Don’t Let Your Domain Name Expire!
I want to tell you a story about what happen to me early on when I had first started my blog. I picked a domain name, that I thought would stick for awhile, and registered my site and my branding around that name.
Now we all know that picking a good domain name when you first start out is very important, as it reflects the essence of your business. You want to pick a name that people can remember you by, but also one that best describes your message that you want to convey to your potential visitors and customers.
Well, low and behold, after a couple of years, I decided to change the name to something else, my current domain name. What I didn’t realize then, was I should have kept the old domain name and just re-directed it to my new one.
Why It’s Important To Keep Your Domain Name
Why is this important, do you ask? Well what happened to me and what oftentimes happens to others, is as soon as you let the domain name go, it becomes available to someone else. And what they will do, is purchase this once used domain and redirect it to their site. By doing this they are getting all of the recognition and link juice that you built up over time.
In my case, I didn’t even think about this at all. I am a WordPress developer, and I don’t claim to be an expert in SEO or Marketing, so this didn’t even cross my mind. The way I found out was when I was checking some of my old links on my current site, and noticed an old link, with my old domain name in it. This link was taking me to a shady looking, questionable site. (I won’t mention the name here)
Now you can’t really blame them for this, as its a legitimate reason to purchase the domain, but you are giving away all of the status that it had, and that you worked hard to build, to them, for just the minor cost of purchasing a domain. Now these domains are relatively inexpensive, costing about 10-12 dollars a year, but the cost to you and gain to them could be worth thousands of dollars.
They purchase your old domain and redirect it to their site, getting all of your link juiceClick To TweetStrategy For Old Domain
The best thing to do, if you must change your domain name, is to just keep the old one, at least until you can insure that you are allowing your old visitors to use the domain they are used to seeing. That way you can insure that you won’t loose any of that traffic.
The Moral of the Story
Once you give up the domain and it is registered by someone else, it is highly unlikely that you are going to get it back without giving up a huge some of money, either to the new owner , or a lawyer. Its much easier to just pay the 10 bucks a year and keep it. If you don’t, it could cost you more in the long run.
Has this happened to you? Have you changed your domain name? I would love to hear your experiences with this in the comments below.
Robin McDonald
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