Understanding how to change a domain name and SEO implications is essential for maintaining search visibility and avoiding traffic loss.
We recommend planning 301 redirects first, as you’ll need these in planned and in place before you make any changes.
In order to protect any website traffic and backlink value you get from SEO, it’s vital you set up 301 redirects from all of your individual URLs to the new domain.
If you are only changing the domain and keeping all of all URLs the same…
Example:
www.olddomain.com/about-us
www.newdomain.com/about-us
…then there is good news as there is a simple and relatively quick way to do this using your old domains websites .htaccess file.
RewriteEngine On
# If host is olddomain.com or www.olddomain.com (any protocol)
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^(www\.)?olddomain\.com$ [NC]
# Redirect to HTTPS + non-www new domain
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ https://newdomain.com/$1 [R=301,L]When you add this code to your old domain’s .htaccess file, you’re telling the server that if anyone visits any page that isn’t already using the new domain (newdomain.co.uk), they should be sent to the same page on the new domain. This way, it works automatically for every page on your website, no matter how many pages there are, with just those two lines of code.
PS. You will need to have a server kept running for your old domain to host this .htaccess file.
If you are changing your domain name and you are changing the structure of your URLs in any way then you will need to map every single URL.
Example:
Even if you make a tiny change to your URL structure you will need to map out the individual redirects.
To keep it simple, we’ll stick with our about page example. Let’s say you change it so that:
Old domain = www.olddomain.com/about-us
New domain = www.newdomain.com/about
You’d need to map this out in your .htaccess file as below:
redirect 301 /about-us http://www.newdomain.com/aboutBut you’d have to do this for every changed URL.
We recommend hosting both versions of your website. So host the website as it is now on it’s old domain and then take a copy of that website and change the domain name to the new domain. If you haven’t implemented your 301 redirects yet (which we will covered in step 1) it’s important you block search engines from viewing the new website (your website on its new domain) via a robots.txt file like this:
User-agent: *
Disallow: /There are other ways to discourage search engines but this is the way we’d recommend.
Even when the website is live, you will need to continue hosting the two websites on your server. However for the old domain this won’t need your full website codes just a small .htaccess file will need to be hosted to ensure the redirects are passed onto the new domain.
PRO TIP: I would always recommend keeping a copy of your old website files and database. If you experience huge drops in traffic or there is something that has been missed you have the files that you can easily restore on a staging domain (a staging domain is just a temporary domain i.e. www.testdomain.com that enables you to see, view and edit your old website as if it were live).
Google advises that if you are changing both your domain and launching a new website, it’s best to handle them in two stages.
What this means is that if you plan to make changes to the content on any of the pages of your website, that you wait until the domain change has fully settled and then make the changes you want.
At this point, your website should be live on the new domain, with all requests to the old domain’s URLs 301 redirected to the matching pages on the new domain. While setting up 301 redirects correctly is usually enough, Google also provides useful tools in Google Search Console to help make the transition run smoothly.
The Change of Address tool is what you use when moving your website to a new domain.
Example:
Moving from from olddomain.com to newdomain.com
It lets Google know about the move and helps carry your search rankings over to the new website. Only use it once you’ve moved everything and set up your redirects.
Read Google’s guide on updating your website domain in Google Search Console
We also recommend requesting indexing of key pages such as your home page, service page, category pages (if you’re eCommerce). To do this in Google Search Console you:
Next we take a look at changing your domain name in Google Analytics 4. This is really straight forward. To do this you go to:
> Admin
> Data Streams
> Select the relevant web data stream,
> Click the edit icon to change the Stream URL with the new domain name and protocol
IMPORTANT: Make sure your Google Analytics 4 tracking is set up on the new domain so your data continues without any gaps.
By now, your new domain should be fully up and running, with the old domain redirecting visitors exactly where they need to go. Google will also be updating its records to reflect your new domain.
Next, it’s worth spending a bit of time testing your 301 redirects. A quick way to do this is to search for your old domain in Google using:
site:olddomain.comThis will show all the pages Google still has cached for the old domain. Click through a few results to check they’re all correctly redirecting to the matching page on your new domain.
