What To Do Before/After Changing The Domain Name

Are you going to change the domain name of your blog? Before you get your domain name changed or re-branded, read this post to gain some important tips which will help you in getting your traffic, readers and ranking back to new domain. Commonly, people change their blog's domain for several reasons. In blogger, people start blogging with .blogspot.com sub domain and when they came to know that blogging is going to be their profession, they get serious in blogging and thinking about to get top level domain name for their blogs. No matter which reason you have, this post is for all who are changing domain name but one thing which is most important and you will need that is the control panel of your old domain.
Here are some tips for you which are going to help you alot. Read the passages carefully to get the point.

Inform Your Visitors First

So, First of all you've to inform your fans, readers, visitors or users that you're going to change the domain name so that they shouldn't worry if your site is not working or what. Also ask your visitors for suggesting new name for your blog. You can inform your readers by posting on Facebook Page, Tweeting on Twitter or even you can send email to your email subscribers. By this your readers will be  in attention and you will also get some good name suggestions.

Backup Your Complete Blog

So, This is also important that you should backup your whole blog so that if any big issue occurs then you may have backup of your blog for safety. Mostly, this doesn't happen to anyone but having this can really save your efforts.

Choosing Best Web Hosting Service

Now it's time to choose the best web hosting service. Best web hosting service is that service which is best for you. How best ? It can be cheapest or affordable for you, it must have easy payment methods which may appropriate with you, it's server doesn't down, great live chat support or 24x7 support. These are some things which a web hosting service must have so that you may not get in trouble in future.

Changing The Domain Name

So, It's time to change the domain name. Before you change the domain make sure that above tips you have done and you also have chosen a good name for your blog. Best web hosting service is also important so register your domain on any web hosting service which is suitable for you. Then place the new domain on your blog or setup your domain on your blog. 

Redirect Your Old Domain To New Domain [Most Important]

So, This one is the most important to redirect your old domain to new domain. By this you will continue getting traffic even if you've changed the domain. No matter from where you are getting traffic when someone will open your old URL it will be redirected to your new URL. This will also help you to get the alexa ranking and Google Page Rank back to new domain. But you will need to wait few days and it also needs hard work. In order to get Alexa ranking and Google PR back you must check that your redirect is working fine.

Redirect yourdomain.com To www.yourdomain.com

This is also important because most of people use to write only yourdomain.com is the browser and if your redirect is not enabled then it will not redirect they you might loose that visitor. You can easily redirect it by contacting your web hosting service or from where you've got the domain. If you are using Blogger then you can easily redirect to by going to Settings >> Basic >> Edit (On Domain) >> Tick mark (redirect yourdomain.com to www.yourdomain.com) and hit save button.

Publish Post About Your New Domain

Now it's time to tell your readers that you've successfully changed the domain name. Write a story that why you changed the domain name? what was the fault in old domain name? how you changed the domain name? or whatever it can be. I just want to say that write a post that must be perfect from every side and it must have some good content which must be worth reading. Also categorize that post in news or announcements category.

Re-Submit Sitemap To Google [Personal Experienced]

Now you should submit the sitemap again with your new domain. Make sure that you're using the same webmaster tools account which you've used in old domain. Don't remove the old sitemap, remain it as it is. Just again submit sitemap to Google from new domain. Before submitting the sitemap, once again make sure that your redirecting to new domain is working fine. Now submit it. You must be thinking that Google might consider your blog's content as copied content. But no way, Google is clever. He will check that both blog's owner is same or a single person then he will check that redirection is also enabled. Now what will he do ? He will just replace the old domain's search results to new domain. But this will take about one or two months to complete.

Re-Submit Sitemap To Bing and Yahoo

For Bing and Yahoo, you will have to completely remove the old domain from Bing and Yahoo webmaster tools then again submit it with new domain and also verify your new domain/blog/site. Now you have to wait about one or two months to get it indexed. After your blog is completely indexed with new domain then you will start getting traffic.

Continue Publishing Posts and Increasing BackLinks

So, All the work is done. Now you can continue publishing new posts and also working with your backlinks. This will help you to get your blog completely re-indexed easily and quickly. Your readers love your content so stay providing unique content.

So friends, It was my personal experience which I've shared with you. I hope this little long post in gonna help you a lot. If you are facing any problem then just leave your comments below and let's face that issue. Stay connected with us for more and also subscribe us.

Zo Sangpy