Domains and Redirecting . . .

[SherylT]

Quick question . . .

I'm signing up with VodaHost tonight. My current website is www.cust-m-cartoons.com. I also own the same domain without the hyphens which is currently parked at GoDaddy.

If I use www.custmcartoons.com to and redesign and publish my site using Blue Voda, then redirect www.cust-m-cartoons.com to it when I'm finished, with this have any affect on my current standings in the search engines? I'm currently #3 on Yahoo for "personalized cartoons" and #4 on Google for "personalized cartoon gifts".

I want to to this the right way, but don't want any downtime during switch over.

Sheryl

[Bethers]

Re: Domains and Redirecting . . .

Sheryl,
You should be okay. If you want to really be safe, keep the same name with the hyphens. When the BV site is done and ready to go live, all you need to do is redirect the nameservers and there will be no down time.

Then you could use the new name as a redirect to the same one you've always had.

But, you could also do the new name - and when you finish - put a redirect to it from the old. This should be safe, and should work while the new site gains it's own stature - however, I don't feel quite as safe with it.

Both Karen and Sania did that, tho with sites built here on Soho and it worked for them. I did the first method with Pinata Palace - and it lost nothing.

[SherylT]

Re: Domains and Redirecting . . .

It's actually after midnight, and I'm getting a little punchy. Are you saying that I could publish www.cust-m-cartoons to VodaHost now and then change the nameservers when it's totally ready? I didn't think I could publish using same domain I am now with SOI.