Do you know you can change your domain name without losing search traffic?
Yes, it’s possible.
But once you have changed your web address, you need to do some post-site address change things to ensure you don’t lose organic traffic.
If you don’t tell Google about this change of address, you might be putting your site’s organic ranking into danger.
Let me help you with fixing this potentially big error.
(In the below example, I have placed a URL change request using the Google Search Console. The process is the same for anyone needing to change their domain.)
Let me first give you a background of why I had to change the URL of one of my popular niche blogs.
If you are a regular reader of ShoutMeLoud, you might be aware of our niche WordPress blog. The name used to be WPFreesetup & lately, I realized the name of the blog could be better.
When I started WPFreesetup back in 201o, my goal was different & a lot has changed in the past 6 years.
This is when I decided to change the name from WPfreesetup to WPsutra.
“Sutra” is a Sanskrit word that means a set of texts on grammar or Hindu law or philosophy. (If you want to learn more about Sutras, you can learn here at the WikiPedia page.)
Now, changing an existing website URL is no joke.
It takes a lot of precision to ensure you don’t lose search traffic and a lot needs to be done to move everything (other web properties) from the old domain to the new domain.
Thanks to Kinsta hosting customer support, changing my domain name took only 5 minutes.
When you change URLs, one thing you need to take care of is 301 redirection. Every page from “Domain A” should now point to “Domain B”.
For example:
DomaninA.com/123.html should 301 redirect to DomainB.com/123.html
You can verify the same using an online redirect checker. Here is one such redirect checker.
Here’s my redirect status:
I hope this clears up the basics. Now it’s time to look at the steps that you need to follow for placing a site address change request.
How to successfully place a site address change using the Google Search Console
- Login to your Google search console account.
- Open the website which you want to move.
- Click on the “Gear” icon & select “Change of Address”.
- On the next page, pick your new site from the list.
- Confirm that the 301-redirects work properly (see above).
- Check that verification methods are still present.
Once you have confirmed everything, click on “Submit”.
You will see this message:
- “Submitted – Your request for a site move has succeeded. If you believe this is an error, you can withdraw the request.”
What happens after putting in a request for a site address change?
This request allows Google to index your new URL at the new address while minimizing impact to your current ranking in Google Search results.
Additionally, all Google Search results for your site will now be redirected to the new domain automatically for 180 days. You must still update any resources on your site such as tags or headers that refer to the old domain.
Doing this will ensure that traffic fluctuation due to this URL change will not be high.
I hope this guide helps you to change your site address without losing search engine traffic.
In an upcoming guide, I will be sharing other important things to do after changing your domain name.
If you know any blogger friends who are about to change his/her domain address, do let him/her know about this guide. It may help them (& they may buy you a coffee someday).
Thanks for this great post on domain changing. it is very useful for new webmasters
Hi Harsh,
once again great article from you, maximum people dont know about it including me, in feature if it really required to change domain name, this article helps me out.
Hi Harsh,
I really don’t about this feature since i came accross this article, in 2014 i have started my blog, after few months actually i wanted to change my blog address, thanks buddy..finally you helped me..
Thanks Harsh for this great tips. I have bought an domain name and a hosting for that domain name recently. The hosting is bought for that particular domain name. I haven’t hosted the domain name.I don’t like the domain name now. I want to host the new domain name with unused host. How to do it? Whether changing the name servers will be enough?
Thank harsh very useful information, but I want know that to change existing url, first we have to ad new url as new property?
Sorry for my disturbance, how can i redirect my old pages url to new one? Lets assume i have 100,000 pages, how will it be done within a short period of time?
Thanks Harsh, Nice post. I need little information about “301 Redirect” if you can give me. Can we change URL of blog post which is already published in blogspot?
@Muhammad
Yes, you can. You just need to ensure old links getting redirected to new links & redirection should be 301 status code.
Hey Muhammad,
Yes, you can change the URL of the post. However, you will have to redirect your old URl to new url. You have to do permanent redirect 301. It will maintain your search engine ranking. In your dashboard, go to settings >> search preferences. In errors and redirection set new redirect and enter from old URL that redirects to your new URL. Check permanent, save the custom redirect and save changes.
Really helpful for bloggers who are thinking for domain name change.
Hi Harsh Sir!
A few days before I change own domain SEO Value to another domain. It’s true. By this method we without lost traffic can SEO value change own domain !!!
Thanks for This Special Post About SEO.
This is great and love this article that people won’t lose their search traffic but they’ll lose 1 thing and that is their domain recognition and this search traffic is the key.
I was recently banned by Adsense (my Domain). I’ve been thinking of changing domain but so scared to lose recognition. So confused
@Oscar
I can understand your fear. Well, why don’t you get .org or .net of your domain name. Redirect .com to .net version & this should not hamper your reco. You can also get domain like .buzz (I prefer this one over .net or .org)
What a great information…. I am working with webmaster from almost 4 years.. But i didn’t know such type of thing is also happened via webmasters… U r great – Harsh Sir
Nice article. The bloggers who are thinking for domain name change, instructions in this post surely help them.
Hi, Can you suggest what is the best way to completely change the CMS of the site which will include all urls change. How is it going to affect the google ranking and organic traffic? is there any tip about it?
I have an e-commerce site till now i was using opencart but now i am going to use woocommerce, also i will be changing URL structure as well.
Give me some advice if possible.
Regards
Prashant
@Prashant
You need to ensure after migration old links (not just homepage) should properly redirected to new links. There will be littel fluctuation in the traffic for a while but it will get back to normal if you have done the migration + redirection right way.
If m gonna do it from the C-penal to redirect the entire domain to a new domain name, is that the same thing as explained above or not..?
@Alex
Nope!
Thanks Harsh, Once again Great Article !. It will help many blogger Like me who would like to change their domain name.
Hey Niharika,
Glad i could help.
just now planning to change the domain name and immediately this article appeared in my inbox, thanks harsh
Thanks so much, Harsh! You helped me solve my problem. It’s lucky to read this article at the right time. Bookmarking your page now!
Hey Sakura,
Thank you fro reading. keep coming back.
Thanks Harsh, Great Article from you!. It will help many people who would like to change their domain. I am also the one, like to change one domain, bought .in domain, and getting high Indian traffic , but now i would like to target global traffic and prefer to buy .com domain for the same site without losing organic traffic. Thanks a lot for this useful tutorial. 🙂
Hey Praveen,
Glad I could help.
Excellent guide Harsh. For last three days, I am thinking for a new domain name, because I want to change my blog’s domain from visualtechno.in to some other attractive and short .com domain. But I still want to keep all my stuffs from the old domain. This will surely gonna help me in my domain name changing process. Thanks again, and have a good day. 🙂
Hey Vishal,
Happy to help.
Hey, thanks for the post. I was not aware that we can intimate directly to google about redirection, this is really good.
However i need to ask one question about redirection that, how much time google takes to completely replace old url’s with new one’s.
Hi harsh when i moved my site from http to https what i had done is i had created a new property in Webmaster search console although i have redirected my website properly too. does this also ensure same ranking in google.