Changing hosting or domain without disappearing from Google

Three different moves

Not every change is the same. Changing hosting means moving the site to another server: the domain and the page addresses stay the same. Changing domain means every page gets a new address. Rebuilding the site often changes addresses even when the domain stays: “/about.html” becomes “/about”, a service gets renamed. Each carries its own risks.

Every old address must lead to the right new one

Google knows your pages by their address. When an address stops existing, people arriving from Google hit an error and Google, little by little, drops that page from its results. The rankings it had do not move to the new page on their own.

The fix is a 301 redirect: an instruction on the server that tells Google and visitors “this page now lives here”. It is done page by page, towards the new page about the same thing. Sending everything to the home page is a shortcut Google treats almost as an error. When you change domain, keep the old one renewed and redirecting for a long time, at least a year; and Search Console has a tool for exactly this, the change of address, to tell Google about the move.

Email is what breaks without warning

Moving a domain from one provider to another also moves its DNS settings, including the ones that say where mail is delivered. If nobody copies them over, the site works and email stops arriving, often without any error message. The SPF and DMARC settings, which protect the domain from forged email, have to be copied too: in the sites we audit they are already missing on 28% of domains, and a move is when they are most easily lost.

How to move cleanly

1. Before touching anything, list every page of the site and the current DNS settings, mail included.
2. Build the new site and test it before it goes live, not after.
3. If addresses change, write the old → new table for every page and turn it into 301 redirects.
4. On the day of the switch, copy the mail settings over and check that an email really arrives.
5. In the days after, look in Search Console for pages returning errors and fix them one by one.

Before all that: domain and logins in your name

Many moves get hard for a reason that has nothing to do with technology: the domain is registered to whoever built the site years ago, and that person no longer answers. Domain, hosting, admin and mail logins should be in your name, with the passwords kept somewhere safe. That way, changing provider stays your decision.

In our redesigns and moves every old page leads to the right new one and mail is checked the same day. If you are about to change, write to us first: preventing costs less than recovering.