Chris Boggs called me today to chat and we got on the subject of clients who decide that a new domain is an imperative. Rather than stick to their tried and true, older, highly ranking domain, they need to launch new content at a new URL (or even split off content that had been on their old site to make it more marketable for a PR or ad team).

A good example of this phenomenon is Amazon's move with Endless.com. Amazon moved all their shoes and handbags onto a new site, launched with a media blitz and are hoping that consumers will use the new site rather than Amazon when shopping for shoes and handbags. I'm not just unimpressed--I think this move shows a clear lack of understanding for the Internet consumer in addition to a great deal of ignorance about search marketing (though, from their site's construction, they've obviously never grasped that topic well).

So let's say you are registering a new domain, moving content from an old domain to a new domain, or shifting domains altogether - what can you expect?

Moving Content or Shifting from an Old Domain to a New Domain

• Expect 3-6 months before the content's previous rankings are re-achieved at Google
• Expect 1-3 months at Yahoo!
• Expect 1-3 months at MSN

Best Practices for the Process:

1. Create single 301 re-directs for all pages from the old site pointing to the proper URLs on the new site
2. Change all links on the old site to point to the new site (rather than pointing to the re-directed pages)
3. Review your analytics for the top 2-300 domains sending traffic to the old pages and contact as many as possible about changing their links
4. Review a Yahoo! Site Explorer command for your site and repeat the process in Step 3 with the top 2-300 results returned (Yahoo! tends to show more important links first)
5. Make sure that both the old site and the new site have been verified and have sitemaps submitted at Google's Webmaster Central
6. Write a post in the Google Groups Webmaster Central forum indicating your move, why it's being done, and how you hope the Googlers will cut you some slack and recognize the new domain as legitimate
7. Launch with a media and online marketing blitz - your goal is to get as many new inbound links pointing quickly to the site and attract a high number of branded search volume for the site
8. Monitor your rankings for the content, comparing old to new over time - when the rankings fall (sadly, there's no "if"), post in your thread at Google Groups with an update and specifics
9. Monitor your Webmaster Central account for crawl errors and to see how well Google's doing with your 301's

Registering a New Domain 

• Expect 20-40 days for indexing at Google
• Expect 6-9 months before competitive rankings can be achieved at Google (longer if you don't get a lot of great inbound links, shorter if you can pull in a ton of phenomenal links very quickly)
• Expect 30-90 days for indexing at Yahoo!
• Expect 2-4 months before competitive rankings can be achieved at Yahoo!
• Expect 15-30 days for indexing at MSN
• Expect 1-2 months before competitive rankings can be achieved at MSN

Best Practices for the Process

1. Register the new domain for the maximum period allowed - 10 years
2. Register using an identity that owns other prominent, well-respected domains if possible (and use the same contact information)
3. Secure reliable hosting on an IP address that hasn't served spam or adult content in the past
4. Verify the site with Webmaster Central and submit a sitemap to Google
5. Submit sitemaps to Yahoo! Site Submit and MSN (once they support it - sometime this year is the word)
6. Launch with a bang - linkbait, viral marketing, media awareness campaigns, etc - the more links and attention the site receives in its first few weeks of operation, the less it is to be overlooked by the search engines (and, in particular, sandboxed by Google)
7. In the event that you're launching a site with a tremendous amount of content, it's wise to consider only showing a few hundred pages to the search engines initially and then slowly expanding - the engines have been known to get "overwhelmed" by the amount of content in relation to the newness of a site and its lack of trust, and thus refrain from spidering all of the content - it's better to control which pages are indexed, since you'll know what takes priority.

Any other suggestions for these processes that I've forgotten? Have your experiences been similar?