kapow - 6:44 pm on Apr 27, 2006 (gmt 0)

This would be wonderful!

However, there is a big difference between Google recognising the domain has changed and Google promising ALL of your ranks will be retained.

I would pay up to £1000 if I know the ranks would NOT be lost when we changed the domain of a client site.
We manage may sites for many types of business. It is VERY common for them to get the wrong name and reolise later they need to change it. We manage some sites that have excellent ranks but NEED to change domain because the one they are using is not right, but we dare not change it for fear of losing 7 years establishment-rank.

Also: This would be a great opportunity for Google to offer other 'declarations' in the same process e.g.
- Declare official domain
- Declare country of domain
- Declare city of domain (currently they use Yellow pages - which cost Google!)

A simple way it could be done is by Google stating they recognise a certain metta tags e.g.
<meta domain = newdomain.co.uk>
...Because only the right authority is can change the html. This restricts abuse, like the wrong people being able to change the domain for a site.

Benefit to Google
- More accurate SERP
- More accurate location listing (e.g. UK listing for .com hosting abroad).
- More impressed world

There are many .com sites out there that would like to change to their country domain but daren't because of fear of rank injury.

I have tracked the change process when a 301 is implemented, and seen too often the important key-word-ranks do not catch up, while the rubbish ones do. Yes, they should make 301s work properly but ANY SOLUTION that avoids the confusion would be great.