Domain change - slow & easy, or rip off the bandaid?

[Goedekers]

We are laying the foundation for a domain change. I'm gathering all of the requirements listed from Google (301's, sign up the new domain with WMT, etc), customer communications, email system changes, social updates, etc. But through everything I've read, I'm not quite clear on one thing.

We have the option of keeping our current domain and the new domain running off the same eCommerce database at the same time. This means that we have the option of running two exact duplicates simultaneously.

The thought is that we would slowly, quietly turn on the new domain, start the link building and link domain changing processes, and generally give the new domain time to make sure it's not going to croak for some reason. Then, after a week or so, flip on a full 301 rewrite for the old domain.

There are no concerns regarding order databases, as both domains would be running off of the same system. The only concern I have in the user experience is making sure I have internal links all set to relative, so visitors to the new domain aren't flipped over and freaked out by an absolute URL.

I'm not confident that this co-existing strategy is the best approach, though. I'm wondering if it would be better from an SEO (and customer) perspective to

1. Have the new domain active and performing a 302 redirect from the new domain to the corresponding page on the old domain
2. When we're ready to flip the switch, implement the 301 redirect from old to new (removing the 302, of course) at switch time.

Any thoughts or suggestions?

[Jinx14678]

Hi,

others may have a varying opinon, but of course a canonical could be used to clear up any dup content issues while you slowly do the transition, but I am not sure I see the value in this specific situation of keeping both up an running. But I may be neglecting to take something into consideration.

This kind of old, but may help with a few questions http://www.seomoz.org/blog/expectations-and-best-practices-for-moving-to-or-launching-a-new-domain

But personally i would just do everyting i could to make sure I was ready, then just "rip off the bandaid" Keeping both up and running seems it might be setting you up for some confusion in the longrun.

[Cyrus-Shepard]

Hi Goedekers,

I have to agree with Shane on this one. There may be legitamite reasons for wanting to run both websites at once, but the potential to send confusing signals to the search engines is so great that I would highly recommend to "rip the band aid."

The biggest risk is mass duplicate content - which might take a hit on your rankings for weeks or months. Yes, you can solve this with either canonical tags or meta robots or redirects, but usually the best solution is the simplest.

Sounds like you've done your homework. If you haven't already, I highly recommend the following articles. Whether  you do everything by the book or not is up to you.

https://seogadget.co.uk/domain-migration/

http://www.seomoz.org/blog/web-site-migration-guide-tips-for-seos

Good luck!