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Best SEO Practices During a Website Transfer

By Chuck Aikens

Republish: EasyPublish™ Published: 06Nov2009 Word count: 426 Viewed: 163 time(s) Get Free Content For Your Site

Although the transfer of a website to a new domain name is usually not good for SEO, it sometimes becomes necessary.

Some valid reasons for a company to move domain names include: brand or image change, resolve trademark disputes, or make its domain easier to remember.

No matter the reason, there are some steps you can take to ensure good SEO during a website transfer:

1. If you haven't already determined the new domain name and registered it, consider making SEO a part of your name selection strategy. Domain Names that contain popular, relevant search keywords often rank well in results, especially on Bing.com.

For example, "www.modemdrivers.com" is an SEO friendly domain because it clearly separates the keywords and uses a phrase people often search for. However, many keyword-free domains have been successful as well.

2. Update your current site backlinks with the new domain name. Contact sites with links to your website and request that they are updated to the new domain. Prioritize sites with high Google PageRank levels. You probably won't be able to get all of the links changed, but a few is better than none. Be sure to change links in areas under your control as well; forum profiles, off-site blogs, eBay listings, etc.

3. If you are to retain ownership of the old domain name, use redirection to transfer visitors (and search engine "spiders") to the new pages.

Apply 301 redirects rather than META "Refresh" tags; 301 redirects work better for both website users and SEO. The website transfer process is a good opportunity to make sure your page URLs are SEO friendly - feel free to set up a new directory structure or change your page naming technique, if necessary.

4. Carry out the transfer in a single step, rather than slowly phasing one domain out. Keeping two functioning, separate sites at the same time is not good for SEO, because search engines don't rank duplicate content as highly in their results.

Make sure users receive adequate notice of the domain name transfer, and ensure that they understand the same company remains in control of the new website.

Remember not to leave any links to the old domain on the new site.

Following these steps should help you maintain good SEO practices during a website transfer, creating as little loss in search engine rankings as possible.

There are a lot of things that can go wrong in a domain name change, an SEO marketing firm can assist your company and website in this process and provide additional advice on conducting the transfer effectively.

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