What's my domain again?
Your website’s domain name is where it lives on the internet. It’s the first part of your web address, without the path for a particular page.
For example, our domain is cleardesign.co.uk – not to be confused with a URL such as https://cleardesign.co.uk/services/digital-marketing.
Why do domains matter?
Three main reasons:
- Branding – many companies have their brand name as their domain name. This helps users remember the address for the site. Conversely, it can help them remember your brand name.
Example: www.twitter.com
- Keywords – having keywords as part of your domain might improve how high up the search results you appear for them. However, bear in mind that it’s just one of over 200 ranking factors, and Google downgraded its importance a few years ago.
Example: www.diy.com
- Authority – this is a big one. When deciding how high up in the search results a site should appear, Google takes backlinks into account. These are links from other sites, and each one is like a vote. You wouldn’t link to a site that was rubbish, right? If a site has lots of links from high quality, relevant websites, Google’s more likely to think it’s a good site.
Your domain has an authority score out of 100 which represents how good the backlinks pointed at it are. How good your score is will be a big part in your decision whether to change domain or not – see below.
What are the advantages of changing domain?
If done carefully, a domain change can be a great move. Twitter is a good example – the social media platform became a global success after updating from twttr.com in 2006.
If you’re rebranding your business, changing the domain to match makes perfect sense. Or it might be a good opportunity to change to a keyword-based domain instead, potentially improving your SEO.
Some companies have several sites and want to merge them into one. If none of the existing domains are appropriate, a new one might be tempting.
Another reason we see clients change domain is to improve their international appeal and SEO – particularly if the existing domain ends in .co.uk.
Moving to a domain with a better authority score can also improve SEO.
What are the potential disadvantages?
When a domain change goes wrong, it can go very wrong. Looka, a company in Toronto, were forced to lay of 80% off their workforce after an SEO disaster caused by a domain change.
Why did that happen? It’s down to authority, as mentioned above. A brand-new domain that’s never had a site on it before will have an authority score of zero. It’s likely your existing domain has a reasonable score if it’s been around a while. By changing domain, you’re throwing that authority away – and it can take time to get back.
Adding redirects can help – see below – but it’s never completely safe. Theoretically, redirects transfer links and authority across, but in practice, that doesn’t always seem to be the case.
We once had a client who went out of business. Someone bought them out and used the same website with a different logo, name, and domain. Despite redirects being put in, their rankings took months to recover.
If you have any doubt over whether a domain change is a good idea, contact a digital marketing agency for advice.
How do I minimise the risks?
If you decide to go for it, here are some tips that should help:
-
Redirect your old domain to the new one. This means visitors clicking old links will still end up on a live page. And those redirects will also pass over some authority. You’ll need to keep paying for the old domain as long as you want these redirects in place.
-
Shout about it. You wouldn’t dream of not telling customers you’ve moved shop or office. The same goes for a change of domain name. You can lessen confusion by informing users via a banner on your current site’s homepage, posting on social media, or adding a section to your newsletter.
-
Get in there early. Before the move actually happens, you can build a landing page on the new domain and start earning links. This could be as simple as a ‘coming soon’ holding page. Any improvement to authority before the move will help.
- Inform Google. Set up a Search Console account for your new domain and submit the sitemap as soon as the change has taken place. That means Google will start exploring the new site straight away. Remember to update your email addresses, Google Analytics settings, Google Ads and any other tools you use as well!
Conclusion
So, should you change your domain name? There’s no easy answer unfortunately. There are lots of factors to take into account.
