My client is a reseller of a product/service that is going to undergo a major rebranding. The name, logo, everything, is going to change, it's just not clear exactly when the transition will start - and as the reseller we don't have any control over that process.

I want to get a head start on positioning my client for the new name, without undermining the SEO work that has been done on the current name. Not only because the current brand will still linger in the consumer consciousness for quite a while, but also because the rebranding might be a year off. Either way, the key positions we currently hold are a major source of revenue, so I need to maintain our existing rankings.

Any suggestions on a strategy for getting ranked for the new, future name without undermining the current brand?

Your insights are appreciated. Thank you!

Well to start off here's some info on changing domain names (http://forums.searchenginewatch.com/showthread.php?t=8898) - most of it should be relevant for your long term plan.

It may be a difficult issue - your client may be dubious about unleashing a new brand on the world before it's ready to go, which is effectively what you would need to do to get the ball rolling. But that aside...

I would consider creating content and optimising for related terms to what you currently achieve for - but be careful not to use the same filenames as are being used now.

This way you are effectively optimising a new site for new terms - there's no overlap with the current site. When the changeover takes place, not only will the old content (and hopefully rankings) be preserved, but you will have established new ones as well.

With a new site that is clearly unique you can target exisiting sources of links for the site without the risk of the links to the current site being removed. You may lose some after the chageover, but hopefully a lot will be preserved.

In terms of branding, you should be looking to optimise a page on both sites for the other's brand term - this could be within an "About Us" type area of the site. This will help ringfence both brands. After the changeover, the new site's page about the old site will rank for that brand term to capture any traffic looking for the old brand. Title / Description should be something like "Old brand is now New brand", etc.

Your goal for the new site is not to get the same rankings as the current site, but to achieve the same status as the current site in terms of link popularity, which is a key area you might not necessarily be able to preserve. When you put the old content on the new site you want to be sure that pages will rank on par with current rankings.

However this might not be achievable (depending on the age of the current site) - this is why you are creating the new content and rankings for the new site as part of the process - to soften the reliance on the existing rankings.

The worst thing that can happen is that you lose all the rankings for the old site - you need to be generating alternative sources of custom just incase. I'd also consider earmarking some funds for PPC for a few months just incase.

Another option would be to just let both sites run independently - get traffic from both, but use the new brand for corporate identity stuff.

Final issue is dealing with all the unique sources of links / traffic. Stuff that can't be easily replaced or changed - a mention in a news article, DMOZ listings (;)), natural links. Either keep them as is and source new stuff for the new site or if the sites will be consolidated into the new domain, 301 the old site when ready to chageover.

IMO, even if you are not going to keep both live, the new site would still stand to benefit from decent sources of links.

Thanks, Marketing Guy. That was the direction I was thinking of going. However, there's an additional complication - I wonder if this would change your advice.

The client is not just a reseller for this one brand in question, but resells other products on their site as well. Having all these products available "under the same roof" for comparison shopping is part of the USP, and the client's brand is already pretty established.

Creating a new site makes sense for pure SEO purposes, but it's problematic from a marketing perspective. And when the 301s are implemented, they'd have to point from the newly created site back to the old/current site where we'd swap out the content, not the other way around (because we need to keep my client's brand).

So, is there an elegant way to create the pages optimizing for the new brand on the client's existing domain? The pages would need to coexist with what would essentially be duplicate content since merchandising of the products themselves wouldn't change, regardless of their "brand."

Sorry if that's convoluted; it's hard to explain without using the actual names of the companies in question.

Thank you.