changing domain names

[John Dirks Jr]

I bought a domain name that I think will help my SEO but I don't have it in use yet.

As it stands now, my current domain is listed at places around the web. If I change all of my sites pages to the new domain name, the listings around the web will no longer point to my site.

Can a 301 or 302 redirect solve the issue and still provide a benefit to the SEO? Would it be better to go through the manual labor and have all the listings changed to the domain?

I think my short question would be, do search engine spiders notice the 301/302 redirects and credit the end destination for a back link?

[Michael Brown]

I think you only get credit from a 301 (permanent). I don't think 302 helps and it isn't a temporary redirect anyway, is it?

If you have a new domain you will probably get Sandboxed by Google and get a crappy listing anyway as they don't like new domains, they like the old ones.

Michael Brown

[dcmeagle]

Like Mike said, technically a 301 redirect is a permanent redirect and your rankings shouldn't be affected. In practice your new site WILL have 0 pagerank and start out at the bottom of the rankings for at least 3-6 months before the search engines redirect and recalculate the new site. Remember that domain name age is a HUGE part of your sites ranking and your new site will not have that.

Websites are cheap, and they are the most cost effective return on investment you can have. Your best bet is to have 2 sites (we have guys with up to 5). Target 5 cities on each of the sites. You can get a new site for $6 a month on a host like GoDaddy or $25 or so inspection site hosts. So less than one inspection off the site covers you for a year.

In the end, you end up with double coverage and possibly 2 of your sites showing up for certain phrases on Google.

[John Dirks Jr]

One of my other ideas was to build a second site.

Thank you both for sharing your knowledge.