new domain name

the Google recommended way...

[mike22]

We have a website that is relatively new (1 year or so), and we've acquired a donaim that we believe would be MUCH more appropriate… Without killing our search results…what would be the BEST way to make the switch? If Seinfeld can pull-off 'THE SWITCH'- I hope we can do the same.

Does google and most other engines discourage and/or penalize re-direct links?

Will we have to just weather-the-storm until our ranking get back to par?

Thanks in advance for ANY input!

[Birdman]

Get your new site in place, then put 301 permanant redirects on all the old pages using mod_rewrite. Do a search for mod_rewrite on this site's search and you will get plenty of good reading on the subject.

It is also good to leave your old domain in place for a few months, until it stops getting hits from robots.

If done correctly, your switch should be seamless.

[rfgdxm1]

A permanent redirect is fine. Other possibility is a "We have moved" page, with one link to the new site. If you can, a moved permanently redirect is probably best.

[rfgdxm1]

>It is also good to leave your old domain in place for a few months, until it stops getting hits from robots.

Isn't this pointless if all pages are redirected with a 301?

[nancyb]

No, not pointless. I dumped an old site over six months ago and am still getting hits to the new one from the 301s. If all you care about is Google, then you can dump the old as soon as googlebot finds you, but if the old site was listed well in other engines it can take months for them to update.

Also, don't forget all those people who bookmarked the old site.

[Birdman]

>Isn't this pointless

Yep! I retract that statement ;) I was thinking of changing hosts. Sorry 'bout that.

[WindSun]

Why not just have both domains point to the same site?

[rfgdxm1]

A problem with having both domains pointing at the same data is that Google may decide to list the site at the domain you don't want it listed at. Redirects eliminate that possibility.

[WindSun]

"at the domain you don't want it listed at.."

Seems to me that you would want Google to pick which ever one it likes, since that would be the one with the most hits.