Changing Your Domain Name Without Losing SEO

What happens to your rankings when you change domains

Google treats a domain change as a site move with URL changes. Every URL changes, so Google has to recrawl each old URL, follow its redirect and move its signals to the new address. Google's guide says three things about the timing (Google Search Central, site moves with URL changes, updated August 2026):

• Small and medium sites take a few weeks for most pages to move. Larger sites take longer.
• Visibility can fluctuate during the move, then settles.
• Googlebot crawls the new site more heavily than usual for a while, so your server must cope.

A domain change done well does not start from zero. Permanent redirects tell Google the new URL replaces the old one. What you lose is what you forget to redirect.

Before the move: four checks

1. Check the new domain's past. If the domain was used before, look at old copies on the Wayback Machine (web.archive.org). Spam, adult content or a parked link farm can leave a bad history. Verify the new domain in Search Console early and open Security & Manual Actions > Manual actions.
2. Keep the old domain. Renew it for several years and set it to auto-renew. If it lapses, every redirect stops and someone else can buy your old links.
3. Verify every variant of both sites. Google asks you to verify all variants of the old and new sites, including http, https, www and non-www. A Domain property covers them all in one place.
4. Save a benchmark. Export 16 months of clicks and impressions by page and by query from the old property. After the move, the old property's data stops growing, and you will want a "before" to compare against.

Map every URL one to one

Each old URL should redirect to the same page on the new domain: oldbrand.com/pricing to newbrand.com/pricing, not to the new homepage. If the paths stay the same, one server rule handles the whole site. If you also change paths, you need a full map. Our redirect mapping template flags unmapped rows, chains and loops for you.

Doing two moves at once (new domain plus a new URL structure or a new platform) makes it harder to tell what caused a drop. If you can, move the domain first with the same paths, and change the structure later.

Launch day, in order

1. Remove any noindex, password or "Disallow: /" from the new site.
2. Switch on the redirects. Test the old homepage, three key pages and one URL from each template: each must reach its twin in one 301.
3. Leave the old domain's robots.txt open. Google must crawl the old URLs to see the redirects.
4. Submit the new XML sitemap in the new Search Console property.
5. File the move with the Change of Address tool in the old property. Our step-by-step Change of Address tool guide covers the prerequisites and the errors.
6. Inspect the new homepage with URL Inspection > Test live URL.

Update what you control

Redirects carry most of the value, but Google also suggests asking sites that link to you to update their links (Google). Start with what you own:

• Google Business Profile website field, and other business listings
• Google Ads and Merchant Center final URLs
• Social profiles, email signatures, newsletter footers
• Your 20 most valuable backlinks: send a short note asking for the new URL

Weeks 1 to 12: what to watch

Watch both Search Console properties. Clicks on the old property should fall as clicks on the new one rise. The two lines should roughly mirror each other.

If a drop lasts, our traffic drop recovery playbook walks through the causes.

Worked example

A fictional outdoor store moves from northwind-gear.com to northwind-outdoors.com. Paths stay the same, so one server rule sends northwind-gear.com/* to northwind-outdoors.com/* with a 301, from all four host variants in one hop. The team files the Change of Address on launch day, updates its Business Profile and Merchant Center, and emails the 15 blogs that link to its tent guides. In week 2, total clicks across both properties are down 8%. By week 5 they are back to the baseline. One category that was missed in the map shows 404s in the new property's Pages report, and gets its redirect the same day.