Legal Client Wants to Change Domain Name... What's the best way to pass authority from old domain?

[WhiteboardCreations]

Hey Mozzers,
I received a call on Friday from a 6 attorney law office who have been my client for a long time. They have an established brand/domain in their market which isn't very big, but has a lot of competition.

2 of the attorneys are leaving to start their own firm and they want to remove a letter from their name abbreviation, thus their domain name as well. So, the other partners want to change the domain to reflect this.

They want to buy a EMD [city]lawyers.com for about $1,600 along with some others to protect their new brand and name.

I have a good idea as to what I need to do, BUT would love to hear advice from the community for this type of drastic change. 301 redirects? New Google Analytics code or same just different profile? Webmasters verifications? Content from old site? Old domain forwarding or keep active for a little bit? Is not the time to get them an SSL?

Also, what should I prepare them for in terms of website traffic expectations and Google authority drops or remains the same? I know their Moz DA/PA will drop to 1/1, but anything else to look out for?

Thank you in advance!
Fellow Pro Member - Patrick

[PatrickDelehanty]

Hi there

I gave an answer to a similar question recently in another Q+A thread with a bunch of resources. It's linked to in the answer, but Moz has a great migration guide that can help you properly prepare and migrate a website - you can read that resource here.

Let me know if this helps you - good luck!

[WhiteboardCreations]

Thank you, Patrick! I'll check all of these out and share all aspects with the clients so they know what potentially lies ahead in terms of rebranding and using a new, different domain name.

Really appreciate the article references too. - Patrick McCoy