Changing Domains Without SEO Damage
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What’s in a name? That which we call a rose
By any other name would smell as sweet. – Shakespeare
Seriously though what is in a name? Does such a small thing matter? Yes and no.
Look around. Its a very busy world. Ads all over. TV, radio, internet, newspaper, magazine and what not. What do they all have in common? Short, simple, catchy phrases. Do you know where I’m heading with this?
Now before we even start with having a little catchy tagline for your site or blog, we’ll have to deal with the name. So, yes names do matter (especially on the web) unless you would rather listen to the ancient playwright.
I personally have a hard time finding a decent name. I keep changing my mind more than I change gears while driving standard. A true fact. And I honestly know how hard it is when you finally find the perfect name only to find out the domain is taken.
Alright lets assume you have a domain and you’ve got a better one to work with. Now what? The fear of losing traffic and SEO. Well no worries. You can always do a 301 redirect using .htaccess.
Open up Notepad, paste the following and upload it to your root directory. It works like magic.
RewriteEngine On
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ http://www.yournewdomain.com/$1 [R=301,L]
Now its very important that you make sure that this file is named .htaccess (no extentions like .txt or anything). And lets just hope this time you’ve picked a better domain.

