Should Redirect .net to .com?

Beetle

Beetle

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Hi all,

I have a website built on a .net domain.

The domain has some decent links (AHREFS DR 30+) as it was purchased as an aged domain and is starting to gain traction with traffic (heading towards 1000 visitors per day).

A few weeks ago I was able to purchase the .com version which has no domain power. I mostly did this to secure the brand but am now wondering if I should redirect the .net to the .com, not the other way around.

I am about to start creating graphics for social media, so now would be the time to decide before creating a ton of graphics with the .net domain version on them.

Any reason I shouldn't redirect the .net to the .com at this stage? Any 'best practices' for doing this?

Your input is appreciated. Thanks
 
Yes.

Net to com. Not even a question.
Get all the key pages to don’t just do the wildcard redirect thing.
 
The risk is fluctuations in your rankings. Google doesn't always get it right. Sometimes there's a semi-permanent loss in traffic and you have to rebuild up to where you were. It's probably more rare than it once was but it's a real and not negligible or completely rare risk.

I agree. If the site isn't huge, I wouldn't do a wildcard redirect because you'll be pushing 404 traffic over and everything. I'd set up a redirect for every existing page. If the site is gigantic I'd might just do the wildcard and let it ride, because eventually all mentions to the .net will stop happening and it'll only be bot traffic. It won't be too much of a waste of bandwidth or strain on the server if you aren't a millions-of-visitors-per-day type of site.

You could do this set of redirects at the server level for a faster implementation, like with an .htaccess file on Apache servers, or you could do it with PHP redirects using a plugin. I'd do it before PHP even begins to execute at the server level.

But for branding and everything, it's probably the right move.
 
Thanks for the feedback.

I have decided to take the plunge and move to the .com

I plan to redirect via .htaccess as was suggested. At this stage I have collated all published urls (pages, posts, categories, author archives). Is there anything else I should be aware of I may have missed?

Also, is this the best format for my redirections? Will these take care of all versions of the original website? (www, http, https)

Code: 
# START 301 Redirects
Redirect 301 / https://newdomain.com
Redirect 301 /sample-post-1/ https://newdomain.com/sample-post-1/
# END 301 Redirects

Thanks very much in advance for any advice!

I just discovered pixel kicks bulk 301 generator which pumps them out like this:

Code: 
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^www\.website\.net$
RewriteRule ^$ https://website.com/? [L,R=301]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^www\.website\.net$
RewriteRule ^sample\-post/$ https://website.com/sample-post/? [L,R=301]

Would this work? Thanks!
 
That’s pretty cool I might use it later.
I don’t see any reason it wouldn’t work.
Try it and let us know.
 
Yeah, I don't speak Regex well enough to know without testing it.

I wouldn't worry about having any extra leaps, though I always go through the maddening effort of making sure all the redirects from all possible versions make it to the new destination with only one redirect.

All possible versions meaning:
And by "only one redirect" I mean I don't want http:// redirecting to https:// first before it then redirects from the .net to the .com. That would be two leaps. I want it all done in one. Unfortunately I recently sold the last site I'd done anything like this on or I'd be able to snag the code for you.

It does appear to me that your first code chunk would work if you're going to list every URL. I think (but don't quote me) that it should be prefix-agnostic (like not caring which possible version above is being used at the time) and should 301 to the explicit URL you're listing.
 
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