We often see websites being relaunched with lots of changes to the content and information. The problem with this is that your website will have built up organic traffic and when it comes to SEO, the little details matter and they often have the biggest impact. If Google crawls your website and everything has changed, often depending on those changes you can lose website traffic and if you do this at the same as big technical changes like changing your domain name, you won’t know whether something has been missed technically or whether the content changes are to blame for your lost rankings.
Below is a checklist and things to be aware of before making content changes to your new website.
Use Google Analytics 4 to identify how much traffic your website gets. Get a break down per channel. I.e. organic search (SEO), direct, referral etc
Use an SEO tool (we recommend SEMrush) so you have a benchmark of what keywords and pages are driving SEO traffic. Once you have this list of top performing keywords and pages you’ll be able to take a look at:
The titles/headings you have on your website pages will have keywords in, how they are tagged (I.e. H1, H2, H3, H4, H5, H6) is important as there should only ever be 1 H1 heading and then the other tags should be in a sequential order.
PRO TIP: If you want to spot check a few pages, a free tool we use is called Detailed SEO Extension.
There will be keywords littered throughout the content, make sure you keep long-tail keywords, short tail keywords, synonyms. A good way to know what keywords are included on a page quickly is to ask ChatGPT to give you a list of them.
Internal and external links are an unsung hero of SEO, internal and external links help search engines to crawl and understand your website. Make sure you are aware of where you have internal and external links and keep them in place.
The content topics you cover on your website are not only important for your users, but they are really important for search engines and LLMs (large language models = ChatGPT, Gemini etc). Your content is like your store front, it’s where you answer all of your users questions and help them with making a purchasing decision. Having helpful, reliable, people-first content is really important on your website and if you haven’t seen Google’s helpful content guidelines, we recommend you check them out.
PRO TIP: If you have a minimalist website, you can still include plenty of content by planning your design carefully and using structured elements like accordions or tabs.
Changing a domain name and SEO go hand in hand. If you follow the right steps you can protect your search rankings, keep your traffic steady and make the move with confidence. In this guide we’ve walked you through the exact process we recommend from planning and implementing 301 redirects to setting up your new domain in Google Search Console and Google Analytics and testing that everything works exactly as it should. By working through these steps in order you’ll minimise the risk of losing traffic and ensure a smooth transition for both your visitors and search engines.
Need help with changing a domain and SEO? We’re a specialist Technical SEO Agency, we’ve been here before, so if you have any questions we’d be more than happy to help. You can contact us online or give us a call on 0121 729 5113.
Yes, changing your domain name can affect SEO if it’s not done properly. You need to plan and set up 301 redirects so search engines and visitors are sent to the right pages. This helps protect your rankings and traffic during the move.
The safest way is to use 301 redirects from your old URLs to the new ones. If the structure stays the same, you can do this with just a couple of lines in your .htaccess file. If your URLs are changing, you’ll need to map each one individually.
Yes, you can redirect between HTTPS and HTTP. In your .htaccess file, use rules that specifically target the protocol, ensuring all traffic is sent to your preferred version. For example, to redirect HTTPS to HTTP:
RewriteCond %{HTTPS} on
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ http://www.example.com/$1 [R=301,L]Reverse the logic for HTTP to HTTPS. Always update internal links and your sitemap to match the final choice.
Yes. Create a wildcard rule for general redirects, then add specific rules above it for any pages that need a different destination. The server processes rules in order, so the specific ones will take priority.
If .htaccess editing isn’t possible, check if your domain registrar offers forwarding options. You can also temporarily host the old domain on a server that supports redirects until you upgrade your plan.
If you keep the same domain, you don’t need a domain-level 301. Instead, ensure any changed URLs are redirected to their new equivalents to preserve rankings.
A minimum of 12–18 months is recommended. This gives search engines and users enough time to update links. If possible, keep it indefinitely to preserve link equity.
Ensure that all variations (HTTP, HTTPS, www, non-www) redirect to the same final destination. Avoid DNS-only pointing without server-level redirects.
Update all internal links to point to the new domain, submit an updated XML sitemap, and monitor Search Console for crawl errors. Rebuild high-quality backlinks to the new domain.
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