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Change Domain and Name of Forum

by newbiebob
8 replies
Hi there,

I have just bought a forum with significant traffic and SEO rankings. I want to re-brand by changing domain and name of forum. I want to keep the SEO and the search engine rankings while changing the name and domain.

Has anyone done this before or have any insight in this?

Would love to heard people's thoughts and ideas.
#change #domain #forum
  • Profile picture of the author sunbros
    Banned
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    • Profile picture of the author newbiebob
      No worries. Thanks for your input. If any true SEO experts have any insights on this that would be awesome

      Cheers
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      • Profile picture of the author Kay King
        There is no way I would buy a site with good SEO and good traffic - and then move it to another domain. A new domain will be like starting a new site. Any links (and there are probably quite a few) to the current site will no loner work.

        Yes, you can do a redirect from the old domain - but you could lose a lot if you change the domain and will have to make up ground to get back to where you were in the first place.

        You can change the name of the forum without changing the domain. It sounds like it is well branded to begin with and I see no benefit to gain - and much to lose - by starting over with a new domain.

        I don't call myself an SEO expert but I've built a lot of sites - and I would not do what you are proposing.

        kay
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  • Profile picture of the author Clint Butler
    You will keep the linking, but you will loose the SERP ranking even with a redirect of the domain name to the new one.

    Clint
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  • Profile picture of the author Sweetcheeks12354
    Is it really imperative to rebrand? If it has lots of traffic its current name is probably best.
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    • Profile picture of the author halmo
      There is more at stake than only the SEO if you re-brand an established forum. The word "re-brand" says a lot. A brand has been developed that is known by many people, and changing it should be done with caution.

      If you change the name and the domain, some members might not like it, some might even unsubscribe, some might wonder why the change was made. If they find out (which they will eventually) that the forum has a new owner, some of them might be disappointed or suspicious about how the forum would be run from now. The very reason (at least a big part of it) for having so many members of the forum must be that the owners was running it well. I think renaming it and re-branding when it's popular is quite risky., especially as you are a new owner.

      If you really want to rename it, why not change the name only, at first. See how members react. Even have both the old and the new names up on the site for a while (at least 6 months) to make the transition smoother in terms of how members feel about it.

      You could also register the new domain now, but not put the site under the new domain until the new name has received a good welcome. Until that point, you could redirect the new domain to the old domain (not the other way around).

      I can't comment on how all these would add up from an SEO standpoint, but I would think that Kay's comments would still largely apply. Although, I would think you might be able to build up SEO value with the new name after you changed the name, but before you actually host the forum on the new domain. I would be interested in what experienced SEO members here would say about this.

      My point is that you should consider more than just the SEO value if you want to re-brand it.
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      • Profile picture of the author Kay King
        Another point to consider is the type of site. You say it's a forum so I assume it is an active forum.

        People are creatures of habit. If they are accustomed to visiting that forum they will do so. Any change may cause them not to visit again. If they have the links in their sigs, eventually a redirect might not be working.

        Seeing a new name on the forum may remove the "familiar" aspect and lose some repeat visitors.

        This comes under the rule of "if it ain't broke....don't fix it".

        kay
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  • Profile picture of the author prabu86
    It depends on the forum.........
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  • Profile picture of the author Doug Slaton
    You can change the name of the forum and the next time Googlebot visits the forum name will be updated and your rankings shouldn't change.

    If you change your domain name however then in Google's eyes you have a new site but with a lot of links.

    I had a site that stayed mostly in the 4th position for around two years. Googlebot came to visit one day while my host was having an outage and my site dropped to position 43. I was really bummed but I knew my SEO was good so I just waited it out. It took just over three months to finally come back to page 1. But when it did come back it came back to position one.

    Helped a local carpet cleaner get to number one. He stayed there for nearly a year and then he wanted to make his website look nicer. I told him that it was probably a bad plan since he was number one. He pressed on and now I see he seems to be stuck down around position 6.

    Google rankings are part art, part science. If you've got something that's working in Google's eyes it's best not to mess with it. If you must make the changes then be prepared to take a hit in your rankings at least for awhile. If you do make the changes you probably want to get busy getting some fresh quality back links so hopefully your rankings will return quicker.
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