Changing domains without losing SEO

  • Unknown's avatar
    bucketm0use · Member ·

    I bought a new domain name, and essentially I’d like to

    1) Keep the website layout and content exactly the same, besides the domain name, including all posts and pages and comments
    2) Have all old page links redirect to new ones (such as http://www.oldsite.com/about redirect to http://www.newsite.com/about)
    3) Not affect the SEO I’ve built up over the years with my old domain name

    There are a bunch of tutorials on Youtube about how to do this, but they all use plugins, and I only have a Personal plan, not a Business plan. I’d like to avoid paying $300 to just move my domain properly! Haha

    I see that under settings, there is an option to add another domain to the site domain list. If I were to add my new domain name there, and then change the new domain to the “primary site address”, will this transfer all the data and redirect properly?

    If not… is it possible to pay for, say, the Business plan to use just the one migration plugin, then switch back to Personal afterwards? Or would that erase everything I did with the migration plugin?

    Thank you!

    The blog I need help with is: (visible only to logged in users)

  • kokkieh · Staff ·

    Hi there,

    Changing domains will usually result in a drop in search engine results. This is because search engines need to re-index your content at the new domain. But this is temporary, and once the re-indexing is complete your SEO should be back to where it was.

    That said, there’s ways you can mitigate it.

    First, make sure you’ve verified your site at the current domain in Google Search console:

    https://wordpress.com/support/site-verification-services/#google-search-console

    Then, once you switch to the new domain, you can use the address change tool in Search Console to pro-actively notify Google of the address change, so they can migrate your search results from the old domain to the new one on their end:

    https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/9370220?hl=en

    I see that under settings, there is an option to add another domain to the site domain list. If I were to add my new domain name there, and then change the new domain to the “primary site address”, will this transfer all the data and redirect properly?

    Nothing needs to be transferred or migrated, as your site doesn’t change in any way. You’re just changing the “label” people use to access your site.

    But otherwise, yes, once you set the new domain as primary, the current domain and the underlying example.wordpress.com address will automatically redirect to the new primary domain. Regular visitors to your site won’t even notice anything has changed, unless they’re paying attention to their browser address bar.

    However, keep in mind your current domain will only redirect for as long as you keep it registered on your site, in addition to the new domain. Should you let the current domain expire, or cancel it, any links that reference it will stop working immediately. For links internally on your site you can use a redirection plugin on our Business Plan to still redirect those, or even a search-and-replace plugin to rewrite them completely.

    But links shared elsewhere on the web, e.g. on social media, or bookmarked in people’s browsers, will simply stop resolving – nothing you do on your site can redirect links that exist outside of your site.

    I hope this answers your questions, but please let me know if anything is still not clear.

  • Unknown's avatar
    bucketm0use · Member ·

    Thank you, this has been very helpful.

    One thing I’m concerned about is my website has a lot of links to specific posts out on the web currently. People aren’t typically “regular visitors” as much as they more likely bookmark specific pages/posts, or are directed to those posts from in-text links (such as on Reddit). You mention:

    But links shared elsewhere on the web, e.g. on social media, or bookmarked in people’s browsers, will simply stop resolving – nothing you do on your site can redirect links that exist outside of your site.

    So if another site links to http://www.oldsite.com/about, clicking on that link won’t resolve anything? Changing my primary domain to the new domain (while keeping the old domain still active) won’t automatically redirect to http://www.newsite.com/about?

    The few Youtube videos I saw showed the old link resolving to http://www.newsite.com/about, but this was with the various plugins. Is that the only way?

  • Unknown's avatar
    helper-heroponriki · Member ·

    So if another site links to http://www.oldsite.com/about, clicking on that link won’t resolve anything? Changing my primary domain to the new domain (while keeping the old domain still active) won’t automatically redirect to http://www.newsite.com/about?

    If you have both oldsite.com and newsite.com active under your account then any links to oldsite.com would redirect to newsite.com.

