Before you change your domain name

Start with a shared planning note: write the current domain and the proposed new domain at the top, then name the person responsible for the change. Before choosing a launch date, ask that person to identify the accounts, pages, and connected services that need attention.

This is a planning review for the owner and the website maintainer to work through together. The account and server changes themselves stay with whoever is authorized to make them.

Confirm access and scope

Have the maintainer confirm who controls each of three things: the domain registration, the website hosting, and the domain's settings. Record the account owner and renewal responsibility for each without putting passwords in the planning note. Check that the people responsible can sign in through the provider's normal process.

Then define what the project includes. Is the business changing only its public web address, or also its email addresses, booking links, and website platform? Assign an owner to each item. If email addresses are changing, ask the email provider to explain the work involved, and keep that work in the plan as its own item.

Agree what must stay available during the change and how customers should reach the business if the main route is down. Write down who can decide to postpone the launch and how to reach them on the day.

Map old pages to their new destinations

Open the existing service page, contact page, and any page linked from a current campaign or printed QR code. Copy each full address into the note. The maintainer can complete the inventory and put the intended new destination beside every address, including important downloadable files such as menus or intake forms.

Google's site-move guidance recommends mapping old URLs to their new destinations and using permanent server-side redirects where possible. It also calls for updating internal links and saving a sitemap file with the new URLs. The maintainer should show how each of those tasks is covered in your move.

For each important page, open the proposed destination and read it. Does it still answer the same customer question? If a page is being retired, record that decision and ask how its old address will be handled. Where a destination is not settled, mark it for review instead of writing in a guess.

Prepare the customer-facing changes

Make a separate list of everywhere the business publishes its web address: business profiles, email signatures, appointment messages, social profiles, printed material. Put a person and a planned update time beside each. Review anything still in circulation, especially a leaflet or vehicle sign that cannot be changed immediately.

Use the proposed site to walk through the tasks you want checked at launch. Start from a service page and follow the contact or booking route to the end. Record the expected destination and any handoff to another service. Arrange authorized test submissions with the person who receives them, so the receiver can identify each test and confirm its result.

Ask the maintainer to review the new site's technical readiness, including secure connections, search settings, and redirects. Settle before launch how the business will be told about a problem and what the recovery plan covers.

Check the move and keep the record

At launch, open a selection of the recorded old addresses and compare where they take you with the agreed mapping. Include the main customer task and a deep link such as a service page, not just the homepage. Record the date, address tested, actual destination, and any problem. Have the maintainer verify the complete technical mapping as well.

Google warns that search rankings can fluctuate while it recrawls and reindexes a moved site. Its guidance recommends monitoring old and new URLs afterward, and it notes there are no fixed crawl frequencies, since timing depends on the size of the site and the server's speed. Agree who will review those reports and how often they will report back, because a single successful page visit does not confirm the whole move.

Keep the old-domain renewal and redirect responsibilities in the handover record. Before launch, ask the maintainer to recommend a retention plan based on the current search guidance and your remaining customer links. Close the planning note with the unresolved items, their owners, and the next review date.