If You Just Changed Your Company’s Name, Don’t Forget This One Crucial Step

In the early days of your startup, you may go through a name change or two. Don’t worry: it’s more common than you might think. Creativity strikes at random moments, and you shouldn’t lose out on a brilliant company name just because you’re tied to one that you don’t love.

However, if you decide on making a name change, there is one major step that you can’t avoid. Changing your company’s name immediately wipes away all of the brand recognition that you built with your previous iteration. To hold on to fans of your old brand, you must make sure that your old website redirects to your new site.

What Not to Do

Here’s an example of what can happen when you don’t take care of your web resources during a name change. Fabula is an app that allows you to read books on your mobile phone or tablet for a low monthly fee. However, when Fabula first launched, it was hosted under the names Fastr.io and Fastrbooks. While the old domains associated with Fastr.io and Fastrbooks.com redirect to Fabula’s current website (www.fabula.im), it’s not hard to understand why visitors that expect to find Fastr are confused when they land on Fabula. The content that they see is irrelevant to what they were expecting, and they often leave without returning.

What to Do

In contrast to the experience of Fabula is another new tech startup: inBudget. inBudget is a personal finance app that prides itself on simplicity and a great user experience. While their name does a great job of conveying what they’re about, the app was originally advertised with the name Firp.

The inBudget developers used a tool called Capsulink to ensure that their name change happened smoothly. With Capsulink, any visitor looking for Firp is automatically taken to the appropriate inBudget page. inBudget’s managers are notified as soon as a dead page appears on their site, so that 404s can be eliminated within only a few minutes.

Save Traffic, Use Capsules

The best part about capsules is that once you set them up, they work forever. A little forethought can prevent a lot of headaches when you make your next name change; don’t forget about this little detail!

Originally posted on Medium