Best practices for domain change / major re-branding

From: Scott Allen <scott_at_onlinebusinessnetworking.com>
Date: Mon 30 Aug 2004 09:28:29 -0500

In the spirit of Cliff's recent requests for "submissions that would lead to
substantive debate and discussion", here's my situation and question:

I am an author of a book to be published next spring. For quite some time,
my co-author and I have been maintaining a website at
OnlineBusinessNetworks.com. We have been waiting for a final decision on
our book title by our publisher, which we now have, and we are planning to
move our site to the new domain, TheVirtualHandshake.com.

Currently, the new domain is mapped onto the old one, and when we switch, we
can map the old one onto the new one, i.e., no broken links -- everything
will still go to the correct page. So that's not my concern.

What I'm wondering is what other issues we need to consider. For example,
we want our new domain to be the one coming up in search results. While the
content will remain the same, all the inbound links (140+ in Google's main
index alone) are to the old domain. I think we need to try to contact as
many of those linking sites as we can and ask them to change their links,
right?

We will be adding several new features to the site at the same time, and the
launch will be in conjunction with the official announcement of the book
publication, so we'll be doing a press release and some other promotion, as
well.

So, my questions:

1. What issues do I need to consider on the more technical side, i.e.,
inbound links, etc.?

2. What issues do I need to consider on the marketing side, i.e., any tips
regarding re-branding?

I'm betting that Cliff has a few words on this, based on his recent
experience switching from Tenagra to Adastro. Anyone else have any
experience with this and some advice to share?

Scott Allen
www.Entrepreneurs.About.com
www.OnlineBusinessNetworks.com
Co-author of the forthcoming
 "The Virtual Handshake: Opening Doors and Closing Deals Using Online Social
Networks"
 from American Management Association, Spring 2005






Received on Mon Aug 30 2004 - 09:28:29 CDT