subject: After Switching Domains, How Do You Minimize Traffic Loss? [print this page] Sometimes, switching domain names is necessary. There are a number of things which might necessitate this type of action, such as a more SEO friendly domain or a better branded domain opening up. However, when you switch domains, there is always a chance that you could experience some kind of a drop off in your traffic. With a few economical search engine optimization techniques and a little planning ahead though, you should be able to reduce this loss to almost nothing.
The first thing that you should do when you are switching domain names is to be sure to let all of your regular visitors know about the change. When worrying about traffic loss from a domain name change, you have to consider the identifiability and branding of your website. Many repeat visitors come to a site simply by typing the URL directly into their navigation bar. You therefore want to make sure that you announce the change. This can even be a great marketing opportunity to increase rather than decrease traffic, as you can use strategies like issuing a press release to draw attention to the change of URL.
Advertising and notifications aside, the strategy that most people use to maintain their traffic flow is to set up a permanent redirect at their old domain. This may not be possible in situations where a previous domain name is sold, but in most cases this is a great method for ensuring that visitors who knew the old URL will keep flowing to the new site.
One very important thing is to not set up a temporary redirect instead. This is something which most experienced SEO and Google specifically recommend against. In fact, Google actually says in their help files that placing a temporary redirect on a site could result in it ultimately being penalized in the SEO rankings.
The redirect that you should use to point from the old URL to the new one is called a permanent 301 redirect. Using this redirect is considered acceptable in terms of search engine optimization, and putting one into place shouldn't damage your rankings too much. If you can, you might want to consider leaving up the full site at the old domain while the new one goes up at the new domain for some time. Then the new site should start to generate its own traffic again before the old one gets removed.
