What are the issues with changing my domain?

[LaraMcCulloch]

I have a self-hosted wordpress blog that I have been authoring for 5 years. It resides at www.ready2spark.com.

I have built a static wordpress website (fyi - it's a different wp theme from the blog) to promote my company, named READY2SPARK. The site location is temporarily http://www.ready2spark.com/staticwebsite. Since this will be my main company website, it makes the most sense to have the static site reside at www.ready2spark.com and the blog reside at www.ready2spark.com/blog (or, at least, I think).

I'm hoping some of you experts can let me know what the issues with changing my domain would be or provide suggestions on what the optimal architecture should be.

[dignan99]

The biggest issue will be in the need for proper 301 redirection so errors are not found.  There are plugins via wordpress to help you along with that.  As long as wordpress properly redirects old post locations to the site.com/blog location you should have many issues or loss of rank etc.

I would recommend contacting your host(hopefully not being godaddy) to help you in the transition/swap to make sure nothing is lost. as some server side issues need to be changed to cause the least amount of hiccups.

Pay attention in your webmaster tools after the move to make sure you're on top of any issues.

Lastly, you are not changing domains, but are changing the permalink structure of your site.

[RyanKent]

It sounds like you are not actually changing your domain name, but instead moving your content within your domain.

A domain change would be if you moved your content from www.ready2spark.com to www.newdomain.com.

Normally, if you move content within your website you simply wish to redirect the old URLs to the new ones. In this instance, you will be re-using your home URL. There are two options for the home URL:

1. Re-direct your current home URL to the /blog page. This method allows users who expect to find your current blog to still find it. You would then use a new home page URL. If your existing home page URL is www.ready2spark.com your new URL could be www.ready2spark.com/ (with the trailing slash).

The positives of this method is it allows current users to find the content they expect. The downside is it complicates your home page a bit as users will expect to find your home page and not realize the slash actually brings up a different page.

2. Move your content as you wish, 301 redirect all URLs which will no longer be used to their new pages. On the re-used pages (I think only your home page) you can put a friendly note like "Are you looking for my blog? If so, click HERE"

I would recommend the second option but wanted to explain both possibilities in case there are any needs you haven't outlined.

[LaraMcCulloch]

Thank you so much for your feedback. I appreciate your fast response! I also found this page here on the SEOmoz blog: http://www.seomoz.org/blog/seo-guide-how-to-properly-move-domains (you touched on a few of these great points).

PS - And thanks for pointing out it's not a domain change. (I'm still learning

[LaraMcCulloch]

I'm so glad I upgraded to an SEOmoz pro account. You guys are awesome! Thank you for outlining the options.

[GardenBeet]

Hey Lara - I had a similar situation whereby I moved a well established blog from wordpress to my main business domain - I have had numerous problems (eg my blog began to outrank my main website for critical search terms). The tags and categories get their own url (at least mine did) which means  you need to optimise each of those tags/categories or you start getting a tonne of warnings from SEOmoz - I have over 200 tags, 6 categories plus around 300 posts - that is a lot of optimising -

I am sure all these points are resolvable but I am just wishing to point out its not that easy if you dont fully understand the implications of what you are doing - I would get help from someone who has done it before-

by the way since moving my blog over I have lost visitors and key search positions on my main website -some of it is now settling but I dont feel out of the woods yet - it has been very bumpy for me

[LaraMcCulloch]

Thank you, Felicity. Do you have any recommendations for someone who can do the changes?

[GardenBeet]

Lara - no not really - my developer and I have been fumbling around - really if you find someone tell me!!!!

i have just posted a question about my problems - hopefully this may help you http://www.seomoz.org/q/moving-wordpress-to-main-website-errors-galore

[LaraMcCulloch]

Thank you

[Timmmmy]

These are all great responses. In the coming months, we will be integrating the following URLS

steripen.com (custom cms), community.steripen.com (Wordpress blog) and buysteripen.com (Magento store) into the core domain of steripen.com.

Unfortunately we can't fold our GetSatisfaction implemention under the domain as well. will have to keep subdomain for that.

Not looking forward to the potential effects of this but all this feedback is greatly appreciated.