Domain name change concerns

One of my websites, is getting fairly big, it's about to reach 1,000,000 members which is great, but I hate my domain name. It's too long to brand well.

I had a meeting with a big company in my field on Tuesday. I mentioned my issues with the DN and they agreed it wasn't ideal from a branding perspective.

I have a domain name in mind but I'm concerned as I risk losing all of my rankings in Google. I'm not concerned about any of the other SEs.

One possibility is to launch the new domain, add content, raise the page rank to maybe 5? and then 301 redirect my current site, pages etc.

Any suggestions or words of wisdom right now would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks

I would consider a worst case scenario. What part of your traffic is coming from Google ?

If it is more than 30%, keep that domain name that you hate and do not try to replace it by a new one. Seems too risky to me.

If it is less than that and if you are sure that the new domain is much better, register the new domain and redirect the old one to the new one immediately (301 redirect from each page of the old domain to the matching page of the new domain). In my opinion, there is no reason to temporarily put original content on the new domain.

Jean-Luc

If you copy the domain exactly as it is currently... it has the exact merits of the original... the only five issues then are.

1. re-indexing [with sitemaps this can be quick]
2. link history [lost but that isn't a bad thing]
3. new link development [you must do this]
4. current membership may not welcome change [a probable drop in membership will occur]
5. a 301 of the current domain to the new one "to a special page" that focuses it text links to specific high value sub-pages

If you happen to acquire a domain that has previously been promoted [has its own current links] you could actually greatly enhance the new site over the previous domain.

I cannot agree with these comments.

This is ineffective. In fact, this is the reason why you face these issues:If you 301 from page to page, there is no re-indexing issue and "link history" is passed from the old URL to the new one. Link development is always welcome, but not more with the new domain than with the existing one.
The intention is that the new domain is more attractive to potential members. The number of gained members should largely exceed the number of lost members. If you are not sure of that, do not move to a new domain.

Jean-Luc

Well it's wouldn't be the first time I'm wrong but:

Surely if a website DOES NOT exist at the new domain "IT MUST GET INDEXED. just because you add a re-direct doesn't automatically make those pages appear in search engines even if you can get from a listed "old page" to an "unlisted new page" ... search engines still need to index, to cache, and credit links, etc. that doesn't happen instantly.

...and a website with a membership of 1,000,000 members likely has as many pages and most aren't included in primary results and as such doing a page to page re-direct is a real waste of effort... if 95% of your pages are in supplemental results that suggests all your ranks are mostly coming from the other 5% so these are the "important pages"... not every page that does nothing at the moment.

Don't go for re-branding just because you hate it.Your big company or DN are not going to buying your products. It is your clients who are going to purchase. So you need to do a survey with your clients first. If they don't connect well with the name and through new name they can identify you better
then only move ahead with re-branding.Otherwise this will confuse your loyal clients and you may loose existing memberships instead of getting more memberships.