Moving from a .com to .co.uk

[littlesthobo]

I need to migrate a wordpress site from domainname.com to domainname.co.uk.

If I just put a 301 on every page on the .com will that cover it?

Would it make sense to go and change all the backlinks/profile links to the new .co.uk site or doesn't it matter if you have a 301 redirect on it?

Thanks

[Keszi]

Hi Joanne,

When taking such a decision I always read through again and again the article from Google: https://support.google.com/webmasters/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=83105

Ideally it would be good to contact each webmaster and ask them to change the url from the .com to the .co.uk, but realistic that is almost impossible.

What I would do is download through OpenSiteExplorer all the incoming links, check in general which are the most important for me and at least contact those webmasters and tell them about the change of address.

I hope it helps.

Istvan

[Vinnie]

Hi Joanne,

We did the same thing recently for a client who wanted to move from a .com to a .co.uk. She had a well-established website.  Our methodology:

1. Create exactly the same URL structure and architecture.
2. Copy the exact same content over to each URL
3. Notify all websites linking to any pages to update (We actually did this part well in advance).
4. Notified Google via its webmaster tools that we are migrating to a new website. You can use their new site section to notify them.
5. 301 redirected every page of the old site to its new equivalent page.

The sit back and wait, we found the changeover within the SERPS fairly fast – there were a few hiccups while waiting for Google to fully update, however it worked and all PageRank now on site and older positions are almost all regained.

Hope that helps.

[littlesthobo]

Thank you, very much appreciate you responses.