    Looking under your account, you have two domains:

    1. A domain only connection for mousebitelabs.com (domain registered with Google)

    2. A registered domain thepoorstudenthobbyist.com (this is your primary domain and registered with WordPress.com)

    The issue here looks to be that the domain nameservers for mousebitelabs.com aren’t pointing to WordPress.com – so any traffic to that domain would not be automatically redirected unless you change that. You can see how to do this here:

    https://wordpress.com/support/domains/connect-existing-domain/#change-your-domains-name-servers

    I’m not sure which of your domains is the “oldsite” versus the “newsite”, but right now, the one domain is not set up to work with your site and that redirect would not be in place.

    I know that was a lot of information, so let us know if you have any questions.

  • Unknown's avatar
    bucketm0use · Member ·

    Oh I didn’t realize you could see that much detail haha

    Yes, last night I purchased mousebitelabs.com, that will be the new domain. I realized afterwards I should’ve bought the domain through WordPress instead, since now I have to wait to transfer the domain, but I’m not too concerned about that at the moment – I can wait. I was asking more for future knowledge.

    Basically, I want to be sure all the links to my posts and pages, like http://www.thepoorstudenthobbyist.com/store will automatically redirect to http://www.mousebitelabs.com/store. I’m not concerned that it isn’t the case *currently* but askong for future reference when I do the switch.

    Thank you for the help – this is much better than searching Google or YouTube!

  • Unknown's avatar
    helper-heroponriki · Member ·

    Oh I didn’t realize you could see that much detail haha

    Yes, anyone designated as “Staff” on the forums is a WordPress.com employee so we have access to your site backend and account information. 😁

    I realized afterwards I should’ve bought the domain through WordPress instead, since now I have to wait to transfer the domain, but I’m not too concerned about that at the moment – I can wait. I was asking more for future knowledge.

    You don’t have to wait! While there is a domain transfer lock the first 60 days after a domain is registered, you can set the nameservers to whatever you want now. Since you registered it with Google, you can read here on how to set up “custom nameservers”:

    https://support.google.com/domains/answer/3290309?hl=en

    You would want to set your nameservers to:

    ns1.wordpress.com
ns2.wordpress.com
ns3.wordpress.com

    After that change propagates (usually within a day), you can set that domain to be your primary on your WordPress.com site.

    There is a 60 day wait before you can transfer your domain to us. The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) guidelines mandates this waiting period. For your domain, you could start a transfer on December 29, 2021. Here are the steps you would need to take at that time:

    On Google’s end: https://support.google.com/domains/answer/3251178?hl=en

    On WordPress.com’s end: https://wordpress.com/support/move-domain/incoming-domain-transfer/

    Hope that helps! Let us know if you have other questions.

  • Unknown's avatar
    bucketm0use · Member ·

    I actually found that last night and did it before posting this! So hopefully that kicks in soon, I just checked and it still isn’t redirecting. But again, I don’t mind waiting haha

    So the only thing I have left to make sure, is the last part of the post:

    Basically, I want to be sure all the links to my posts and pages, like http://www.thepoorstudenthobbyist.com/store will automatically redirect to http://www.mousebitelabs.com/store. I’m not concerned that it isn’t the case *currently* but asking for future reference when I do the switch.

    If I simply switch my primary domain to mousebitelabs.com, will this happen? Or will the links like thepoorstudenthobbyist.com/store break, or redirect to the homepage?

  • staff-blorbo · Staff ·

    All links under domains attached to the site will cleanly redirect to links under the primary domain. :)

  • Unknown's avatar
    bucketm0use · Member ·

    I did the switch, seems like it’s working well!
    Not really sure what the plugins would do differently, but thank you all for the help regardless :)

  • kokkieh · Staff ·

    You don’t need any plugins for this.

    My mention of plugins in my previous reply was specifically regarding internal links on your own site, if you were to cancel the thepoorstudenthobbyist.com.

    But if you continue keeping that domain registered and connected to your site, there’s nothing more you need to do to keep the old links redirected – that’s handled automatically on our end, based on the primary domain you set :)

  • The topic ‘Changing domains without losing SEO’ is closed to new replies.