This is the first of hopefully many mini-guides I will be writing to give straightforward answers to commonly asked SEO questions. (Thanks Dr. Pete of User Effect for the idea!) Feel free to offer suggestions for future mini-guides in the comments.

Moving domains can make a tremendously negative impact on search engine rankings. This is because the major search engines use metrics on both the domain level and the page level to determine rankings. When a webmaster decides to switch to a brand new domain, they are resetting their domain metrics to zero whether they know it or not. Luckily, there are steps one can take to minimize and in many cases completely negate the affects of a domain move.

SEO Guide: How to Properly Move Domains

Task: Redirect all of the pages from one domain to an entirely different domain.

Example of End Result: www.example-old-site.com/ and all of it's pages redirect to www.example-new-site.com/ and it's corresponding pages.

Note: You will need to maintain control of the old domain so that the 301 redirects stay valid.

If you have any domain switching tips tricks or advice that you think are worth sharing, feel free to post them in the comments. This post is very much a work in progress. As always, feel free to e-mail me or send me a private message if you have any suggestions on how I can make my posts more useful. All of my contact information is available on my profile: Danny. Thanks!