Will changing my business name hurt my SEO?
I am been thinking about changing my business name for a while. I want to use it as a way to reengage my customers with an exciting new brand launch. The only thing holding me back is I don't know how this will affect my SEO. I rely a lot on search traffic.
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Aug 30, 2019
The answer to your question is YES. If you change you business name then it will impact SEO. The reason behind this is SEO promote your brand name or brand domain. If you change that so it defiantly effect SEO also.
Aug 18, 2019
Your question asks if changing the name of your business will hurt your SEO. In general, we can say yes changing the business name will impact to your business because changing business name means you have to change the domain of your business with a relevant business name.
Like previously you might do SEO for the name of your old business name so when user search for a relevant keyword then your old business name will appear.
One solution you can apply is to change all word with the name of old business to new business and leave the domain as it is. By doing so, your SEO work will be constant and will work perfectly.
For further acknowledgment, feel free to directly message me on my profile. Good luck!
Jul 15, 2019
I think your business name should remain the same. If you're going to change the name of your business, then you have to start everything, yes everything from the scratch and if you change your business name, eventually, your site's URL will get be changed to a different domain and your entire efforts in SEO. Not just SEO, but your overall branding will have a huge impact and you have to start from the beginning.
So, think of all the impact you'll have just by changing the name of your business.
Thank you.
Jul 15, 2019
The simple answer is yes, it will hurt your SEO performance. Changing your business name may impact your Google My Business rankings and will get stable after a few days.
Building up your SEO takes time. On average, it takes a minimum of 6 months to see results. If you are planning to change your business name, do yourself a favor and hire a local SEO specialist to help with this transition.
Jul 9, 2019
Yes, it will affect your local business and website too, instead of changing it. Register new business, create a new website, new local page, everything new and let the old company remain the same till your new name becomes a reputable brand.
Jul 9, 2019
Yes, changing the business name will affect your SEO. SEO gives importance to NAP - Name, address, and place. So obviously changing the name has a considerable impact. In my past experience, I changed the URL name for one of my clients. This brought about a considerable change in the traffic and my organic position.
Jun 27, 2019
The same thing happened on my WordPress website... My SEO score dropped rapidly.
Jun 27, 2019
Hi Kathy,
I have been working for over 5 years in the field of core SEO analysis and currently as a digital marketing lead in a mobile app development company - Mindster.
I have carried out similar scenarios involving a change of business and domain name. If you are changing the business and domain name as well then it could really affect your SEO unless you carefully consider the underlying parameters.
First of all, I strongly propose that you make a checklist of major actions to be performed beforehand.
My checklist for a similar scenario will contain the following actions:
1. Replace the old internal and external links manually with the new links wherever possible.
2. Implement the 301 Redirections for all the old links to your new domain.
3. Update the new information in all your local listings and social media channels especially NAP Data.
4. Update the old canonical URL with new URL.
5. Never migrate to your new domain without conducting a trial run on a test server. Check and ensure that your redirects are working properly.
Here are some helpful resources for migrating an old domain to a new domain.
-https://searchengineland.com/site-migration-seo-checklist-dont-lose-traffic-286880
-https://searchengineland.com/the-smb-guide-to-changing-business-names-seo-128939
Feb 25, 2019
I don't think changing your business name can hurt your SEO until and unless you are not changing the domain of your website. If you are changing the domain then there is a fair chance of hitting your SEO negatively. In that case, take advice from a web design company to get your old links to 301 redirects to your new URLs.
Jul 16, 2018
Hi Kathy,
As a web design and digital marketing company, we changed the URL for our website and also our client's websites several times. If you are looking to change the URL, then you need to use the 301 permanent redirections from the old URL to the new URL. By doing this, SEO won't hurt you overall but you may lose ranking for some positions.
Yes, agree with your answer, this is a perfect way of changing a domain.