Move international website to new domain

[hans_olo]

Hi, I'm about to move an international website with multiple locales to a new domain. Each locale is hosted in a subdirectory, e.g. example.com/uk-en/* for the UK version, example.com/ch-fr/* for the Swiss version in French or example.com/ch-de/* for the Swiss version in German. There is a thing I'm not sure about and hoped someone here already made a similar experience and might help:

Would you rather move all locales/the whole domain at once, each locale one after another or the weakest locale first and all other ones simultaneously a little later?

Thanks. :)

[aakk9999]

Welcome to WebmasterWorld, hans_olo!

Are you moving gTLD to gTLD ? I am asking this because of possible geo-targetting. Do you currently geo-target folders in WMT? If so, you must make sure the new domain is also gTLD.

Regarding the move, I would move it all at once. Do not forget to set up page-to-page redirects, and also make sure that canonicals and hreflang are correct. I would also execute "Domain Move" in Google Webmaster Tools. Google has instructions for domain move (see Transfer, move, or migrate your site [support.google.com] ), follow them closely.

If you have a control over some of external links pointing to your current website, do not change external links to a new domain until Google diggests domain move - I suggest you read this thread which may explain why: Domain Change Plummets Rankings [webmasterworld.com]

[hans_olo]

Hi aakk9999, thanks a lot for your response and links. Very, very helpful!

RE 1: Yes, it will be a move from A.com to B.com. B will have exactly the same URL paths, code, and everything like A, only the domain name and all internal links/canonicals/hreflangs will change. It will be hosted on the same server and WMT will be used as you've suggested.

RE 2: A single redirect rule will be set up to replace domain name A with B. Hope this makes sense?

RE 3: Thanks a lot, I wasn't aware.