How do I move my site to a new domain while still preserving my rankings?

• My company has decided to go through a major rebranding that includes moving our site to a new domain. How can I make sure the process is done correctly so that our hard-earned online reputation and our good Google rankings carry over to the new domain?

Answer: That's a very important question, and one that we get asked frequently. As we've discussed in several past articles, the preferred method to facilitate this change is a 301 redirect.

• How to use a 301 Redirect to Keep your Pages from Falling Off the Face of the Earth

• Unraveling the Versatile 301 Redirect

• What's the Difference between a 301, a 302 and a 307 Redirect? And which is Best for my Site?

However, don't change your domain unless you absolutely need to (such as for legal reasons) or if the new domain is just so amazing that you're willing to potentially take a temporary rankings hit to switch to it.

When making the decision to switch domains you need to be fully aware that even if you do everything right, search engines can still have trouble processing domain switches, and it can take weeks, if not months, for you to recover lost traffic, keyword rankings and inbound links you had under your previous domain.

However, as our articles outline above, there are certainly ways to minimize the negative impact of changing your domain name.

Redirect incrementally...
Our experience has shown that the first thing to do if you have a large site (1...