change domain name without be hurt

[andes1]

I have a question

 

I have had a site for 2 years my site can be found on the search engines, I have usual clients, and so on…

But the name is too bad, for example www.xtt566yuflowerxyz.com (I know, yes was a silly error) as you see this domain will be difficult to reach a top of mind; I wonder if I can change the name to, for example, www.youflower.com. This name has some edges like: easy to remember, more commercial name, marketing advantages etc.

 

How can I do that? What is the best strategy to do it?

I don’t want to hurt: my search engine rankings, SEO work, addition to favorites, my usual costumers etc.

 

Thanks for your help

[andes1]

redirect?

[Hade]

redirect?

 

That's what I'd do. a PHP header redirect.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe this gives the browser a 301 moved permanently message, which I'm guessing will tell search engines your site has moved, so they should take that into account.

It's worked for me.

 

Then go and update links everywhere you can, for example in forums, site directories, links of affiliate sites etc.

 

Good luck!

[Guest]

redirect will work for your custmers but not for search engine they are more likey not to borther searching your site anymore

 

the easyest way is just to regestr a new domain and upload your shop to it, make the revetive change sto teh config files in the shop and admin plus upload the SQL dump for your old shop

 

then i would set up a rediret from the old shop to start sending the search engines to it and hopefuly they will take the hint and start searching the new shop Their may be an issue of search engine spamming which they dont like i.e you have two site with the same content so perhaps it woul dbe better to replace some of your text in the old website to say " you can now buy this prouduct for mynewdomain.com and have link on it that way the text will not be the same on the two sites and the search engince are more likely to follow that link that use the redirect as is my understanding of SEO which you can spend a life time learning and never know it all

[Jack_mcs]

I have a question

 

I have had a site for 2 years my site can be found on the search engines, I have usual clients, and so on…

But the name is too bad, for example www.xtt566yuflowerxyz.com (I know, yes was a silly error) as you see this domain will be difficult to reach a top of mind; I wonder if I can change the name to, for example, www.youflower.com. This name has some edges like: easy to remember, more commercial name, marketing advantages etc.

 

How can I do that? What is the best strategy to do it?

I don’t want to hurt: my search engine rankings, SEO work, addition to favorites, my usual costumers etc.

 

Thanks for your help

If you are going to rename it, it should be renamed as something useful to the search engines, like www.your-flower.com. using yourflower will be seen as one word and not help you any and is still a little confusing to your customers. Note that it should be a dash (-), not an underscore (_) that is used to separate.

 

Anytime you make such a change, you can expect your search engine position to suffer. If you are ranked relatively well, then the drop should only last 2-4 weeks.

 

Jack

[andes1]

Thanks for your replies

 

“Redirect will work for your customers but not for search engine they are more likely not to borther searching your site anymore.”

 

So, do I have to do that?

 

“then i would set up a rediret from the old shop to start sending the search engines to it and hopefuly they will take the hint and start searching the new shop Their may be an issue of search engine spamming which they dont like i.e you have two site with the same content”

 

According to Google, this is spam.

“Don't create multiple pages, sub domains, or domains with substantially duplicate content.”

http://www.google.com/support/webmasters/b...py?answer=35769

 

“www.your-flower.com. using yourflower will be seen as one word and not help you any and is still a little confusing to your customers. Note that it should be a dash (-), not an underscore (_) that is used to separate.”

 

Yes you are right.

 

Anytime you make such a change, you can expect your search engine position to suffer. If you are ranked relatively well, then the drop should only last 2-4 weeks.

 

Can you explain it to me a little more? Because I found the fallowing:

 

“Slow search engine spiders: Unless you're using some sort of paid inclusion program, it may be weeks or months before your site gets reindexed. In the meantime, the links already indexed will appear to be broken when searchers click on them.”

 

Some articles

http://www.thesitewizard.com/archive/movinghosts.shtml

 

Changes that could kill

http://www.netmechanic.com/news/vol7/design_no9.shtml

 

http://www.webmasterworld.com/forum30/29414.htm

 

I’m confused.

:blush:

[Jack_mcs]

The statement about the search engines not searching your site anymore if you redirect is not true. Otherwise, no one could ever change their site.

 

It is perfectly fine to rename your site but there are things you need to watch out for. First, you have to tell the search engines that you are renaming it. You do that by sending them a 301 permanent redirect code, as mentioned perviously. Don't duplicate the site since, as you have found, they may treat that as duplicate content, which could get the sites banned. If you have a site that is ranked number one, then the search engines are scanning it a lot more often that if it is ranked 1,000. So when you make a change on a top-ranked site, the search engines will see the changes sooner which means their databases get updated sooner and the drop in position such a change can cause will not last as long.

 

Jack

[bkellum]

The statement about the search engines not searching your site anymore if you redirect is not true. Otherwise, no one could ever change their site.

 

It is perfectly fine to rename your site but there are things you need to watch out for. First, you have to tell the search engines that you are renaming it. You do that by sending them a 301 permanent redirect code, as mentioned perviously. Don't duplicate the site since, as you have found, they may treat that as duplicate content, which could get the sites banned. If you have a site that is ranked number one, then the search engines are scanning it a lot more often that if it is ranked 1,000. So when you make a change on a top-ranked site, the search engines will see the changes sooner which means their databases get updated sooner and the drop in position such a change can cause will not last as long.

 

Jack

Andrea, I agree with Jacks post above. Also FYI: "your-flowers.com" is already taken and anything with the word "flowers" is going to be difficult to grab. You can do a search on "whois.com" to find availability for your new domain name. Have fun. ;)