Move established site from .co.uk to .org - good or bad idea?
-
I am currently considering moving our site from the current .co.uk domain to the .org version which we also own.
The site is established and indexed for 7 years, ranks well and has circa 10k traffic per month which is mainly UK & US traffic.
The reason for the change to the .org domain is to make the site more global facing and give us the opportunity to develop the site into multi language within directories (.org/es/ etc.) and then target those to the local search engines. For the kind of site it is (community based) it wouldn’t really work to split this into lots of separate country targeted domains.
So the choice is to either stick with the .co.uk and add the other foreign language specific content in directories within the .co.uk or move to the .org and do the same (there is also a potential third option of purchasing the .com which is currently unused but that could be pricey!)
We are also planning a big overhaul of the site with redesign, lots of added content and reorganisation of the site – but are thinking that it would be better to move the domain on a 1:1 basis first with the current design, content and URL structure in place and then do the other changes 2 or 3 months down the line.
I have read up on SEOmoz, google guidelines etc on moving a site to a new domain and understand the theoretical approach of moving the site and the steps to take (1to1 301 redirects, sitemaps on old and new etc) and I will retain ownership of the .co.uk so the redirects can remain in place indefinitely.
However having worked so hard to get the site to where it is in the search engines and traffic levels I am very worried about whether the domain change is a good move. I am more than happy to accept a temporary fluctuation in rankings & traffic for 1 – 4 weeks as reported may happen as long as I can be sure it will return after a temporary period and be as strong (or almost as strong) as the previous rankings / traffic.
Looking for peoples experiences to give me the confidence / reassurance to go ahead with this or any info on why I shouldn’t
Thanks in advance for your advice.
Adrian.
-
If you are going to make this site enormously popular then owning the .com will allow you stop the loss of type-in traffic to the .com domain.
For popular .org .gov .net and other domain extensions, lots of visitors instinctively type .com as the domain. I do it often myself when attempting to visit some .gov and .org sites. I am usually surprised at what I find there.
I know of a couple .com domains that get thousands of visitors per day because visitors don't type .gov as the extension.
-
Thanks both for your responses.
Although we enjoy good rankings and good traffic levels we are in one of the most competitive (SEO wise) sector (Gambling Affiliate) so we are no where near the dominant player for our key terms which I guess makes this sort of move even more risky.
EGOL – when you say you would go after the .com – do you mean for the purpose of blocking competition using it (ie: buy it to redirect to .co.uk) or would it make a difference to the argument for moving to a different domain if it was the .com instead of the .org?
So I guess the other question is if you guys think it is too risky to move the domain – do you think it is ok to build a multi language site on the .co.uk in directories or would it be better to try and buy all the country specific domains .es .de .fr etc.. (ideally wanted to keep it all under one domain as there will be shared forums and shared member backend and tracking all happening but will consider all options.)
-
I agree that there is more risk moving an older site than a newer site.
If you lost 10% of a little it would not be much... but if you lost 10% of a lot then that would be disappointing.
-
Hi Adrian,
Since your site is an established and indexed for 7 years property, I would not move it since
1- The links are actually pointing at your .co.uk domain and that won't change even with proper redirection.
2- People must probably knows this URL in some proportion
3- Your domain has build a trust from search engines that I would not play with to start from a new one.
Maybe someone would think different, but I prefer building a new site with new content or new content to my site then to risk it's futur.
-
If you redirect you will probably lose a small amount of linkjuice and possibly some anchor text value.
Do you have your closest competitors soundly beaten?
If you are clearly the dominant site in your niche then your risk of loss is lower but still possible.
