What if you decide to go in a different direction with your blog? It happens. What if everyone hates your blog’s name? Is your blog’s name too long?
It’s okay to rename your blog, but be sure to think it through. First of all, why would you want to rename it? Do you have valid reasons…or are you just bored with your blog? Don’t go through the hassle unless you have a need. For example:
- You’re going in a different direction than when you started your blog, and the name doesn’t quite fit.
- People are complaining about your domain being too long. If that’s the case, consider just getting an add-on domain and redirecting it to the normal one.
- Your old domain has a bad reputation with search engines (which is common with “previously owned” domains).
There are plenty of reasons why you don’t want to change the name:
- Your domain will be different. Domain changes wreak havoc with your Technorati Rank and PageRank. If you change your site’s name, keep the original domain and redirect it. If I go to one of your old permalinks, I should still end up in the right place.
- You’ll have to change blog settings, create a new logo, and change a lot of code in your theme.
- Your Google rankings will be practically erased.
- Google’s spam filters could penalize you. Since your blog probably has a sizable reader base, the new domain will appear (to Google) to “grow” at an insanely fast rate.
In short, avoid changing your domain if possible. If you insist on going through with a name-change, make sure you do the following:
- Set-up a 301 redirect. Make sure every permalink on your old domain forwards to the correct page on your new domain.
- Update all your internal links to utilize your new domain. Tedious, I know.
- Contact bloggers linking to you and request that they update their links.
