changing business name/website domain, will this hurt my rating?

[320ink]

I am about to rebrand, and need to change my website domain, I will be keeping the current one, and adding the new business name domain to also point to the site, my question is, if I change the name, will I loose all progress I have made in the google rankings?

if so is there a way to minimize this damage?

[Chris]

Yes, you should expect to see a fall in traffic.

Setup a 301 redirect in .htaccess for the old domain to the new, then hopefully in a month your traffic will be back. search the forum for "301 redirect" and ".htaccess" or "mod_rewrite" for examples, it has been discussed in the past with directions provided.

[320ink]

Thanks Chris I will do that, really appreciate the direction

[bermuda]

Yes that is the only and best solution. Transitions online might affect the rankings considerably and it is not actually recommended setting up a new domain name, especially when your older site has already been running online for years.

Using the 301 solution is really great.