Renaming your site: Pros and cons

Jul 23, 2019

...

Renaming your site: Pros and cons


Its always a challenge to handle renaming a site that doesnt have a great URL. The upside, new traffic from word of mouth and advertising, must offset the downside to be worth it.


You face the following risks:

1. Losing repeat visitors

2. Losing search engine ranking

3. Losing inbound links

4. Losing brand recognition

5. Incurring added costs for reprinting, packaging, or signage.


Change your domain name only if you have little to lose. A site with poor

search engine rankings, little traffic, and few inbound links is a pretty safe bet for a change. However, if you have significant offline brand-name recognition and your brand appears in your URL, stick with what you have.


Sometimes, you can segment several domains by marketing purpose. Apply the new, user-friendly domain to B2C sales or lead generation while re-purposing the old domain name for corporate identity or B2B use. You can link frequently between the two sites, if you need to. You now have to maintain and host two sites, which has its own time and cost implications, but those consequences might be small compared to the loss youd face from abandoning the old domain name entirely.


Quick Tip: If you decide to abandon your primary domain name, ask your developer to redirect your old domain name to your new one for at least four to six months. That gives other inbound links, internal links, image links, and search engines a chance to catch up. Dont forget to submit your new name to search engines and to request inbound links again.

Essentially, every domain name requires its own online promotion campaign.

Watch this video for guides on how to rename your site.


Try It Now

Get Started Free


Try StoreMantis free for 7 days. No credit card required!

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.