Why You Might Want To Re-think Changing Domains

Did you know that Google takes the age of your domain (www.example.com.au) into consideration when calculating where you will rank in search results? That’s right, the people at Google create their search algorithms based on a large number of factors, but they all come down to one thing: trust.

The vast majority of additions and changes to their search algorithms come about because they want end users (your potential customers) to keep using their service, which means they’re all about user friendliness and relevance, the latter of which factors in the history of your business online.

The fact that you might have had the website you have offering the services you offer for a number of years works in your favour in terms of how well you rank.

While it’s certainly not the most important thing to consider, it does come into play. It’s not necessarily the case that you should never change your domain as having keywords you want to rank for in the domain name also helps (as an example). So if you have a bad domain name you want to get rid of for something more relevant this would also work in your favour, however if your domain already meets these criteria and has been around for some time then you should strongly consider holding onto it for as long as possible.

Moving your site to a different domain won’t just impact that element of your rankings, Google will basically see you as a new website and as far as showing up in search results are concerned you will be starting from scratch.

As a side note, changing websites even if they’re at the same address will also have a similar effect due to what Google historically knows to have been there previously. This would be particularly bad if you were in the middle of SEO work as whatever progress you’d made up until that point would be lost, so best to get onto it prior to SEO if you think you’ll need a new website any time soon!

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