changing domain name, Url redirection & Google SEO

This Ebook is for webmasters who plan to migrate their website to a new domain and wish to keep google ranking. You will find information on all kind of pages redirections and their consequences on Google (google juice loss..).
This Ebook will help you to make a decision on migration considering the benefits and risks of a domain move from SEO point of view. We talk about google juice & pagerank transfer in the context of redirection. I also talk about special cases like migration to penalized domain & what to do when the domain move goes wrong. This Ebook will also help you merging domain.

This Ebook may also help people who have lost their Google ranking when moving their domain to a new domain. We will help them to identify the origin of the issue and we have a procedure to recover from domain migration that failed.


We also provide fully working redirection codes that have been tested to perform the right URL redirections. You will find here step-by-step technical actions to follow for a successful domain name move.

This Ebook contains links to Google webmaster guidelines and Matt Cutts (Google webspam chief) youtube videos we use as references.



TABLE OF CONTENTS
Read first:
Before migrating a website:
Before changing your domain name, is it worth it?
Domain extensions & Google SEO:
Keywords in the domain name:
Redirection solution for long domain names:
Aesthetic considerations :
When it is worth changing domain name:
Do it as early as you can – the facebook example:
Understanding a 301 redirect:
Does a 301 redirect link lose google juice?
Where to find htaccess?
Find the Htaccess file in cpanel:
Modifying the .htaccess file from a FTP software:
Modifying htaccess in Wordpress (stand alone hosting):
How to do a 301 redirect:
The manual domain migration solution:
1. Setup your new domain name:
2. Prepare your backlinks:
3. Setup the manual domain migration:
4. Check your urls redirection with web-sniffer.com
Check URL redirections in google webmaster tools:
5. Check redirections in google search results:
The Benefits of the manual domain migration:
Disadvantages of this strategy :
The automated full Domain migration solution:
What is a proper automated full domain migration for Google?
About the Google change of address feature:
1. setup your new domain name for a full domain migration:
2. Copy your website folders & files to a new folder:
3. Configure the automated full domain migration with .htaccess:
4. Configure the Google change of address:
5. Never remove your redirection code :
Advantages of this strategy:
Disadvantages of this strategy:
How long does it take for a domain migration to complete?
Migrating to several geographic domain extensions:
Known issues about URL redirections:
New domain does not appear in google after migration:
Www version should automatically redirect to non-www & vice-versa:
What to do when the automated domain migration goes wrong ?
Moving back to your old domain :
Domain redirects from blogspot & wordpress.com:
Points to check to see if a full automated domain migration is complete:
Conclusion :
Case studies :
Migration to a penalized domain (end 2012):
My story of a domain migration that failed (early 2013):
Useful redirection codes:
Redirection from www domain to no-www:
Redirection from non-www to www domain:
Redirection from all urls (including missing urls) to new domain :