Bonanzle is Bonanza!

Hey, now! A new site name? Well that is interesting. What does it mean to me?

Here are some answers.

Why are we making this change in the first place?
Please check out our blog post for the answer to this one.

I see two websites running right now, the old Bonanzle and the new Bonanza, will this continue forever? Isn’t this going to be confusing?
This is temporary.

Very soon, we will update the old domain or address will redirect to the new one automatically. So when you type in Bonanzle.com your browser will automatically redirect to Bonanza.com. We’re maintaining both sites for a few days to work out bugs and to give you guys some time to change copy in your listings and on your external websites even though this isn't critical to do immediately.

What will happen to all the links I've built to my booth and products?
Links to Bonanzle.com pages will be automatically redirected to their respective locations on Bonanza.com. For example, www.bonanzle.com/mybooth will seamlessly send the visitor to www.bonanza.com/mybooth and www.bonanzle.com/mybooth/items/myitem will send the user to www.bonanza.com/mybooth/items/myitem.

That said, eventually updating your links to bonanza.com is a good idea anyway. Google rewards sites with lots of links from other sites. So, having lots of links to Bonanza.com is a good thing which is one of the reasons we love PR and links from big news sites.

What about Google? Will we lose lots of traffic due to this change?
In the short term we will lose some, but we are taking multiple coordinated steps to minimize that impact. For organic search from Google, we will be setting up redirects from the old site to the new site to communicate to Google that the pages have moved. These redirects will work not only the homepage, but all Bonanzle links including item detail pages. Redirects of this sort are the industry-standard way to do a name change and it’s pretty common. We are also be re-submitting our sitemaps (index of all URLs on our website) to Google, and are notifying Google of this change via Google's Webmaster Tools.

For Google Product Search, we have already communicated with Google that this change is on the horizon, and they have helped us to get setup to make the transition. Since the products URLs are submitted directly to Google, Google Product traffic will be identical before and after the change.

So how will this affect my sales going into the holiday season?
We expect that by the time the holiday season has started in earnest during October, traffic should be at levels equal to or higher than they had been before the transition. Direct traffic and referral traffic will be completely unaffected by this change, since we will map pages on bonanzle.com directly to the corresponding page on bonanza.com.

Per the question above, Google traffic will be reduced temporarily, but we are executing several measures that will ensure that the impact on search traffic will be minimal.

In the medium-to-long term, we believe that the transition to Bonanza.com will drive traffic and sales far higher than they had been at Bonanzle.com. As any long-time Bonanzle user knows, trying to get new users to remember the "Bonanzle" brand was an uphill battle. Our internal tests have indicated memorability increase from 50-100% with the new domain.

If I add or change a product listing do I have to do it in two places?
No. Both sites share the same database. And per above we’ll only be running the old site at Bonanzle for a few more days.

Do I need to change anything with PayPal or Google Checkout?
With Paypal, you don't need to change a thing.

If you use Google Checkout, you should change your callback URL to https://www.bonanza.com/offers_checkout/google_callback

However, we will continue to accept Google Checkout callbacks at your URL for at least the next 6-12 months, so it isn't imperative that you do this immediately.

What about Twitter and Facebook followers?
Our Twitter account is getting its name changed to @bonanzamarket. Sadly, @Bonanza was already taken. No need to change your follows for Twitter. You'll automatically follow the new name. Our Facebook page will be entirely new. Please follow us on Facebook.com/bonanzamarket

What about the API and/or widgets?
The API and external widget will continue to work. No change required.

So we're Bonanza.com now. What do we call ourselves?
We're still fans of "The Bonz" as well as "Bonanzlers," and "the ranch." Though I suppose you could now be a "Bonanzian" if you were so inclined.

What about my current Bonanzle.com swag?
Your Bonanzle merchandise is now collectors items! Hold on to it tightly, some day it might pay for your retirement.