On the line of business growth, you may realize the need to change your domain name. For instance, one may have made an uninformed choice and now considers changing the domain name to an SEO based name such as a shorter name. On the other hand, business growth may compel you to change your domain name to a cheap pk domain for better-localized traffic. Undoubtedly, the process to change the domain name is relatively easy, but one must know the consequences as well. For instance, it may tarnish all the SEO efforts you have been doing for your current website, and you will have to start from scratch.
How does domain name change affect SEO?
Indeed, the search engines have already indexed the pages on the current domain. If you change your domain, it may throw the search engine for a loop. Furthermore, the domain authority intrigues the search engines to propel your content to the top of search results. You build your domain authority as a track record over time. If one hurries or decides carelessly, all the efforts would zero. However, you can also opt to change domain safely while preserving the domain authority and incoming traffic following the suit that communicates the change with the search engines and visitors.
Change the domain name without losing on SEO
If you have decided to register pk domainfor your existing website, you must follow the pre-set strategy to preserve your SEO efforts even with the new domain. Here, we have broken down the procedure into various steps for a better and clear understanding, such as follows.
- Due Diligence
The first and foremost step is to study your chosen domain well enough to know if it has some history. If you are going to an entirely new pk domain registration, you don’t need to worry about this step. However, if this is not the case, a thorough check of the domain name history is a must.
Indeed, the backlink network of a domain is the primary factor that characterizes the domain name history. Hence, you must ensure that the backlink network of your chosen website has not been red-flagged for any malicious or suspicious activities by the search engines. For example, to change the domain name, you must check any low-value link building or traffic from spam websites to the new domain. For this, you can check the backlink network quality with the backlink checker tool available online. Mainly, the free versions offer you a glance over some of the backlinks that may give an idea about the overall history. Furthermore, you may also add the website’s existing pages to the Google search console to check how it has been indexed.
Importantly, if you buy cheap pk domain from a reputed web hosting & domain agency such as Navicosoft, you won’t have to conduct step 1 to change the domain name.
- Site migration
The second step is to clone the files on your website to the new domain name. This is a pretty technical step. If the hosting provider for the new domain is different from the current domain, you must shift your web files to the new host. On the contrary, you will have to copy your site files to a new location from one place. Again, one may use the dedicated migration plugin or adopt a manual approach. Typically, WordPress users have to create the new SQL databases and use the import/export feature to clone the database contents.
- Redirecting
To get the traffic volumes from the old domain to the new website after pk domain registration, you must redirect the traffic. It helps the search engines understand that your website has shifted to a new domain name and preserves your search engine rankings when you change the domain name.
- Report google about the change
It would be best to inform the search engines that you have got to register the pk domain anew. Indeed, the best yet a free tool for the task is the Google Search Console. For the purpose, you can use the “change of address” option that will prompt verification of your new domain. Otherwise, you may also consider submitting the sitemaps of both the old and new domain names. Hence, Google identifies the 301 redirects you have set up in step 3.
- Testing
Testing is the new task once the migration is complete with the new pk domain registration. Now, you must check if everything on your website functions smoothly for at least some days. You can check your website performance with the following;
- Users Feedback
Your friends and followers may catch the errors you may have missed. Indeed, visitors are more critical.
- Google analytics
Check if your website on the new domain is being tracked by google analytics properly. In a week or so, check if the new website receives the same traffic volume as the old one. Importantly, google analytics also indicates how many 404 pages have been shown to your visitors. Hence, you can spot the issue with your redirection when you change the domain name
- GSC
Google search console proves to be the best for checking the website performance. In addition, it sends you a notification via email in case of any significant issues.
Some other tools to check the website performance include Uptime robot, Varvy SEO tool, PageSpeed Insights, etc.
- Post-migration SEO
Last but not least, you have to update your information on every platform. For example, you may wish to update your email account concerning the new domain for consistency. Once you have updated the email account, you must update your contact info and set the new email as the receiving mail for the contact forms you may have. Do not forget to reconfigure the email clients.
Update all the mentions of your brand according to the new domain, such as social media accounts, business cards & stationery, advertising campaigns, email signatures, Google My Business listings, and other online accounts.
You must keep your old website up for at least 2 to 3 months for the 301 redirects to work and drive the traffic to your new domain. However, the website must not load at this point. It may be considered duplicate content, but it should be available only for redirects.
When you change the domain name, you may also connect to the owners of sites linking to the old domain ask them to link to your new pk domain or any other domain. Though it may be time-consuming, taking a chance will be to your credit.