Need help switching my domains, currently I own StocksonWallStreet.net and have StocksonWallStreet.com forwarded to the .net. Now I want to switch the .com to become the main one and have .net forwarded. Any help would be appreciated plus willing to pay for help.
1. Upload your files to the .com 2. Delete your files from .net 3. Create a .htaccess file then upload it to the root of .net The contents of the htaccess file is Redirect 301 / http://www.stocksonwallstreet.com/ Code (markup):
Since you probably care about the currently 199 pages indexed by Google that will affect your site ranking if ignored, following Twity's recommendation on creating the reditection rules is a reasonable step to take. As far as the domain switch itself, your webhosting panel might allow doing that without having to move files around (I know some that do and some that don't).
Or not. Switching the domain name without keeping the redirects at the old location will hit the SERP's. Why start from scratch instead of switching properly?
I think you should also consult SEO Expert, so that you dont loose any of the built trust in search engines.
I will recommend keeping old domain until everything is settle (which should not take less then a year for all SERPS) As I know when change u your domain then u loss the PR and SEO of this sites and u agene promote yours sites.
The advice on this page is all over the place. If you change the DNS you will lose any SEO value you have accumulated and will essentially be starting from sratch. I also wouldn't recommend using Twity's advice to redirect all your pages from the .net domain to the homepage of the .com domain. You will lose all the back links and value your deeper pages had. Here is what I would do and have done many times without any problems. Using the steps below will ensure you keep as much of your back links, page rank and ranking as possible. 1. Verify both domains in Google Webmaster Tools under the same account. 2. Remove the 301 redirect on the .com domain 3. 301 redirect each page from the .net domain to the correct page on the .com domain. 4. Submit a "Change of Address" request in Webmaster Tools. 5. Submit a new sitemap for the .com domain in Webmaster Tools. 6. Keep the .net domain active for at least 180 days. Also if you are unsure just read what Google has to say on the matter http://www.google.com/support/webmasters/bin/answer.py?answer=83105 Hope that helps and let us know how it goes.
Hi Stockson, It's actually quite easy. Since your host uses cPanel the 301 redirects shouldn't be a problem either since cPanel has a handy "Reditects" feature. You can also remove the 301 from the .com to .net. To verify your site in GWT you only need to place 2 lines of code on your homepage of both domains. From here you can do steps 4, 5, 6. You can spider your current site using a program like GSite Crawler. This will give you a list of your current URLs. You can find and replace the .net domain with the .com and submit the sitemap to GWT. With this list you can setup the 301 redirects since you know what URLs you have online. It's not overly complicated. Just a bit time consuming. GSite Crawler will do most of the heavy work for you. I'm sure there are a few people on this board that would be willing to help if you asked nicely