Are you planning to change your (NAP+W) business name, address, phone number, or website URL? Before making any updates, please read the information below carefully. These important steps will help protect your online visibility and prevent negative impacts on your rankings with Google and other major search engines (SERPs).
If you’re seeking assistance with managing an online presence or branding change for your property, we’d be happy to connect you with our sales team.
With Marketing Tier 2, we guide you through building and executing the plan, providing expert direction at every step. With Marketing Tier 3, you’re assigned a dedicated project manager who will build and execute the entire plan on your behalf, with your assistance only as needed for access and approvals.
Let us know if you’d like to explore which option is the best fit for your goals.
Changing your lodging property’s website URL, whether it’s a full domain change (e.g., from oldbnb.com to newbnbretreat.com), an update to your business name, address, phone number, or simply a page path change (e.g., /rooms to /accommodations), can create ripple effects across your Google rankings and E-E-A-T (Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, Trustworthiness).
With proper planning, these changes can be managed with minimal disruption. However, when handled incorrectly, they often result in temporary, and sometimes long-term, declines in traffic and online visibility.
Below, you’ll find a clear breakdown of potential impacts and actionable steps you can follow to protect your search performance.
How Branding Changes Impact Your Google Rankings
URL changes can disrupt link equity (the SEO value built through backlinks and internal links) associated with your existing pages. Because Google treats each URL as a unique identifier for content, improper handling can cause your new pages to be interpreted as entirely new (or worse, as duplicates or errors).
This often results in:
Temporary ranking drops: Even with proper redirects, it’s common to see a 15–30% loss in link value while Google reprocesses the changes. Re-crawling can take weeks to months. For a B&B website, this may impact local searches such as “bed and breakfast in [your city]” if key pages like /rooms or /about are not transitioned seamlessly.
Broken links and 404 errors: External sites linking to your old URLs (for example, TripAdvisor reviews or travel blogs) may break, signaling poor site health to Google and contributing to ranking declines.
Re-indexing delays: Google must recrawl and re-index your entire site, which can slow or stall momentum for niche and intent-driven searches like “cozy B&B near [national park].”
If your website benefits from strong local SEO signals, such as Google Business Profile integration, domain or structural changes increase the risk further, as geotargeting and entity signals may require reconfiguration.
How Branding Changes Affects E-E-A-T
E-E-A-T (Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, Trustworthiness) is not directly tied to URLs, but website and branding changes can indirectly weaken these signals if not handled carefully:
Authoritativeness: Lost or broken backlinks from travel directories, review platforms, or guest blogs can dilute your site’s perceived authority within the hospitality space.
Trustworthiness: 404 errors, redirect chains, or broken booking links frustrate users (for example, a guest trying to book through an outdated URL), increasing bounce rates and signaling unreliability to search engines. Maintaining HTTPS is critical, any downgrade to HTTP can significantly damage trust.
Experience & Expertise: If your core content remains consistent (such as your property story, amenities, or local expertise pages), E-E-A-T is largely preserved. However, major redesigns during the transition can make pages feel less “established” or authentic—particularly for YMYL-adjacent topics like guest safety and accommodations.
Overall, a well-executed transition preserves E-E-A-T by maintaining content quality, backlinks, and technical trust signals. Poor execution, however, can make your site appear unstable or unreliable, both to users and to Google.
Steps to Change Your Business Information Correctly
Note: Changing your website URL happens at the DNS level and likely requires help from support.
Step 1: Audit and Plan
Begin by creating a spreadsheet (ex: Excel or Google Sheets) to track existing references to your business. This will serve as a central place to document where your business is listed and record updates as they are completed.
Search for your business name in Google and document every website that references your business or links to your site.
Next, visit each of these websites and update the information you are changing, whether that’s your business name, website URL, address, email, or phone number.
Important: Your business information must be 100% consistent across all platforms. Even variations, such as using “bed and breakfast” in one place and “B&B” in another, can weaken your SEO and E-E-A-T signals. Consistent naming, formatting, and contact details across the internet lead to stronger trust and authority signals.
Finally, review backlinks from external sources such as tourism boards, industry associations, news articles, or blogs, and contact those organizations to request updates to your new information or URLs.
Step 2: Audit & Planning Checklist
☐ Create a master spreadsheet to track all listings, references, and backlinks – Include columns for website, URL, login/contact info, status, and notes
☐ Search your business name and website URL in Google (use quotes around the business name - ex: “My Bed & Breakfast” and “mybedandbreakfast.com”) – Document every website that mentions or links to your business
☐ List all platforms that reference your business, including: – Directories – Review sites – Travel platforms – Blogs and news articles – Social Media - Facebook/Instagram/TikTok, etc.
☐ Visit each website and update changed information: – Business name – Website URL – Address – Phone number – Email address
☐ Ensure absolute consistency across all platforms – Use the same spelling, formatting, and punctuation everywhere – Avoid variations like “and” vs. “&” – Consistency strengthens SEO and E-E-A-T signals
☐ Identify high-value backlinks (e.g., tourism boards, associations, press features)
☐ Contact site owners or editors to request URL and business information updates
☐ Track completion status and follow up where needed |
Step 3: Update Your Website Content
After you've completed updating online sources and citations to the best of your ability, it's now time to update your website with the new business name, any contact changes, and content within the site that no longer reflects your business model.
Check each website page to ensure that all of the information is correct. Remove references to "free breakfast", for example, if you are changing to a vacation rental or boutique hotel operation that doesn't offer breakfast. Remove or replace photos that show old signage or amenties you no longer offer. Conversely, add photos that reflect the new business model.
If you have a blog, you'll also need to update any posts that talk about the former business model.
Step 4: Notify Google and Monitor
Once you’ve completed your spreadsheet, updated all identifiable references, and freshened your website, finish by updating your Google Business Profile with the new information.
Next, review Google Analytics to identify any inbound links or referral sources you may have missed and update those where possible.
Finally, monitor performance for 4–6 weeks:
Track crawl errors in Google Search Console
Watch changes in impressions and clicks
Address any issues promptly to minimize ranking or traffic loss
Step 4: Post-Update Tweaks
Promote the change through email newsletters and social media to maintain direct traffic and keep returning visitors informed.
If rankings temporarily decline, prioritize fresh, timely content, such as seasonal B&B promotions or local experience highlights, to help rebuild visibility and regain search momentum.
Final Note: If you plan to launch a new website with a different (new) URL, it’s critical to plan ahead before going live.
Create your spreadsheet in advance and identify every location where your business information will need to be updated. That way, when your new site launches, you can make those updates immediately.
These changes should be completed before re-submitting your site to Google Search Console, ensuring Google can correctly identify and match your business information across the web. Proper alignment helps prevent confusion, indexing issues, and unnecessary ranking drops that could negatively affect your search placement.
After you have verified your new domain or URL in Search Console, and all of your 301 re-directs are done, use the Change of Address Tool to tell Google about your change, which helps to migrate your Google Search results from your old site to your new site: https://search.google.com/search-console/settings/change-address