Guide To Switch To A New Domain Without Loosing Traffic

Recently we moved to a new domain name (AllTechBuzz.NET) .I was very afraid at the same time curious to know how its going to effect my site ranking.But fortunately everything went well and traffic is back to normal(Infact more than before).

Does Moving To A New Domain Effects Your Blog/Website Traffic?

Yes ofcourse,if you move your site to a new domain name then it will effect your blog ranking for sure.If you are doing an permanent 301 redirect then your blog traffic should come back to normal within few days as you can see from below traffic stats of our blog.If you are completely moving to a new domain without redirecting the old domain to a new domain then your traffic comes to beginning and you have start building traffic again.

Check The Below Google Analytics Traffic Stats:

How To Switch To New Domain Without Loosing Traffic:

Redirect The Old Domain After Moving To A New Domain:

This is the first thing you have to do as soon as you move to a new domain.Do a permanent 301 redirection.If you are not familiar with this process or doing this for the first time then its better to take help of your Domain Hosting Customer Support.Even I went wrong in redirecting the domain because of which the blog went down for more than 24 hours.

Renew The Old Domain :

Always remember to renew your old domain to keep up your ranking in search engines.If you don't renew the old domain then there are chances of loosing the current page rank and search engine ranking.

Importing Comments(If you are using Third Party Commenting System):

If you are using any third party commenting system then you have to import all your comments to the new domain.Most of the popular third party commenting systems like Disqus ,Intense Debate gives you an option to migrate threads to the new domain using 301 redirection.

Keep Tracking Your Google Webmaster Stats for both Domain Names:

If you are a regular blogger then you might be using Google Webmasters Tool by this time ,if not start using Google Webmasters Tool right now.Check whether both domain are properly crawled by Google Bots or not.

Just Be Patient(Don't Panic):

After you have moved to a new domain its natural that you loose your traffic and you will see a sudden drop in few of your keywords.In such cases don't loose hope ,just be patient everything should come to normal with time.

Things Not To Do After Moving To A New Domain:

Don't Removal Old Domain URL'S From Google Search Results:

This is one of the biggest mistake even I have committed.After you move to a new domain you will see that both old domain and new domain urls will be found in google search results.In such cases you may tend to remove the old domain urls from search results using Google Webmaster Url Removal Tool,don't do that.Just leave those urls to google crawlers.Google Crawlers will naturally deindex those old domain urls with time.

Don't Leave The Old Domain Without Renewing:

As said before you should renew the old domain or else it will effect your current domain ranking very badly.

Last Words:

Move to a new domain unless you don't have any option.Changing to a new domain via 301 permanent redirection will not effect your traffic much.If you still have trouble with redirecting your domain name to new domain name then contact me.