Moving, renaming or changing your web address without losing search

Moving to a bigger space, changing the name on the sign, switching to a better web address: all good news for the business, and all moments when customers and search engines can lose track of you. A little order goes a long way. Here is what to do for each kind of change.

A new address

Search engines and customers both trust information that agrees with itself. So the goal is to change your address everywhere, quickly, starting with the places you control.

1. Your website first. Update the footer, contact page, map, any location pages and the structured data in the code. This becomes the reference for everything else.
2. Your Google Business Profile next. Edit the address on your existing profile instead of creating a new one, so you keep your reviews and history. Google may ask you to verify again at the new location, so have proof ready: signage, a lease or a utility bill, and a phone that can show the space on video if asked.
3. Your other listings. Bing Places, Apple Business Connect, Yelp, industry directories, your chamber of commerce, your social profiles.
4. Everything printed. Invoices, email signatures, vehicle lettering, packaging.

Keep the same phone number if you possibly can. A number that stays the same is one less thing to update and one less thing for customers to get wrong.

Expect your map ranking to wobble for a little while as the change settles. Distance is one of Google's main local factors, so the people you rank well for may shift too.

A new name

On Google, your business name has to match the name customers see in the real world: your sign, your invoices, your website. So change the sign and the website at the same time as the profile.

For the first year, mention the old name on your website, something like "formerly Smith Plumbing," so people searching for the name they remember still find you. Update every listing, and tell your regular customers directly. A short email or a note on the next invoice is plenty.

A new web address

This is where the most is at stake, because every link anyone has ever made to your site points at the old address.

• Redirect every old page to its closest new page. Not everything to the homepage: the old furnace repair page should send people to the new furnace repair page. Google recommends permanent redirects, kept for as long as possible and generally at least a year.
• Tell Google. Add the new address in Search Console and use its Change of Address tool, which exists for exactly this kind of move.
• Update your Business Profile and listings with the new website address.
• Keep renewing the old domain. If it expires, the redirects stop working and someone else can register it.
• Move email carefully. If your email addresses change too, keep the old ones forwarding for at least a year.

The old address is not something to delete. It is a forwarding service, and it should keep working for years.

Do one change at a time if you can

Moving, renaming and changing domains all at once makes it hard for anyone, people or search engines, to connect the old business with the new one. If you can space them out by a few weeks, do. If you cannot, the same rules apply. It just matters more that everything is updated quickly and consistently.