(I would go after that .com.... I would be willing to pay quite a bit for it)
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
Redirecting old html site to new wordpress site
Hi I'm currently updating an old (8 years old) html site to wordpress and about a month ago I redirected some url's to the new site (which is in a directory) like this... Redirect 301 /article1.htm http://mysite.net/wordpress/article1/
Technical SEO | | briandee
Redirect 301 /article2.htm http://mysite.net/wordpress/article2/
Redirect 301 /article3.htm http://mysite.net/wordpress/article3/ Google has indexed these new url's and they are showing in search results. I'm almost finished the new version of site and it is currently in a directory /wordpress I intend to move all the files from the directory to the root so new url when this is done will be http://mysite.net/article1/ etc My question is - what to I do about the redirects which are in place - do I delete them and replace with something like this? Redirect 301 /wordpress/article1/ http://mysite.net/article1/
Redirect 301 /wordpress/article2/ http://mysite.net/article2/
Redirect 301 /wordpress/article3/ http://mysite.net/article3/ Appreciate any help with this0 -
Discontinued Product on a Ecommerce site
To create a better customer experience, rather then remove discontinued product from a site, we remove many links from the page, and remove it from the navigation of the site, but we keep the url and show that the product can no longer be purchased. This keeps the links, keeps the content, and gives customers the opportunity to find other products we have. But I often wonder if we should allow this items to just 404 and be done with them. Here is an example. http://www.americanmusical.com/Item--i-dyn-bm5a-list. Any advice?
Technical SEO | | dianeb1520 -
Want to move site to wordpress and keep links without using redicrects
I have an old cluny site that has been around for about 56 years. It is on the homestead platform. I want to move the site to a thesis theme 2.1 wordpress platform without losing my links. I would prefer not to do 301 redicrects. With thesis I can specify the URL for each page of the wordpress site, however the wordpress site is hosted on hostgator as a subdomain of another site and the other problem is that wordpress adds a back slash that is not present on the old site. I can, however add .html to the URL's for pages on the wordpress site to conform to the URL's on the old html site. Will this work? thx Paul p.s. the URL for my old site is www.affordable-uncontested-divorce.com
Technical SEO | | diogenes0 -
Seo For Forum Sites
I have forum site.I've opened it 2 months ago.But there is a problem.Therefore my content is unique , my site's keyword ranking constantly changing..Sometimes my site's ranking drops from first 500.After came to 70s. I didn't make any off page seo to my site.What is the problem ?
Technical SEO | | tutarmi0 -
Open Site Explorer Question
In OSE I have 3 of my top 5 pages as store.com, store.com/Default.asp, and store.com/default.asp -- I have a canonical version of at store.com/default.asp. I have inbound links coming to all three urls -- b/c OSE is listing these as seperate pages does that mean the link juice is not being consolidated? Or is this not something to worry about?
Technical SEO | | IOSC0 -
Is it a good idea to use the rel canonical tag to refer to the original source?
Sometimes we place our blog post also on a external site. In this case this post is duplicated. Via the post we link to the original source but is it also possible to use the rel canonical tag on the external site? For example: The original blogpost is published on http://www.original.com/post The same blogpost is published on http:///www.duplicate.com/post. In this case is it wise to put a rel canonical on http://www.duplicate.com/post like this: ? What do you think? Thanks for help! Robert
Technical SEO | | Searchresult0 -
Does it matter if I leave image links pointing to old site when I move a wordpress blog?
Hi everyone I am moving a blog from one site to another. I have all the 301 redirects etc under control, but my question has to do with image links in the blogs. The image links all point over to the old site once the posts are copied over. Is this a major problem from an SEO perspective? Lots of links pointing out to an old site? It won't matter from the users perspective as I have 'none' for the image URL, so the user will never know. I will reload all the images if necessary but boy that will be a lot of work. Or is there a shortcut? Thanks very much Wendy
Technical SEO | | Chammy0 -
Will 301 redirecting a site multiple times still preserve the original site value?
Hi, All! If site www.abc.com was already 301 redirected to site www.def.com, and now the site owner wants to redirect www.def.com to www.ghi.com - is there any concern that it's not going to work, and some of the original linkjuice, rank, trust, etc. is going to vanish? Or as long as the 301s are set up right, should you be able to 301 indefinitely? Does anyone have any experience with actually doing this and seeing good/bad/neutral results? Thanks in advance! -Aviva B
Technical SEO | | debi_zyx0