Changing your domain name: when it's worth it

Most businesses should keep the domain name they have, even if it is a little long or a little old-fashioned. Change it when the current name is actively hurting you: it names a business you no longer are, it gets mistyped so often that customers end up somewhere else, or you do not truly control it. If you do change, keep the old domain forever and send every old address to the new one.

Good reasons to change

These are the situations where a new address usually pays for the hassle:

The business changed its name or its trade. If you were "Smith Lawn Care" and now do landscaping design under a new name, an address that still says lawn care confuses people who heard about you by the new name.
People cannot spell it or say it. Try it on the phone: say your address to a friend once and ask them to type it. If they stumble over a hyphen, a double letter or an unusual spelling, customers are stumbling too.
It belongs to someone else. If the domain sits in a former partner's or an old web designer's account and they will not hand it over, a new name you own outright can be the cleaner path. First, though, try to get it back: when your web designer registered your domain walks through how.
It carries a problem you cannot fix. A name close to a bigger company's trademark, or one that was used for spam before you bought it, can follow you around. If you have received a letter about a trademark, talk to your attorney before deciding anything.
You are merging locations or businesses under one name and want one address everyone can remember.

Weak reasons, where changing rarely helps

"A keyword in the name will get me found." Putting "best-plumber-dallas" in your address does very little for how Google treats you, and it can look spammy on a truck. Google reads what your pages say and what other sites and customers say about you far more than the letters in the address.
"The ending is wrong." A .net or .biz address that customers already know is not worth replacing just to get a .com. If you can buy the .com version too, buy it and point it at your site, but keep using the address people know.
"It's a little long." Long but clear beats short but cryptic. "harrisonfamilydental.com" is long and nobody misreads it.
Boredom with the old name. A fresh design does the job a fresh address would, without the costs below.

What a change really costs

The new domain itself costs little. The rest of the bill is time and lost habits:

Everything printed. Business cards, vehicle lettering, signs, invoices, menus, brochures, the magnet on the fridge of a customer who used you three years ago.
Email addresses. If your email is on the old domain, every customer, supplier and bank that has your address needs the new one. Most owners keep the old mailboxes receiving mail for years.
Online listings. Google Business Profile, Yelp, Facebook, the Better Business Bureau, trade directories, your chamber of commerce page. Each one has to be found and edited.
Links from other websites. Suppliers, local news stories and partner sites that link to your old address will not update themselves.
A period of adjustment on Google. When a site moves to a new domain, Google has to notice the move and carry its picture of your business across. Done properly, with every old page forwarded, this usually settles. Nobody can promise exactly how long it takes or that nothing shifts along the way. Changing your domain name without losing Google covers the steps in detail.

How to switch without losing customers

If you have decided to change, the order matters.

Buy the new domain in an account you control, with your own email as the contact. Turn on auto-renew.
Set up email on the new domain first and test it, sending and receiving, before you announce anything.
Put the website on the new domain. Check every page on your phone.
Forward every old page to its match on the new domain, page by page, not all to the home page. Someone who bookmarked your old "Services" page should land on the new "Services" page. This is called a permanent redirect, or a 301. Why forwarding old page addresses matters explains what goes wrong when it is skipped.
Keep old email addresses delivering into your new mailbox, so nothing sent to the old address is lost.
Tell Google. If you use Google Search Console, it has a "Change of address" tool for exactly this. Then update your Google Business Profile's website field.
Update listings and print over the following weeks, starting with the ones customers see most.

A middle path: keep the old one, add a new one

Sometimes the right answer is not a change but an addition. If customers struggle to spell your address, buy the common misspellings and the shorter version, and point them all at your main site. If you renamed the business, you can buy the new name, make it your main address, and still have the old one forward quietly in the background. You pay a few small yearly renewals instead of the cost of a forced change later. Buying several domains for your business explains when extra names are worth having.

Questions to answer before you decide

Can a stranger type my current address correctly after hearing it once?
Does my current address still describe the business I run today?
Do I fully control the current domain, with the login in my name?
How many printed items, listings and email contacts would need changing?
Would buying a second name and pointing it at my site solve the problem instead?

If most answers point to keeping the name, keep it and spend the effort on the site itself.

What to do this week

Say your address out loud to two people and watch them type it.
Log in to your registrar and confirm the domain is in your name, renews automatically and has a current card on file.
If you are changing, list every place the old address is printed or listed before you buy anything, so the real cost is in front of you.
Look at your site with fresh eyes. Often the feeling that "the name is old" is really that the website is old. If so, you can see your site rebuilt first on the address you already have.