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

Search Video Recaps

 
Video Details More Videos Subscribe to Videos

Most Recent Articles

Search Forum Recap

Daily Search Forum Recap: January 21, 2026

Jan 21, 2026 - 10:00 am
Google Updates

Google Search Ranking Volatility Heated Again January 21

Jan 21, 2026 - 7:51 am
Google Ads

Google Ads Still Not Coming To Gemini (Post ChatGPT Ads Announcement)

Jan 21, 2026 - 7:41 am
Google

Google Adds "Answer Now" Button To Gemini App - If You Can't Wait...

Jan 21, 2026 - 7:31 am
Google Ads

Google Local Service Ads Verified Section Details

Jan 21, 2026 - 7:21 am
Google Search Engine Optimization

Google Search Monopoly Appeal Legal Docs Mention Search Signals

Jan 21, 2026 - 7:11 am
 
Previous Story: Brett Tabke - The Search Community Honors You