Interesting article from Eric Enge, a contributing writer at SearchEngineLand.com, about the impact major site changes can have on traffic or rankings.  Mainly concerned with domain changes and structural or URL changes, Enge introduces “Trust” as a factor often not considered by decision-makers.  Enge writes, “Any time there is a domain change it may be reflective of an ownership change, even if the Who Is info is not updated.  For the search engines this raises the possibility that the new ownership isn’t as trustworthy as the original owner.”

An interesting point by Enge, as we often think 301 redirects will save the day by providing the necessary bridge for crawlers between the old URL’s and the new URL’s.  301 redirects are absolutely necessary, but again, upholding “Trust” is many times left behind in the move.  Enge offers, “Make sure that you ask people who have linked to you in the past to update their links to go directly to the new site…it is also a very strong signal to the search engines that your site is still trustworthy in its new location.”  In addition, Enge recommends following Google’s recommended best practices, as a guide during the move.