29%
Increase in organic traffic 90 days after launching new domain
122%
Increase in organic traffic year over year
2+
Hours saved on link-building & SEO daily
“When switching domains, we prepared for a 7–10% loss in traffic. 90 days after launch we had +29% organic traffic. It would have been much harder to navigate this transition without Moz Pro.”
Client: TopSpot
Industry: Marketing Agency | Location: Houston, TX
TopSpot Internet Marketing is the largest independent search marketing agency in Houston, Texas. Their passion for digital strategy has led them to specialize in solutions designed to help their clients improve their positions in organic search and drive new leads.
Challenge: Switching domains without losing search traction
Changing domains is a difficult transition for any business, but when you’re a company like TopSpot, with a strong search presence built up over 14 years, switching domains presents a huge risk.
Anita Perez, Co-Founder and Vice President of Operations, and John Varghese, Director of SEO, knew that their company could potentially lose thousands of dollars due to lost traffic if they didn’t properly redirect each and every link to their new domain.
“In early 2018, the challenge we faced was switching our domain from topspotims.com to topspot.com,” Anita says.
“It’s scary changing a domain that you’ve been using for 14 ½ years,” John adds. “We knew that launching a new domain would have a direct impact on our business.”
They would also need to filter through all of topspot.com’s existing links to figure out which ones they could save and which they needed to disavow due to low quality. The last thing they could afford was a Google penalty hurting their long-term sustainability.
To add to the pressure, Anita and John knew that TopSpot, as the largest SEO agency in Houston, would face a lot of scrutiny from clients and competitors alike over how they handled their transition.
“We had to take a lot of care and develop a plan,” John says. “When we do a domain forward for our clients, we tell them to expect a 15–20% drop in traffic and rankings but we knew the eyes of the industry were on us.”
The domain switch was all scheduled to go down in March—and that was just the beginning. A few months later, in July, they had concrete plans to launch a new version of their website.
TopSpot needed to modify links from every linking domain to preserve their value. They also needed to assess the quality of nearly 100 pre-existing links on topspot.com and disavow the low-quality ones. And they would only have a few weeks to do it after their site went live on the new domain.
“We had to take a lot of care and develop a plan. When we do a domain forward for our clients, we typically expect a 15-20% drop in traffic and rankings but we knew the eyes of the industry were on us.”
Solution: A simple way to determine the strength and value of links
TopSpot has relied on the Moz Pro suite of tools for all of their SEO tracking and reporting since 2006, so it was only natural that Link Explorer—one the tools included with Moz Pro—would facilitate and smooth their domain switch.
“Link Explorer was instrumental in our strategy to prioritize and identify links that we could modify and point to the correct version of the domain,” Anita says, “It showed us exactly how many links were still pointing at topspotims.com and helped us point the ones we could control at the right domain. It guided us in making sure we got our link situation squared away and preserved our link value.”
John and his team identified and modified nearly 400 links in two weeks. Throughout the process, they continuously checked in with Link Explorer to see where each link was pointing, which links were being redirected, and which domains were slow to modify their links.
At the same time, John and his team used Moz Pro to assess the existing links on their newly acquired domain.
“Over 90% of the links were either low or questionable quality,” John explains, “We decided to remove any doubt. We used Moz to disavow 66 out of 72 domains.”
“Link Explorer helped us identify low-quality links on the new domain and disavow them prior to launching the new version of our website,” Anita adds.
Both Anita and John were glad for how straightforward Moz made the domain transition experience. They also had the peace of mind that comes with knowing your SEO efforts will soon be rewarded.
“Moz represents the industry standard for good SEO practices. Their tools are easy to understand and utilize,” John says. “Honestly, I can’t remember a time a time we didn’t use Moz—they’re ingrained in our approach.”
“Moz was an authority in the SEO space back before Google had all the resources they have today. Honestly, I can’t remember a time we didn’t use Moz—they’re ingrained in our approach.”
Results: 29% more traffic within 90 days of switching domains
Anita and John were prepared for the traffic drop that inevitably follows a domain transition. What they weren’t expecting was how quickly their website would recover—and then flourish.
After 30 days, their organic traffic was -7.3% from where it was before the domain transition. After 60 days, it had shot up to +9%. After 90 days, it had increased to +29%.
Their growth didn’t stop there either. Since launching the new version of their website, branded traffic has surged. Now, 120 days after their domain transition, organic traffic is up 40% from their old website’s numbers.
“When switching domains, we prepared for a 7–10% loss in traffic. 90 days after launch we had +29% organic traffic,” Anita says, “It would have been much harder to navigate this transition without Moz Pro.”
John also compared traffic numbers between their old domain and their new domain before the redesign. He discovered that the simple act of switching domains increased their traffic numbers by 122% year over year.
“Our old site was optimized too, so I attribute a lot of this success to what we learned from Moz. We shortened our domain and made it more memorable, and we saw a big increase in branded search,” John says.
Since the success of their relaunch, Anita and John canceled some of their other SEO tools. Prior to the release of Link Explorer, they relied on another popular tool for link building. Now, Moz Pro does everything they need.
“Link Explorer works better for us—and it works better for our clients,” John explains. “We use Link Explorer data to explain to our clients how their sites are performing.”
TopSpot has been trusting Moz Pro as their primary SEO tool since 2006, and today they rely on it for everything from training to keyword research to link building to page optimization.
“Link Explorer is instrumental in our audits for prospective clients. Moz Page Authority and Domain Authority communicate link metrics and site strength in a clear fashion for our prospects. Other link products are not as clear.”
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