Website Rebranding??

I am currently rebranding a website. It currently sits on url (a) with quite a bit of content and reasonable ranking on Google.

I am rebranding the site to another company name and ultimately it will be on a different url (b).

Url (b) is currently on another website with very poor ranking on all search engines.

Url (a) will no longer be required and everything will be on url (b)

How is the best way forward in making the necessary changes?

Thanks in advance

 

Why would you want to? Its like giving away a prime
site in a busy high street....

Would it not be better to copy content across to the
new URL and set-up a re-direct on URL (a) maybe,
although the rankings will probably fall then...

 

Giving away? No just working to earn some money!!

I don't know what would be better which is why I asked the question!

The plan so far is to leave the website exactly where it is and then change the DNS on url (b) to point to the site. url (a) may be utilised for another project at a later date but for now will be dropped.

Is this best?

Maybe leaving both url's pointing to the website is ok? Or does that create duplicate content issues?

The url (b) website is going to be dropped completely.

Just looking for a little guidance reallyy on the best way forward without losing ranking!

 

If you're just changing domain names via DNS and not altering the sites structure, you can simply setup an all-encompassing 301 redirect at the old site pointing to the new site.

As long as one of the domains URLs are pointing to the other domain with a 3XX status code, you have nothing to worry about as far as duplicate content goes. Just make sure you leave the redirect setup for at least a few months, maybe longer depending on the size of the site.

 

I changed my site a while back and it did wonders for traffic