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[maxmax105]

I would like to get insightful advice on the Pro's and Cons of hosting my blog on a custom domain.

The reason i seek advice is because i want to know what would happen to the Alexa rank do they have to use the rankings on the free domain?

What happens to already indexed pages on the domain by the search engines?

How would traffic be affected generally in terms of decrease and increase?

Will the page rank still be the same will it drop or increase?

The above question would be helpful not only to me but to thousands who would like to host their blogs on custom domain.

Give the best advice,tips and tricks to make these understandable.

Best Regards,
Moses

 

[newstart]

In order to get page rank to follow if you change the root domain you will have to set-up a 301 redirect. Failure to do this will result in your losing all of your page rank.

Note: This is different than changing HOSTING. Hosting is the company that has a bank of servers that allow you to enter your website data into their system. Changing host accounts will not affect ranking. Example changing from GoDaddy to HostGator. Making that type of change will have no affect on your website's ranking.

As you are apparently blogging on a free blog site using their root domain name as part of your blog name, any changes will require the 301 redirect.

I hope I have made this understandable.

Margene

 

[Cecille L]

Hi Moses,

Yes, you would need to do SEO again. You never really stop doing SEO as long as you're promoting your site.

Margene is correct. You need to do a 301 redirect from the free domain to your own domain so that you will not lose your page rank. Pages that have been indexed before will remain so. If you do a 301 redirect, then search engines will know to index the pages on your new domain and rank it accordingly. The traffic you on your free domain will be referred to the new one.

This is as long as you do a 301 redirect.

 

[michellerana]

Yes 301 Redirects will take all the traffic and links arriving at your old page and redirect them to your new page. You won't lose your links and your PageRank.

There is a lesson on how to move your pages with 301 redirects on this page.

All the best!

 

[esolutions]

Hi,

If you setup the 301 redirects correctly, you should retain most of your rankings.

Long term, having your site on your own domain and hosting is the only way to go as you control everything.