Domain change: How to move to a new domain.

Switching to another domain can have a very bad effect on your position in the search engines. This is due to the fact that most search engines in their ranking algorithms use metrics both at the domain level and at the page level.

When the webmaster makes a decision to switch to a completely new domain, he must understand that in this case all the site metrics at the domain level are reset. Fortunately, there are several ways to minimize or even in some cases eliminate all the negative consequences of the transition to a new domain.

Task: Redirect all pages from one domain to a completely new domain.

An example of what we should have in the final result: www.example-old-site.com/ and all its pages should be redirected to www.example-new-site.com/ and all relevant pages.

• Create a sitemap for the old domain (XML or HTML).
• For your new domain, create content (contact information, description or review of your company's activities, maybe some plans for the future) in general, all that they want to refer to. You need to start building up the reference mass in advance.
• Register and activate your new domain.
• Register and confirm both your old and new domains in the webmaster tools toolbox.
• On the old domain, change the standard page about the 404 error, to the personal page where you will see a link with a suggestion to go to your website under the new domain.
• In the developer's environment, practice doing a redirect from the old to the new domain. Ideally, this should be a one-to-one redirect. (www.example-old-site.com/category/news-mustaches.html at www.example-new-site.com/category/news-mustaches.html)
• Make a 301 redirect from the old domain to your new one.
• Add a sitemap from your old domain to Google and Bing. This can be done in the tools for webmasters (Google Webmaster Tools) and Bing Webmaster Center (Webing Center). After this, search engine robots will go index your old site and will automatically be redirected to a 301 redirect to a new one and then change the index to your new one.
• In the toolkit for webmasters (Google Webmaster Tools) fill out the form to change the address (Change of Address).
• Create a sitemap for your new domain. This will help search engines to find new pages that were not on your old site.
• Wait until Google tools (Webmaster Tools) update and correct all errors that are displayed in the Diagnostics section.
• Check the search results for your site to be sure that all your pages are properly indexed.
• It remains only to dance with joy, that this difficult task has been successfully completed.

Note: You need to remember to visit your old domain to control how 301 redirects work.