5 Tips About How to Change Domain Names Without losing Search Engine Ranking
The pursuit of organic search engine optimization is pursued by all online businesses. Being on the first page of search engine results means better visibility, more customer engagement, and more sales.
This is
a fascinating virtuous
circle that can be
achieved by implementing comprehensive SEO (search engine
optimization) strategy.
As the foundation of every web page on your website, your domain name goes hand in hand with this organic search optimization strategy.
However, there are many reasons for changing a domain name, such as mergers and acquisitions, new brand identities, different domain extensions, and of course choosing a domain name optimized for search engine rankings.
So how do you ensure that you don't lose the work you've done to optimize your website for search engine rankings when you change your domain name?
Here are five tips on How to Change Domain Names Without losing Search Engine Ranking:
Keep the same domain owner
To
be ranked, a website must be indexed by search engines. To do
this, Google (and others) use
"bots" that crawl websites,
record URLs, and
include them in search results
(SERPs).
When you register a domain name, you will be asked for some contact information, specifically the name of the domain name owner.
Some of this information is
reflected in Whose which is especially useful for checking domain availability and identifying domain name owners.
Search engine crawler bots regularly index this information. Also, the time it takes to register a domain name affects her website’s ranking, so it's best to keep the same owner.
Google doesn’t consider it a new website, but
a long-term online presence that helps
maintain rankings.
Create a sitemap and make it available to search engines
Organic
rankings rely on Google’s ranking
criteria. In other words, to get
a ranking, you
have to follow the
rules of the
Google algorithm. This
is easier said than done,
as algorithms involve
many different website
components and are
constantly (if not
always) evolving.
This includes a sitemap, the structure of your website. This document layers the resources and content associated with each page of the website in an XML document.
It plays an important
role in search engine
rankings as it allows search engines to index every
page of your website.
Therefore, when
you change your domain
name, it's important
to create (or update) a sitemap and
share it with
your site's search engines to speed up
indexing of the new URLs. This is very
easy for Google to
do with just
a few clicks in Google SearchConsole.
Create a 301 redirect to your new page
To maintain
rankings, search engine bots need
to know where the content of
the old URL
is. 301 redirects
(also known as
permanent web redirects)
are very important
because they allow
any page on
your old website to link
to a corresponding page on
your new website.
In this
way we inform
search engines that the previous
content has been
moved to the new page.
The new pages
are indexed in place of the
old pages, so
they can carry
over the popularity
they've gained.
Update your backlinks
Another criterion that Google considers when indexing pages is the trust level of each page. Backlinks, or links to your site from other sites, give search engines a measure of their trust. It is important to ask to renew with the new domain name.
If you have a lot of backlinks and don't have time, prioritize links from authoritative sites first. These have the biggest impact on rankings.
However,
it's a good
idea to list
each link to make sure you
can get them all. Backlinks
that are not updated will generate 404
errors and lower
your ranking.
Notify Google of your domain name change
After all,
Google plays an important
role in your website's organic ranking, so
it's a good idea to
let Google know
about your domain name
change so they can index your
new web page
address with the new URL.
increase. You can make this
update directly in Google Search Console.
Changing your
domain name can
affect your search engine rankings
if you do not
neglect to implement
your new domain name
carefully. However, by
applying these 5 tips, you can
limit the negative results and
quickly regain lost SEO.
It's a delicate process,
but it's also
critical to your
company's online presence.