SEO: Moving Domain To Temporary Domain & Then Back To Original Domain

Google On Moving Domain To Temporary Domain & Then Back To Original Domain

An SEO is in a situation where a site needs to move from www.domain.com to new.domain.com and then a few months later back to www.domain.com. John Mueller of Google was asked if they should use 302 redirects but John said, no, use 301 redirects.

Moving back and forth with domains is an SEO nightmare, no SEO wants to deal with such a move. But John said if you have to, he said "a move back & forth like this is possible." "I'd just use 301's though," he added on Twitter.

"This obviously isn't a best practice (any move adds complexity & makes tracking harder), but sometimes you have to roll with what you're given," he also said and also warned not to use the change of address tool for a temporary move like this.

Here are these tweets:

Hey @JohnMu I have a rare case:

Big site (tech constraints) will move from www.domain to newshop.domain & 3M later they will move back to www.domain.

Now they're wondering if a temp 302 redirect is good practice since the move is also temp

— Jandex (@CaerelsJan) February 27, 2023

It's my colleagues proj., I don't know all details. When I asked him why it had to move domains, they were very vague.

Usually this strongly implies it can be done, but it's too complex/too high workload :)

My hunch: Part of it stays on www, part of it moves to a new platform.

— Jandex (@CaerelsJan) February 27, 2023

Again, not my project. But that was my advice as well. It seems they don't want to delay any longer.

IMO, we need to manage expectations and warn them. If they still want to go thru, then thats their choice.

— Jandex (@CaerelsJan) February 28, 2023

I don't know about you, but site moves in general are scary but doing one like this, seems like an SEO disaster waiting to happen.

Forum discussion at Twitter.

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