Change of Address in Google Search Console: When to Use It and What to Check First

Moving a site to a new domain is mostly server work: redirects, canonicals, sitemaps. The Change of Address tool in Google Search Console is the one step that tells Google, directly, that the old domain now lives somewhere else.

It is also the step people most often run when they don't need it, or run once when they needed it three times. Most site changes don't qualify for the tool at all, and the moves that do still go wrong when an old www or subdomain variant gets skipped, redirects come down too early, or the move gets bundled with a redesign.

Below: how to decide whether the tool applies, what to set up before you open it, how to run it on every variant of the old domain, and how to check in Search Console that the move is actually landing.

What the Change of Address tool actually does

According to Google's Change of Address help page, the tool is for moving a site from one domain or subdomain to another. It tells Google about the change and helps migrate your Google Search results from the old site to the new one. Google says to use it after you have moved and redirected the site.

Once a request goes through, Google does three things for 180 days:

It emphasizes crawling and indexing the new site over crawling the old one.
It forwards signals from the old site to the new site.
It prefers the new site over the old when choosing canonical pages.

What the tool does not do

It doesn't create redirects, rewrite URLs, or move content. Those are your job, and the tool checks for them before it accepts the request.

It also doesn't erase the old site from Google's index. Old URLs that have no equivalent page on the new site can keep showing in Search. Redirects from old to new, plus rel=canonical tags on the new pages, are what reduce the number of old URLs Google shows.

Should you even use this tool?

Only if the domain or subdomain changes. Google's help page lists the cases.

Use it when you move:

From one domain to another (old-domain.com to new-domain.com).
From one subdomain to another domain or subdomain (m.old-domain.com to new-domain.com).
From a domain to a path on another domain (old-domain.com to new-domain.com/new/location/).

Don't use it when you are:

Switching from http to https. Follow the site move with URL changes guide instead; Google figures out the change for you.
Moving pages from one path to another inside the same site. Add redirects and update your sitemaps.
Switching between www and non-www on the same domain. Use canonical tags and/or redirects.
Changing hosting or CDN with no visible URL change. Follow Google's guide to moving a site with no URL changes.

If none of the URLs your visitors see are moving to a new domain or subdomain, stop here. You don't need the tool.

Pre-work checklist before you open the tool

The tool runs pre-move checks when you submit, and a failed critical check blocks the request. Clearing these items first saves the back-and-forth.

Set up your 301 redirects

Google's minimum is a 301 redirect from the old homepage to the new homepage, and it recommends 301s for the canonical pages of the old site too. Map each old URL to its equivalent new URL rather than sending everything to one place.

Two rules from Google's site move guide matter most here:

Redirect straight to the final URL. Googlebot can follow chains, but Google advises redirecting to the final destination directly and keeping any chain short.
Don't send many old URLs to one irrelevant page, such as the new homepage. Google says this can confuse users and might be treated as a soft 404. Content you are not moving should return a 404 or 410 on the new site.

Verify every property variant

This is where most domain moves go sideways. Google's requirements:

You must be an owner of both the old and new properties in Search Console, using the same Google account for both.
The tool only works on domain-level properties (old-domain.com, m.old-domain.com, http://old-domain.com). It doesn't work on path-level properties such as old-domain.com/blog/.
It doesn't move subdomains below the domain you specify, including www. Moving old-domain.com does not move www.old-domain.com or m.old-domain.com.
It does move every protocol of the source property, so moving http://old-domain.com also covers https://old-domain.com.

So verify every variant of the old domain (bare, www, and any other subdomain such as en. or m.), even ones you don't actively use, and plan one Change of Address request for each.

Prepare the new site

From the same guide, before the move goes live:

Give every new URL a self-referencing canonical tag, and update hreflang annotations if you have them.
Update internal links to point at new URLs, not old URLs that redirect.
Prepare a sitemap of the new URLs, and keep one of the old URLs for monitoring.
Remove any noindex rules or robots.txt blocks you used during development.
Make sure the server can take extra load. Google says it will crawl the new site more heavily than usual after a migration.

