Changing your domain name might seem like a branding refresh or a simple technical switch—but it can be one of the most critical SEO decisions you'll ever make.

Do it wrong, and you could lose years of search visibility, web traffic, and hard-earned credibility. Do it right, and you’ll preserve (and potentially improve) your long-term performance and user experience.

At ASP, we help event organisers manage domain migrations the right way—protecting SEO value, avoiding brand confusion, and supporting a seamless transition for both users and search engines. In this post, we’ll walk through what’s at stake, the options you have, and the right way to handle a domain change.

Should You Do A Domain Migration?

If you're unsure whether to migrate to a new domain, ask yourself if you have SEO value to protect?

Check:

• Your Ahrefs Domain Rating

• Monthly organic traffic

• Quantity and quality of backlinks

• Indexed pages in Google Search Console

We can do a domain value check for you (for free) to help you decide, simply invite our team to your Google Search Console property at 📧 jon.monk@asp.events

Making The Change To A New Domain

If you've done all your checks and decided to go a head with a brand-new domain you then need to consider your options for carrying out that migration. You have two options...

🚫 Option 1: Lazy Migration – Redirect All to Homepage

• All old URLs redirect to the new homepage.

• No page-by-page matching of content.
   

✅ Option 2: Proper Migration – URL-by-URL Redirects (Recommended)

• Each URL is redirected to its exact match on the new domain (e.g., /about-us → /about-us).
   

The impact of each option on your website's SEO is as follows:

Impact Area	Option 1 – Lazy Migration	Option 2 – Proper Migration
Short-Term (0–3 mo)	Severe drop in traffic and rankings	Temporary dip (10–30%) as redirects settle
Medium-Term (3–6 mo)	Partial recovery, limited performance	Strong recovery with consistent SEO signals
Long-Term (6–12+ mo)	Permanent loss of equity unless rebuilt	Full recovery possible, even performance gains
Backlink Equity	Mostly lost (only homepage benefits)	Preserved if redirects are correctly implemented
Google Indexation	Disrupted, slow to re-index content	Smooth handover if technical steps followed
User Experience	Poor – users land on generic homepage	Seamless – users land on expected pages

 

Why A Proper Migration Is Essential

A URL-by-URL migration ensures:

• Preservation of SEO value (backlinks, rankings, indexed pages)

• A seamless experience for users

• Trust and visibility with Google

ASP can manage the entire process for you and we'll also host all redirects for you as long as you remain a client.

Hosting of Redirects

When you change your website to a brand-new domain, you need to tell both users and search engines where everything has moved. That’s done using redirects—specifically 301 redirects, which signal that a page has permanently moved to a new location.

If you decide to go down the Proper Migration route (the URL-by-URL redirect method), with ASP we will:

• Set up redirects from every page on your old domain to its new equivalent page on the new domain.

• Host those redirects on their servers, so you don’t have to worry about managing them yourself.

• Do this at no extra cost, as long as you're our client.

That means all your old page URLs (like youroldsite.com/about-us) will still "exist" in a sense—but anyone (or any search engine) who visits them will automatically be forwarded to the correct page on your new domain (like yournewsite.com/about-us).

Keeping Your Old Domain Alive

Just setting up redirects isn’t enough—you also need to keep the old domain active. We'd recommend keeping the old domain live for at least 2 years, but ideally forever, so your redirects continue working and your SEO value stays intact.

Here's why:

• SEO equity (like backlinks) is tied to your old URLs. If the old domain disappears, those redirects break, and the value is lost.

• Search engines need time to crawl the old pages and follow the redirects.

• Users might still click old links (in emails, directories, bookmarks) for months or years after the switch.

• Brand recognition: someone might still Google your old domain name or type it directly into the browser.

So Remember!

If you:

• Have a strong domain (DR 30+)

• Receive organic search traffic

• Have valuable backlinks or indexed content

Then a properly managed domain migration is essential. Anything less will result in permanent SEO damage.

Need Help Managing A Domain Migration? 

ASP provide full support for domain migrations—including technical implementation, redirect hosting, and pre/post-migration SEO tracking.

If you'd like to chat through the options book a call with Jon Monk, Head of Optimisation & Performance. 

Book A Call with Jon Monk