When your business expands, adds a new partner, or undergoes a brand change, you may decide to adopt a new domain name. You should definitely register the new domain name so that is properly represents your business.

1. Does Changing My Domain Name Affect SEO?
When your business expands, adds a new partner, or undergoes a brand change, you may decide to
adopt a new domain name. You should definitely register the new domain name so that is properly
represents your business. And you should utilize that domain name. What you should not do,
however, is jump to reconfigure your website with the new domain name.
Photo by Jonathan Ruchti
In a word, Yes. Updating your website’s primary domain name and all of the links within it will affect
your SEO.
I have seen it happen to a few of our clients, and it took months to recover the efforts put into the SEO

2. marketing. Consider all of the links that you built as you submitted your website listing to various
directories, classifieds and social networking profiles. Consider the recognition by Google that your
unique domain name has earned after months of content writing about your industry. If you simply
replace your domain name with a new one, that reputation is almost erased.
Some have disagreed with this point, claiming if you have a simple redirect of the old domain name to
the new one, everything will be just fine. But I beg to differ, because I have seen the affects even
when an organization kept it’s old domain name and changed it to a forwarding name, updated
Webmaster Tools, and had all their 301 redirects set up and ready.
Can you keep both domain names? Yes.
I recommend that you retain the original domain name for the primary website configuration, keeping
all the links and pages and url structures in tact, so you aren’t really changing the architecture or
reputation name of the site. When you acquire the new domain name, set it up as a domain pointer
(also called a domain forwarder by some hosts), and make sure you have the proper 301 redirect set
up in your htaccess file / website configuration to recognize the new domain name as a forwarding
name to the “old” one.
This setup allows you to have both domain names operating, allowing you to use the new name for
marketing purposes, on your business cards, on brochures, etc. You can even ask your web host (or
email host) to create email forwarding options for the new domain name so you can receive all your
email in one place, without worrying about which email address people are writing to.
What if I absolutely must change the domain name, and keeping the old one is not an option?
Sometimes a website name must change permanently – maybe because maybe its legal or agency
regulated policies require it. There are things you can do to prepare your audience, your customer
base and search engines for this change. This does not guarantee that your website marketing will go
unaffected, but it makes it better prepared to succeed under the new name.
Soft-launch your domain name as a pointer/forwarder before your official launch date.
Go ahead and register the new domain name so you know exactly what it is and can start sharing it
with your current customers, members and prospects before the official switch. It can take people

3. months or even years to stop emailing and visiting your old domain name.
Alert your social network followers.
After your announcement and well in advance of your official website change, start announcing to your
followers on Facebook, Twitter, and Google Plus that you are adopting the new brand name and that
you will soon have a new domain name. This will alert your followers, get your community excited,
and also create content about the new name on the Web.
Post a blog about your brand update.
Creating content with your new name can help to start building it’s reputation. Pre-announce the plans
and then announce it again on the official date.
Submit a press release.
When your Board of Directors or management team announces the name change, write a press
release and distribute it to local news outlets online and offline. Use PR websites such as PR.com
and PRWeb.com to extend the reach of your press release and gain traffic to your website. This also
builds content on the Web about your website with your name name mentioned.
Coordinate with your web developer.
Switching a domain name is not necessarily a quick fix. Give your web developers plenty of notice to
reconfigure the website and all of its web pages and links in time for the launch date. For more
information you can also visit at www.webii.net