Should we move to a new domain??

[2comarketing]

Working with a company that is considering moving to a new domain and wanted some advice.They have 2 domains (they own both) and one is a shorter version of the other.

The current domain is over 10 years old and has a domain authority score of 80. It is 9 characters long.

The new domain (which they also own) has a DA score of 43 and is only 3 characters long.

The debate is as much about branding as anything but there is a concern on how it will affect search.

I was hoping for so advice and any pitfalls others may have experienced.

Thanks!!

[SL_SEM]

I would probably be thinking about two things:

First for the domain authority / page rank, if you do the redirecting correctly (301) then you will probably see an initial drop off as the search engines try to figure out what happened, and then you should go back to where you were as it should still be taking into account the old domain's information along with the new domains info.

So the question there is whether or not the change is worth that minor hit.

So the second thing I would be asking is what does changing to the new domain get me?

Is it more memorable? Does it fit the brand better? Does it get your highest value keyphrase as the URL? etc... each answer would sway me one way or another.

As an example I once new of a site that sold church furniture, and they had the chance to get "Pews.com", while switching over to this URL would be a pain, I would totally suggest going after it, and embracing it as it hit one of their strong keywords.

The other option of course was to build a subsidiary site just for pews (since they sold more than just pews), but that is where you need to look at your brand, and how you want to market yourself over time. For the pews.com example I could easily see re-creating the brand as "Pews.com" as that is much more memorable, and quickly tells users in my industry what I do, and how to find me all at once.

The branding question is obviously the bigger one here as I think the historical value, and links of the domain will transfer over fine as long as you do the technical pieces you need to.