New Domain, No 301 Possible - Any Advice

[newwhy]

A client of mine lost their domain when an ex business partner sold it out from under them. They've filed with WIPO, but in the meantime we're trying to figure out how to help them out. They had two really excellent links - one from the NY Times and one from a .edu website. I'm going to reach out to the authors of those articles (the articles are pretty old, so I doubt they'll change the links), but does anyone have any advice on how to let search engines know the new domain replaces the old without having the ability to do redirects? The content on the site is exactly the same - we were able to get the files over, happily. I've re-submitted the site for indexing, changed the domain links in Moz Local, changed in Analytics, and on all their social sites. Is there anything I'm not thinking of that can be done to let Google know that this new domain replaces the old? Thank you!

[DmitriiK]

Hi there.

Unfortunately, there is no way to do what you are asking.. Sorry. You already did what you should have - change all links to website in GMB, social sites etc, copied the content over. Other than that - there is nothing you can do really.

The only thing which could be possibly remotely helpful is GSC address moving tool, of course, you'd still have to have access to old domain GSC - https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/83106?hl=en

Hope this helps.