new domain. Last time I did this was about 2008 so things have changed since then. Has anyone got any experience of doing this? How long did it take google to recognise it and get your site ranking again? Where there any issues etc etc? I know @Zuga @Guard Dog @MissExposé did this with LCB, what were your experiences guys? would you do it again if you could roll back time?

For us it worked well. For a few weeks after the domain switch we did notice a small drop in search traffic ( 5-7% maybe ? ), but we knew this could happen. Soon after the search came back to where it was prior changing to new domain, and form that point onwards it has been on a steady rise.
Now I really cant talk much about technical stuff, as thats not my forte, all I know is that our tech team did a great job.