Changing from .net TLD to .com TLD

[tjkirgin]

I have a Fortune 50 serving client that has for a few years been operating their site on a .net domain since the .com was not available.

They have just aquired the .com domain for their company name that was unavailable before.  However, it was not a transfer of a live domain.  In whois it is showing as brand new and "unseasoned"

For now I have recommended that they just perm forward the .com to the .net and leave the .net as the TLD

But I am sure they want to in the future make the switch.  What would my best course of action be as the SEO consultant?

[TomRayner]

I think you're right in suggesting to forward the .com to the .net right now.

Just as a side thought, does the company ever use offline marketing/print/TV?  If they do, could be a great opportunity to use the .com domain on that advertising while the 301 is in place.  That way, you'll know that most people coming in via the .com domain will be from those avenues, so you'll be able to calculate some form of ROI.  It can't be completely accurate, however, as the .com extension is definitely the most recognisable in the world, so someone's first intuition when they see the brand might be to use .com anyway.

With that in mind, you should anticipate that they may want to move to the .com in the future.  What I would strongly, strongly recommend is to keep the site and URL structure exactly the same - same subfolders, subdomains, same everything.  This way, all you would theoretically need to do to preserve your "link juice" is export the XML sitemap from the .net domain (or at least those with backlinks - Screaming Frog is great for this task) change the extension to .com in excel and you've got all your new URLs that you point the old ones to.

It becomes a pain when companies want to change their site structure in the migration.  I'd advise them not to, if possible.  By all means, they could use the opportunity to rebrand the website and change the content and imagery, that would look impressive.  But where possible, keep the structure the same.

Hope this helps!