I have an online store and want to change the name. It has been online for 6 years. Is there a way to do this without losing rankings I have? thank you for any help
Don’t change …set up a 2nd store under the
new name.
Why risk your current business inthe hopes the
new name will be better?
Plus, your existing customers will be coming
back and you’ll lose that business. I know you
can set up redirects but I would still advise
that you run 2 businesses instead of changing
to a new one.
You can change it but you may take a short term hit in sales due to branding confusion. Personally I wouldn’t change names unless you know it is essential to boost business in the long term. By knowing I don’t mean you feel or assume it is, I mean do market research and contact some current customers and get their opinion on your current branding vs new branding.
If you do change your domain name as well make sure to call out the name change on your home page and link ALL current urls to the new urls using 301 redirects.
Use “permanent redirection” method, thus Google page rank from old domain or store will move to the new one.
Which are 301 redirects.
are you going to change the domain name? if yes, don’t do that 
That would not make much sense…Just make another store for god’s sake…
If you take the correct steps there really isn’t much concern with changing domains.
- Redirect all urls of the old domain to the new domain using 301 redirects.
- Keep the old domain live for as long as you can.
Doing the above will allow old links to still work appropriately and for your page ranking to remain intact. For further clarity for the customer you could even give a brief call out on your site to those individuals coming from the old urls utilizing an inline pop up or growl ("Welcome to the new improved “X Company”, previously know as “Y Company”.).
The downside of all this will be in your marketing collateral and ads. People familiar with the old name will not know the new name in your re branded marketing. I highly recommend a current customer awareness campaign using direct mail or email to let your current customers about the name change.
If your site/business dont make that much, I think it’s fine to change name but if it’s already doing good then that’s very bad for your branding.