Google's John Mueller warned a site owner from moving his domain name from a .ca to .com just for branding purposes.
He said for targeting any particular country, it may be worth it, but "if your site is basically just global, then you don't need to switch to a gTLD."
John Mueller then added his warning, "A site move is always a big deal, even if you take the time to do it right. It's a lot of work, and the outcome is impossible to know fully ahead of time."
John is not wrong, site moves are always one of the most concerning and highly stressful tasks and SEO has to manage. You can do everything right, follow Google's documentation to a T and still have issues afterward.
This conversation came up on Reddit - here is a screenshot:
So - you should really think hard before doing a site move.
Forum discussion at Reddit.
