Google: There Is Always Risk Of Losing Rankings When Moving A Site

Mar 5, 2018 - 7:15 am 8 by

Google Risk

Site moves and domain or URL changes can be scary, nerve wracking, dangerous and risky. Even Google's John Mueller said on Twitter that "there's never a guarantee that the site will perform exactly the same on a different domain."

But there are many SEOs and webmasters who have experience doing site migrations and know how to handle it to mitigate the risk. "Moving a website almost always results in temporary fluctuations that settle down fairly soon," John also said.

There is a checklist, Google them, of things you should be aware of when doing site moves from an SEO perspective and beyond. As long as you follow those steps to a T and don't miss anything, you should be fine in the long run. Of course, if you miss something critical, fixing the issue down the road can be hard and complex - although some fixes are not too bad.

I should note, when migrating from HTTP to HTTPS, normally that goes pretty smooth from my experience and is fairly easy. But whole site domain migrations are not always that fun and URL structure changes also are pretty scary.

Here is John's tweet:

Forum discussion at Twitter.

 

Popular Categories

The Pulse of the search community

Follow

Search Video Recaps

 
Video Details More Videos Subscribe to Videos

Most Recent Articles

Google Ads

Google Ads Suspended 90% More Advertisers This Year & Removed 5.5 Billion Ads

Mar 28, 2024 - 7:51 am
Google Ads

Google Updates Its Definition Of Top Ads; They May Not Be At The Top

Mar 28, 2024 - 7:41 am
Google Ads

Google Ads Adds Share Ad Preview For Performance Max

Mar 28, 2024 - 7:31 am
Google

Google Can Search For Your Blockchain Wallet Addresses (Bitcoin & More)

Mar 28, 2024 - 7:21 am
Google Maps

New Google Shopping & Maps Search Features

Mar 28, 2024 - 7:11 am
Search Forum Recap

Daily Search Forum Recap: March 27, 2024

Mar 27, 2024 - 4:00 pm
Previous Story: Brett Tabke - The Search Community Honors You