Domain Migration with SEO Rankings Preservation

Domain Migration with SEO Preservation

Domain change is one of highest-risk SEO scenarios. Search engines perceive new domain as new site. Proper preparation reduces ranking loss from 50–80% to 10–20% and recovery time from 6–12 months to 2–4.

Pre-Domain Change Checklist

4+ weeks before:

• Get new domain and configure hosting
• Deploy site copy on new domain
• Generate list of all old domain URLs (Screaming Frog, sitemap)
• Register new domain in Google Search Console and Yandex Webmaster

1 week before:

• Set up all 301 redirects (old → new domain)
• Update internal links in content to new URLs
• Update canonical URLs
• Check hreflang if multilingual site

Day X:

• DNS switch
• Check redirect functionality
• Submit Change of Address in GSC

301 Redirects: Nginx

# Old domain: redirect everything to new one
server {
    server_name old-domain.com www.old-domain.com;
    return 301 https://new-domain.com$request_uri;
}

301 Redirects: Apache (.htaccess)

RewriteEngine On
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^(www\.)?old-domain\.com$ [NC]
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ https://new-domain.com/$1 [R=301,L]

Change of Address in Google Search Console

GSC → Old Property → Settings → Change of Address → Select new property.

Requirements:

• Both domains verified in GSC
• 301 redirects active for minimum 180 days
• Site accessible on new domain

Updating Backlinks

Send emails to site owners with most links to your domain. Tools: Ahrefs, Majestic, Semrush for finding backlinks.

Update in Yandex.Webmaster

Yandex doesn't have automatic Change of Address. Need to:

1. Add new site to Webmaster
2. Add sitemap of new domain
3. Yandex will pick up 301 redirects automatically within 2–8 weeks

Monitoring After Switch

# Script to check keyword positions via Semrush API
import requests

def check_keyword_positions(domain, keywords):
    positions = {}
    for kw in keywords:
        resp = requests.get(
            'https://api.semrush.com/',
            params={
                'action': 'report',
                'type': 'domain_organic',
                'key': SEMRUSH_KEY,
                'domain': domain,
                'phrase': kw,
                'database': 'ru',
            }
        )
        positions[kw] = parse_position(resp.text)
    return positions

Track weekly first 3 months. Typical behavior:

• Week 1–2: 20–40% drop
• Week 3–6: stabilization
• Month 2–4: recovery to 80–95% of original

Full preparation and domain migration execution — 1–2 weeks of work.