changing domain

[Icecube]

I need to change a domain, I can keep the old one but I need the traffic to be sent to the new one, so my idea is to add the current one as addon domain in cpanel

how can I do it in order to not throw away the link building that has been done for the current one?

I rank 1st on google for a couple good keywords which are actually driving traffic, so I don't really want to make errors.

is it possible to switch to a new domain and pass the #1 spot to the new one?

 

[Fat Tom]

you might want to do an .htaccess redirect on the old domain to the new domain

 

[Icecube]

thank you Fat Tom

have you done this? did the new domain replace the old one in the serps?

 

[silentbob]

I tested this once. I wanted to move one of my sites to a more keyword rich domain to get better rankings. I used htaccess to 301 redirect every page correctly. After about a week I lost a lot of my good rankings and my traffic halved.

I did not do any linkbuilding to the new url nor did I try to get sites to update their links to the new url. Maybe had I done this the results would be better. Now (2 years later), still without any linkbuilding, the rankings are back and traffic is at the same levels as before.

I'd love to hear other peoples experience with this though.

 

[John__N]

In my experience, if you 301 redirect properly not just the domain name but also the internal pages to the similar named internal pages of the new domain respectively and leave it redirected for 6 months, all the link juice and rankings get transferred to the new domain. Just dont break the redirection before 6 months to a year and you should be fine.
But my new domain was aged. So also see what more experienced people have to say on this. Just my 2 cents.

 

[-Matt-]

thank you Fat Tom

have you done this? did the new domain replace the old one in the serps?

Create a file named .htaccess and open in a text editor and add this code:

Options +FollowSymLinks
RewriteEngine on
RewriteRule (.*) http://www.NEWDOMAIN.com/$1 [R=301,L]

now oldomain.com will go to newdomain.com and olddomain.com/whatever7.php will redirect to newdomain.com/whatever7.php etc.

 

[Icecube]

ok for those who care: switched to a new domain, the new one replaced the old one in the search results and ranks #1. Great.

I registered a domain which is very similar to the old one, same registrar, same registration details ( protected details exactly as the previous domain ).

Pointed it to the same space on the server in order to make it serve the same content. Not as a redirect.

I didn't change anything on the website, then verified both the old one and the new one in gwt, followed the procedure to request a domain change and after 2 weeks the new one is ranking where the previous one was.