I have a decision to make about whether to use a new domain for a business site that has been completely redesigned. The reason a new domain is needed is that the current one contains a small grammar mistake(missing letter 's'). The client has told me that he plans to expand his business, so I advised him that it would be better to change it to the proper spelling. However, I have discovered that this current domain is doing ok in the SERPs for various keywords. He has been using this address for over 2 years, advertising it and so on..
I have done some good SEO on the new site, and I'll do the 301 redirects for each page if we decide to change it. I know that if we move it that the rankings will probably be affected for a few weeks at least, but is it a safe bet that they will recover within a short time? I am thinking that it should be, as the redirects will mean that it's associated with the old site, and the domain name will be very similar(just adding the extra 's' at the end). But I have not done something like this before, so I'd really appreciate some insight from someone who has experience. I would hate to destroy the search ranking, or have it wait a long time to recover to a good position. But at the same time, the new address would be better for the future...