Tips for changing your startup’s domain

Frequently Asked Questions

• What should you do first when migrating your startup to a new domain?

  Before you touch DNS settings, audit your new domain's history and build a complete spreadsheet of every subdomain and URL you currently own.
  
  A domain with a spammy past can tank your search visibility overnight. Check Google Search Console to see if the new domain appears on any blacklists and submit a reconsideration request early, because the review process takes time. While you wait, map out every subdomain, landing page, and app endpoint in a single spreadsheet so nothing slips through the cracks during the switch. For SaaS businesses, this matters more than most: broken API subdomains or misconfigured billing endpoints can interrupt subscriptions and spike involuntary churn before you even notice the problem.
• How do you migrate a startup domain without losing SEO rankings?

  Set up 301 redirects from every old URL to its new equivalent, then use the Google Search Console change of address tool to accelerate the transition.
  
  A 301 redirect tells search engines to transfer the authority of your old pages to the new domain rather than treating them as new, unproven URLs. After the redirects are live, the change of address tool helps Google update its index faster. Two additional steps most teams miss: reach out to high-traffic external sites linking to your old domain and ask them to update the links, and use a data-counturl attribute on social share buttons so your post counts do not reset to zero. Skipping any of these steps is how a domain change turns into a months-long traffic recovery project.
• What email and DNS records do you need to update when changing your startup's domain?

  You need to set up new SPF and DKIM records for every third-party service that sends email on your behalf, and you need a fresh SSL certificate for the new domain.
  
  Tools like Intercom, Mailchimp, and Customer.io send email using your domain's identity. If you do not add new SPF and DKIM records for each one, your messages will fail authentication checks and land in spam. On top of that, keep the SSL certificate on your old domain active indefinitely: without it, visitors hitting your old URLs will see a security error before the 301 redirect can fire. For Google Workspace users, it is cleaner to create an entirely new account tied to the new domain rather than trying to alias across both, then use Google's migration tool to move email, contacts, and calendar data across.
• How do you communicate a domain change to your customers without losing their trust?

  Send a direct email to your entire customer base before the switch goes live, explaining what is changing, why, and that their service will not be interrupted.
  
  For B2B SaaS businesses especially, an unexplained domain change looks like a phishing attempt or a company in distress. A short, plain-language note from the founder resolves that immediately. Be specific: tell customers the old domain, the new domain, and the date the change happens. If the new domain is not a simple TLD swap (for example, moving from a startup-name.io to an entirely different brand name), give customers even more lead time and context. Keeping your subscriber base informed during a business transition is the same principle that applies to pricing changes or product pivots: silence creates churn, transparency builds confidence.
• How do you track the revenue impact of a major business change like a domain migration or startup pivot?

  Monitor your MRR trend, churn rate, and trial-to-paid conversion rate in the weeks surrounding any major business change to isolate whether the change helped or hurt revenue.
  
  A domain migration, a product pivot, or a rebrand can all introduce friction that shows up first in your subscription metrics before it appears anywhere else. Watching new MRR, expansion MRR, and churned MRR as separate components lets you pinpoint exactly where customers are responding negatively rather than guessing. Baremetrics surfaces these metrics in real time from your Stripe, Braintree, or Recurly data, so you can see the impact of a business transition as it unfolds rather than discovering it in a month-end report. For SaaS founders changing direction, having live visibility into LTV and churn by customer segment is how you make the call to stay the course or adjust faster.