Changing domain names... Bad idea?

[DTOSI]

We are re-doing a clients e-commerce website. Before I had entered them on SEO moz we had decided to change their domain name to one with a keyword inside. I had not known that they had an online marketing company previous working for them. They have a domain authority of 42 right now.

It would be a horrible idea to switch their domain right? I looked at some of the links, they all have a variety of good anchor text. But alot of the links are coming from sites or directory categories that are not relative.

We are also planning on doing 301 re-directs for the links. But this will not transfer the domain authority to the new domain right?

Any thoughts?

[anthonytjm]

I think you have the right idea and are on the right track. I believe with 301 redirects to new site you will transfer most if not all link juice and page authority to new domain name. And you should see a boost in rankings having the keyword in there as well. So I think its a win win all the way around for you.

[RobertFisher]

Anderson,

With a 301 you are redirecting page to page. So www.olddomain.com/page1 to www.newdomain.com/page1. This is done in the .htacess file and it is important as it will transfer the link juice 90 to 99% (my experience is that it is always closer to 99%). We are doing that with a 1,000 page ecommerce site now and do not foresee an issue.

If you follow the protocol, you will not have an immediate increase in domain authority, but will gain it gradually within two to three months based on my experience. MAKE SURE YOU EXPLAIN IT TO THE CLIENT BEFOREHAND. I meant this for emphasis, I am not yelling.

Most of us keep believing at some point the value of an exact match domain will go away and I still see value in them. I also believe having the keyword in the domain is important if you can do that.  Here is a link to a handy 301 guide (Courtesy of Sha Menz): http://www.webconfs.com/how-to-redirect-a-webpage.php

Hope this helps,

[irvingw]

"But a lot of the links are coming from sites or directory categories that are not relative."

sounds like a penguin smack down waiting to happen, I would look at what these links are and what pages they are pointing to. If someone has been buying links and pointing them to specific internal pages you might want to exclude them from the list of URLs that get 301'd and let them 404.

[RobertFisher]

Irving, I understand where you are coming from, but I think it is easy for us to get a little too worried about Pandas, Penguins, and the other animals. If you look at GWM Guidelines they are fairly clear on what the link schemes are:

• Links intended to manipulate PageRank (This is the only grey area I see)
• Links to web spammers or bad neighborhoods on the web
• Excessive reciprocal links or excessive link exchanging ("Link to me and I'll link to you.")
• Buying or selling links that pass PageRank

So, unless they are adding to the manipulation or purchase of links I don't see a problem. This site is currently up and I have to believe if it was not hit by Penguin 1.1 on the 25th of May, I don't see a redirect causing it to happen.

Good thought though.

[DTOSI]

Thanks guys. This was helpful, we decided to just go ahead with the original plan and change the domain.

[godreamvacations]

Janice: Curious how your changing the domain name went a few years ago. Did you experience any negatives to doing so? What about positives? -- Thanks. (yes, i know this was over a year ago)