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March 16th, 2010 by Nick

This week Googles Matt Cutts revealed that if you switch domains using a 301 redirect, it could hurt your SEO. Learn why this is a common issue for attorneys and how you can avoid it.

Changing domains and 301 redirects

Business owners change domain names for a variety of reasons, including trademark disputes, branding issues or plain aesthetics. For attorneys, a common reason is that a partner leaves, and the domain name has the ex partners name in it.

Changing domain names can raise a variety of issues, but one is the SEO impact. Namely, will Google treat the new domain as it did the old one? The standard answer has always been that if you do a 301 redirect, then Google will treat the new and old domains the same. In other words, because 301 redirects pass PageRank (the juice that Google uses in large part to rank websites), by using a 301 redirect you preempt any problems.

However, this week Matt Cutts from Google revealed in an interview that using 301 redirects across domains does leak some PageRank. How much? We dont know, but it does leak some. This means that there is a SEO price to be paid for switching domains, even if its a small price.

Pick a generic domain and stick with it

Because switching domains means that your website will lose some standing in Googles eyes, this means its probably best to avoid it. For attorneys, a great way of preventing the need to switch domains is to register a generic domain in the first place.

So instead of JonesSmithMichaels.com, use SeattleBusinessLawyers.com. If you dont want to commit to a particular practice area, then go with SeattleLawyers.com or some derivative of it. This way even if partners go and come, youll never need to change your domain name. As a bonus, a generic domain name can help your website rank for the keywords in it.

Source: avvoblog.com

SEO domain names, generic domain, old domains, redirects pass pagerank