How to use Google search console's 'Name change' tool?
-
Hi There,
I'm having trouble performing a 'Name change' for a new website (rebrand and domain change) in Google Search console.
Because the 301 redirects are in place (a requirement of the name change tool), Google can no longer verify the site, which means I can't complete the name change?
To me, step two (301 redirect) conflicts with step there (site verification) - or is there a way to perform a 301 redirect and have the tool verify the old site?
Any pointers in the right direction would be much appreciated.
Cheers
Ben
-
Your answer is confusing sorry.
If you're not supposed to add the old site's verification to your new site, how does anyone complete the Name Change Tool?
- Step 2 of the tool requires 301 redirects be in place before you can move on
- Step 3 of the tool requires you verify the old site
Obviously, if step 2 is working, then step 3 will always fail.
How do you complete the name change tool?
-
Don't try to edit old one. Let read old version to Google. You need to add new property. You don't need to worry about old property. Due to 301, Google auto ignore your old version.
-
Got this working.
What's not immediately obvious, is that you're allowed to use one site's verification on another.
So you have to copy the old site's verification over to the new site so that your new site is running both verifications.
Then when you run the tool, verification of the old site works.
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
-
Redirect 301 issue. I changed my domain name and Google is killing me.
Hello SEO community: I have this problem, and I don't know exactly what to do. I recently changed my domain from uclasificados.net to uclasificados.com uclasificados.net was a free classified ads for USA in spanish, and was my most affortable site, so I wanted to convert it to .com because I thought it could get more popular with the .com domain. uclasificados.com was before a free classified ads website for Colombia, but was not very popular and had poor traffic so I moved the Colombian content to uclasificados.co. Since I changed my domain from uclasificados.net to uclasificados.com I have lost a lot of ranking, and l my traffic every day is getting lower. I have already checked the 301 redirections and they are working correctly, but even thought I keep getting less traffic and less money. I have also checked with moz tools both sites link juice, and it says that uclasificados.net have better reputation. So I was wondering if I change it back and redirect uclasificados.com to uclasificados.net but I worrie that if I do that, maybe I can make things worse. What do you recommend me?
Technical SEO | | capmartin850 -
The importance of url's - are they that important?
Hi Guys I'm reading some very contrasting and confusing reviews regarding urls and the impact they have on a sites ability to rank. My client has a number of flooring products, 71 to be exact - categorised under three sub categories 1. Gallery Wood - 2. Prefinshed Wood - 3. Parquet & Reclaimed. All of the 71 products are branded products (names that are completely unrelated to specific keyword search terms. This is having a major impact regarding how we optimise the site. FOR EXAMPLE: A product of the floor called "White Grain" - the "Key Word" we would like to rank this page for is Brown Engineered Flooring. I'm interested to know, should the name of the branded product match the url? What would you change to help this page rank better for the keyword - Brown Engineered Flooring. Title page: White Grain Url: thecompanyname.com/gallery-wood/white-grain (white grain is the name of the product) Key Word: Brown Engineered Flooring **Seo Title: **White Grain, Brown Engineered Flooring by X Meta Description: BLAH BLAH Brown Engineered Flooring BLAH BLAH Any feedback to help get my head around this would be really appreciated. Thank you.
Technical SEO | | GaryVictory0 -
Changes to title and description not appearing in Google search...
www.heatwavemedia.com Search terms: san francisco video production, san francisco video production services In Google search site appears as "Heartwave Media: San Francisco Video Production Services" but I'm sure I've never used a colon in all my iterations of the title... Instead it reads "San Francisco Video Production Services | Heartwave Media" with the description "A San Francisco video production company specializing in creative corporate and commercial video services." But that's not coming up either... I'm on Wordpress and am using All in One SEO if that helps... Thoughts?
Technical SEO | | keeot0 -
Inconsistent page titles in SERP's
I encountered a strange phenomenon lately and I’d like to hear if you have any idea what’s causing it. For the past couple of weeks I’ve seen some our Google rankings getting unstable. While looking for a cause, I found that for some pages, Google results display another page title than the actual meta title of the page. Examples http://www.atexopleiding.nl Meta title: Atex cursus opleider met ruim 40 jaar ervaring - Atexopleiding.nl Title in SERP: Atexopleiding.nl: Atex cursus opleider met ruim 40 jaar ervaring http://www.reedbusinessopleidingen.nl/opleidingen/veiligheid/veiligheidskunde Meta title: Opleiding Veiligheidskunde, MBO & HBO - Reed Business Opleidingen Title in SERP: Veiligheidskunde - Reed Business Opleidingen http://www.pbna.com/vca-examens/ Meta title: Behaal uw VCA diploma bij de grootste van Nederland - PBNA Title in SERP: VCA Examens – PBNA I’ve looked in the source code, fetched some pages as Googlebot in WMT, but the title shown in the SERP doesn’t even exist in the source code. Now I suspect this might have something to do with the “cookiewall” implemented on our sites. Here’s why: Cookiewall was implemented end of January The problem didn’t exist until recently, though I can’t pinpoint an exact date. Problem exists on both rbo.nl, atexopleiding.nl & pbna.com, the latter running on Silverstripe CMS instead of WP. This rules out CMS specific causes. The image preview in the SERPS of many pages show the cookie alert overlay However, I’m not able to technically prove that the cookiescript causes this and I’d like to rule out other any obvious causes before I "blame it on the cookies" :). What do you think?
Technical SEO | | RBO0 -
Google using descriptions from other websites instead of site's own meta description
In the last month or so, Google has started displaying a description under links to my home page in its search results that doesn't actually come from my site. I have a meta description tag in place and for a very limited set of keywords, that description is displayed, but for the majority of results, it's displaying a description that appears on Alexa.com and a handful of other sites that seem to have copied Alexa's listing, e.g. similarsites.com. The problem is, the description from these other sites isn't particularly descriptive and mentions a service that we no longer provide. So my questions are: Why is Google doing this? Surely that's broken behaviour. How do I fix it?
Technical SEO | | antdesign0 -
Different IP's in one Server
Hi, I just want to ask if there is no bad effect in SEO if we do have different websites that has different IP address but has shared in only 1 server? Thank you
Technical SEO | | TirewebMarketing0 -
Redirect old URL's from referring sites?
Hi I have just came across some URL's from the previous web designer and the site structure has now changed. There are some links on the web however that are still pointing at the old deep weblinks. Without having to contact each site it there a way to automatically sort the links from the old structure www.mydomain.com/show/english/index.aspx to just www.mydomain.com Many Thanks
Technical SEO | | ocelot0 -
Issue with Joomla Site not showing in SERP's
Site: simpsonelectricnc dot com I'm working on a Joomla website for a local business that isn't ranking at all for any relevant keyword - including the business name. The site is only about six months old and has relatively few links. I realize it takes time to compete for even low-volume keywords, but I think something else may be preventing the site from showing up. The site is not blocked by Robots.txt (which includes a valid reference to the sitemap)
Technical SEO | | CGR-Creative
There is no duplicate content issue, the .htaccess is redirecting all non-www traffic to www version
Every page has a unique title and H1 tag.
The URL's are search-engine friendly (not dynamic either)
XML sitemap is live and submitted to Google WM Tools. Google shows that it is indexing about 70% of the submitted URL's. The site has essentially no domain authority (0.02) according to Moz - I'm assuming this is due to lack of links and short life on the web.
Until today, 98% of the pages had identical meta descriptions. Again, I realize six months is not an eternity - but the site will not even show up for "business name + city,state" searches in Google. In fact, the only way I've seen it in organic results is to search for the exact URL. I would greatly appreciate any help.0