How to run the Change of Address tool in Google Search Console

With redirects live and every property verified:

Open the old domain-level property in Search Console.
Open Settings and choose Change of address.
Select the new site's property as the destination and follow the instructions in the tool.
Read the pre-move check results. The tool confirms you own both sites and checks for 301s on a few pages. A failed critical check blocks the request until you fix it. A failed non-critical check shows a warning with recommendations, and you can continue.
Submit. When the critical checks pass, every site in the move shows a notification in Search Console that the move is in progress, for 180 days.

Then repeat for every other variant of the old domain: the www version, the bare domain, and each subdomain. Each one is a separate request, because the tool does not carry subdomains along with the domain you picked.

What happens after you submit, and how to check the move

Expect it to be slow. Google's site move guide says a small to medium site can take a few weeks for most pages to move, larger sites take longer, and visibility can fluctuate while it happens. The move is processed URL by URL as Googlebot recrawls both sites.

Use these Search Console reports to check progress:

Sitemaps. Submit both the old-URL and new-URL sitemaps. At first the new one shows few indexed pages and the old one many. Over time the old count should drop toward zero while the new one rises. Redirect warnings on the old sitemap are normal here.
Page indexing, old property. Old URLs moving into Page with redirect is what a working move looks like.
Page indexing, new property. Watch the Page indexing report for a jump in Not found (404) or Redirect error. Google's guide calls out redirects pointing at wrong or non-existent URLs as a common migration mistake.
Performance. Impressions and clicks should move from the old property to the new one as new URLs get indexed and start ranking.
URL Inspection. Use the URL Inspection tool on a sample of old URLs to confirm the redirect, and on new URLs that seem to be missing from Google.

If the old sitemap's indexed count stops falling, or the new property's impressions stay flat while the old property keeps dropping, spot-check redirects first. A later server or CMS change can quietly break them. Once the new property has a few weeks of data, finding the pages losing traffic in Search Console shows which URLs did not carry over.

What not to do during a site move

Don't remove redirects early. The Change of Address help page says to keep them for at least 180 days, longer if they still get Google Search traffic. The site move guide says generally at least a year. After 180 days, Google treats the old site as unrelated if it is still present and crawlable.
Don't let the old domain lapse. Google recommends paying for it for at least a year so nobody else can buy it and use it for malicious purposes.
Don't chain moves. After moving site A to site B, you can't immediately submit another change of address from B to C.
Don't merge several sites at once. Moving A, B, and C into D in one go can cause confusion and traffic loss. Google suggests moving one at a time and waiting for traffic to stabilize.
Don't combine the move with a redesign. Keeping the same site architecture passes signals more directly. A move plus a new URL structure usually means some traffic loss while Google relearns the pages. Change one thing at a time.
Don't use the tool for http to https, www to non-www, or path changes. It isn't built for them.

Frequently asked questions

Do I need the Change of Address tool for an HTTP to HTTPS move?

No. Google's help page says not to use the tool for an http to https move. Follow the site move with URL changes guide (redirects, canonicals, sitemaps) and Google works out the change on its own. The same applies to www to non-www on the same domain and to path changes inside one site.

Why won't the tool let me submit the move?

The tool runs pre-move checks before it sends the request. It confirms you own both sites and checks for 301 redirects on a few pages. A failed critical check blocks the request until you fix it, usually a missing redirect, a property you have not verified, or two properties managed from different Google accounts. Non-critical failures show a warning and let you continue. The tool also only opens on domain-level properties, not path-level ones such as a /blog/ folder.

How long does a domain move take in Google Search?

Google's site move guide says a small to medium site can take a few weeks for most pages to move, and larger sites take longer. The Change of Address request itself stays active for 180 days. Rankings can fluctuate while Google recrawls both sites.

Can I undo a change of address?

Yes, for 180 days after you submit it. Remove the old-to-new 301 redirects, add 301 redirects from the new site back to the old one, then open the Change of Address tool on the old property and click Cancel Move. Repeat for every old property you no longer want to move.

Keep the move boring

A clean domain move comes down to three things: one-to-one 301 redirects, a Change of Address request for every variant of the old domain, and leaving everything else alone while Google catches up. Search Console shows whether it is working: sitemaps, Page indexing, and Performance moving from old to new.

After the move, the job is the same as before it: knowing which pages gain or lose search traffic. ClickFlow connects to Search Console and tracks page-level performance, so pages that lost ground in the move are easy to find.