What happens to my rankings if I change my domain name? How about backlinks?

Discussion in 'Search Engine Optimization' started by pdoods, Oct 18, 2010.

  1. #1
    I've been running a personal blog of my own (in a style of firstnamelastname.com) concentrating on my music hobby and for a year and a half now I've been publishing some tutorial articles there as well alongside my song demos.

    I'm getting ok traffic every day via Google for those tutorial articles and I've been ranking high for one specific search term for a several months now.

    However, I'm going to make my blog a bit more tutorial/music tech news oriented and I was planning to move it on a new domain name.

    What happens to my rankings if I change my domain name? What happens to the juice of various backlinks that are pointing to my blog?
     
    pdoods, Oct 18, 2010 IP
  2. moneyreward

    moneyreward Peon

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    #2
    contact google and say you changed your domain name
    try google webmasters
     
    moneyreward, Oct 18, 2010 IP
  3. cashgen

    cashgen Well-Known Member

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    #3
    In addition to letting Google know via your Google webmaster account, you must 301 redirect from your old domain to your new domain to maintain your link juice, otherwise, you loose the link juice.

    You can either Google search on how to 301 redirect or get someone to do it for you.
     
    cashgen, Oct 18, 2010 IP
  4. haveseo

    haveseo Well-Known Member

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    #4
    Firstly you should redirect your domain using 301 redirect. Then you should define this change in Google webmaster tools. You can follow these steps to define it for Google:
    1) Go to Google webmaster tools.
    2) Go to 'Site configuration' panel.
    3) Select 'Change of address' .
    4) You can see 'Tell us the URL of your new domain' . Below it you can write the new address of your website.
    5) Verify the new domain.
    Then your ranking will not be changed.
     
    haveseo, Oct 18, 2010 IP
  5. HighRollerT

    HighRollerT Guest

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    #5
    all your dreams will come true with a 301 Redirect! Look into it....this sort of thing happens a million times a day!
     
    HighRollerT, Oct 18, 2010 IP
  6. pdoods

    pdoods Peon

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    #6
    ok thanks for all the help! 301 redirect seems to be the way to go :)
     
    pdoods, Oct 18, 2010 IP
  7. prettybomb2008

    prettybomb2008 Peon

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    #7
    I know that using redirect works but I would like to asked if we changed our old domain to a new domain will the pagerank changed as well?
     
    prettybomb2008, Oct 18, 2010 IP
  8. HighRollerT

    HighRollerT Guest

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    #8
    Yes the page rank will be transferred as well!
     
    HighRollerT, Oct 19, 2010 IP
  9. Socialat

    Socialat Peon

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    #9
    Very well described. I think if you follow all the steps properly, then you won't lose your rankings. All the best.
     
    Socialat, Oct 19, 2010 IP
  10. credasys

    credasys Peon

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    #10
    I think the best thing you do for that is to redirect your old site to your new domain name using the 301 redirection.
     
    credasys, Oct 19, 2010 IP