What happens when you rebuild an existing website for a client and they suddenly decide to change the domain name for it? The design is different. The URL is different. In this case, even the server is different.
How do you save their old search engine indexing status? Will their rank drastically drop? Can you forward pages from the old domain to the new one…but wait, the old site no longer exists!
Visions of the Google “sandbox” dance in your head. You know you made arrangements with the host, but were they right ones? Did they understand your instructions? Does your client have any idea the hoops you’re jumping through on their behalf?
What if you think you hurt a client’s website?
Help! Did I Totally Mess Up SE Rankings By Not Doing .htaccess & 301 Redirect? shows how a responsible web designer tries to help a client, who made a decision for an action that can create havoc in search engines.
The experience and advice may come in handy someday.
Definitely something to keep in mind; there’s a good lesson in this. Thanks.
Mike
Comment by Mike Cherim — November 13, 2006 @ 3:52 pm
Hey,
So know where you are coming from on this one! Actually wrote a blog post about the importance of using a 301 redirect this week as I got burnt when one of my clients changed hosting from Finland to the UK. Should have been an easy job, didn’t discover it before I looked at the client website and noticed their Google PageRank had dropped from 6 to 0!! Yikes. Then checked Google Analytics and their Google Organic referrals had gone down by 70%, ouch! Luckily all was not lost as the total stats were correct it’s just I have no clue which SE the referrals are from..it’s a mess. But it got me kicking buts about the use of 301 re-direct and .htaccess, I don’t think the programmers will forget that in a hurry =)
Comment by Lisa Ditlefsen — November 15, 2006 @ 8:58 am