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Let's assume, for the sake of this question that someone likes to change the domain of it's site once a year or 2... Why? From whatever reason, let's just assume that...

The only elegant solution for doing so without risking the SERs would be, I think:

  1. Keep renewing the first domain.
  2. Making a Wildcard Redirect via .htaccess from the old domain (or domains) to the new one. Each redirect would be valid of course, only if the alias wasn't changed by itself.
  3. Informing the Search Engines for each change?

What do you think?

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  • There are so many factors that go into the decision process. Domain name changes are discussed here a lot. Enough for any scenario. This question is a bit too broad. Is there a specific situation you have in mind?? – closetnoc Feb 17 '16 at 23:13
  • Really the most specific issue is when a person seldom changes it's domain but always based on the backlinks and popularity of the first domain that points to all the new ones with 301s... – JohnDoea Feb 17 '16 at 23:21
  • It is a very bad idea to change any domain name. It is generally avoided and only done when really really necessary. How to do that has been asked and answered here quite a few times. – closetnoc Feb 17 '16 at 23:25
  • I guess some would differ on your first assumption given that redirects are possible, and of course, there are tools to do so in Google and Bing. Note that I didn't ask how to change a domain anywhere. I ask on case when someone wants to change is domain time and again, about once a year. It's a theoretical case, but purely technically, interesting, to me at least. – JohnDoea Feb 17 '16 at 23:28
  • Perhaps this answer will help clear up a bit: webmasters.stackexchange.com/questions/75775/… Ignore the 301 302 part of the title. It is very bad to change domain names unless the original domain name has absolutely no value in which case it would be just as simple to let it go and just start over. – closetnoc Feb 17 '16 at 23:58
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There is nothing you could call "risk". If done properly, there is nothing, what could get lost. Indeed, any site, which changes the domain, will experience some ranking drop. But it, once again, if done properly, the drop will go by. And no one site is able to change the domain without any drop.

Drop exists by design: the bot should take time to re-crawl the whole site, all internal and external links, to rate again all data in relation to all metrics of the new domain.

What means "properly" is just:

  • Don't loose content
  • Don't loose links, both internal and external - redirect all of them
  • Update sitemap in SC
  • Add some new content
  • Check twice the site performance, because after relaunch the crawler tends to stress your server much more, as usually.
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