Moving a site to a new address without getting banned

[webpromoters]

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[InetAll]

The best way to move sites from one domain name to another is to do a 301 redirect on the page level... instead of just setting it on the domain level (and assuming that pages in your new domain will have the same permalink), which is the default function in Webmaster Tools. Each page on the old domain should have another page on the new domain that it is directed to.

So for instance, if you have www.OldDomain.com/redwidgets/widget1.htm and you want it directed to www.NewDomain.com/maroonwidgets/widget1.htm, a 301 in Webmaster Tools won't work. You would have to do that in your CMS, or have your HTML programmer do it for that specific page. When not done properly, this shows up to Google as a broken link (404 not found) and consequently hurts your old domain's authority. It also just plain doesn't pass whatever "link juice" the old page had.

When you do a 301 (like in Webmaster Tools), it's also easy to miss a subdomain (which will return a 200 to Google, telling it that your old domain is still up). For obvious reasons, not good.

So it's just a matter of paying attention to details, even if that's tedious.

Does that help?

[webpromoters]

This post is deleted!

[InetAll]

For performance and security reasons, I would stay away from using .htaccess files unless you don't have other options.

If you can be sure that the pages on the new domain will be the same, and you won't be changing them anytime soon, it should be as simple as doing the 301 in Webmaster Tools. It depends somewhat on how complex your search parameters are for your products, but (at least in theory) that should do it.

I attached a video that is related... not a direct answer, but does have useful info on the subject.

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