Reverting back to old domain name.

[Macrofireball]

I've recently been asked by a client if I can foresee any issues with reverting back to their original domain name. With the original domain name they had a pretty decent DA for their sector which they have now lost. Although I do appreciate that over time this might come back, the CEO is very keen to switch back to the old domain.

They do currently have 301 redirects from the old domain to the new and have implemented rel canonical. As yet they have not notified Google of the change of address using Webmaster Tools.

Can anyone forsee any issues with returning back to the old domain name? They have only been using the new domain name for a couple of months which currently has a DA for 1.

[ThomasHarvey]

No issue that I can think of, apart from the following:

• Have any links to the old site been updated to the new site? If so can you request for the webmaster to change them back?

[Macrofireball]

Hi Thomas,

Yes, I can request that all the links are changed back again. Since the DA is virtually non-existent, If we change back again will they likely to get the DA from the old domain back again?

[ThomasHarvey]

Yeah I believe that regaining the DA back shouldn't be an issue for the old domain. It won't be instant, but shouldn't be a massive amount of time before you get back to where you were previously.

[aarongray]

I would be very careful when Changing 301s I have seen people have major issues when turning a 301 off. More so because a lot of people use 301  to drop spam backlinks and get a jump in rankings.

Can I ask why did you do the 301 in the first place? And are you going to 301 the new domain back to the old one.

[Macrofireball]

Hi Aaron,

The idea was to use 301s to redirect back to the old domain. 301s were originally used because a completely new site was created and restructured; however, if you have a better suggestion then that would be great.

[aarongray]

Sadly there really isn't one. I know it doesn't help but the 301 shouldn't have been done in the first place. Changing URL's and doing 301's always impact on rankings in a big way.

You will be best to 301 the new domain back to the old one and try to stay away from doing it. Also keep in mind every time you do a 301 you will only get 70-80% of the benefit of the links going to that domain.