What is the best domain and subdomain strategy when migrating to a new domain?
Summary
What email marketers say12Marketer opinions
Email marketer from Reddit says that generally, using subdirectories (e.g., yourdomain.com/blog) is better for SEO than subdomains (e.g., blog.yourdomain.com) because it consolidates link authority to the main domain.
Email marketer from Webmasters Stack Exchange explains that when changing domains, you should set up a permanent redirect from each old URL to its new URL. You can do this using a `.htaccess` file on an Apache server.
Email marketer from Ahrefs Blog shares that to preserve SEO value during a domain migration, it's crucial to map old URLs to new ones and implement 301 redirects. Also, update internal links and resubmit your sitemap to search engines.
Email marketer from Yoast explains updating all internal links to point to the new domain. Use a tool or plugin to detect and replace these links to ensure a smooth transition.
Email marketer from Search Engine Journal advises creating a staging environment for the new website, testing all functionality, and then carefully implementing the migration during off-peak hours.
Marketer from Email Geeks recommends using a third-level domain for bulk/transactional/marketing mail (e.g., foo.oursitenew.com) and the bare domain (yoursite.com) for P2P (non-machine generated) messages.
Marketer from Email Geeks advises against using a cousin domain (e.g., sales-yoursite.com) because it makes it difficult to recognize the relationship between domains.
Email marketer from Neil Patel's Blog shares that subdomains are useful for organizing different sections of your website. For SEO, it is important to structure them well for user experience and search engine crawling. Consider your content structure when choosing between subdomains and subdirectories.
Marketer from Email Geeks advises against using the new primary domain for corporate mail and suggests using a subdomain for external sends.
Email marketer from DigitalMarketer emphasizes creating a URL map before migrating. This means listing every single URL on your old site, and next to each one, listing the new URL it should redirect to, to minimise the SEO impact.
Email marketer from Backlinko recommends building new high-quality backlinks to your new domain to recover and improve your SEO performance after migration.
Email marketer from NameCheap Community suggests using 301 redirects, updating links in Google Search Console, and monitoring site traffic post-migration.
What the experts say2Expert opinions
Expert from Spamresource highlights that older domains often have an established reputation, which can impact deliverability. Assess whether the age of the new domain will affect sending performance.
Expert from Word to the Wise emphasizes the importance of warming up the new domain before fully migrating. Gradually increase sending volume and monitor deliverability to build a positive reputation.
What the documentation says3Technical articles
Documentation from Google Search Central explains that when moving your site to a new domain, you should use 301 redirects to permanently redirect each URL from the old domain to the corresponding page on the new domain. This helps preserve search engine rankings and ensures users are directed to the correct pages.
Documentation from Moz explains that changing domains can be a large SEO project, but the basic steps for a domain migration are: crawl the old site, plan URL changes, implement redirects, update internal links, monitor, and communicate the change to your teams.
Documentation from Semrush provides an SEO migration checklist that includes backing up your website, auditing the existing site, planning the new site structure, implementing 301 redirects, and monitoring performance after the migration.