Changing Domain [IMPORTANT ENQUIRY]

Dear BHW,

I write to you this feeling uneasy as a really unfavorable situation bothers my mind for the past few days and there's nobody to turn to - changing the domain name of a local eCommerce site.

What worries me most is how to make sure that the current pages will be indexed under the new domain?

I read some old threads like this one but it's 2018 and wonder if more can be done than 1. Do a 301 redirect from the old domain to the new one and 2. Use the Change of Address feature in google webmaster tools

I'll not lie, I didn't give it much thought with coming up with the domain. Now, I developed a vision for it.

The current name is ok but it's a bit untraditional, with english words and hard to remember, plus my customers tell me they associate me as one of my competitors. I'll omit mentioning the name here but if my main competitor is dogbiscuit.com, my site is dogbiscuitshop.com.

The present domain is 3 months old with DA12 and about to rank for many keywords.

If you can help me answer the question or better - can relate to this you will save me from my agony.

Cheers.

Why not just keep the domain active and create a new one; rank it, and oversaturate the niche with you having two top ranked sites.

Grinch said:

Why not just keep the domain active and create a new one; rank it, and oversaturate the niche with you having two top ranked sites.

Click to expand...

This is not blackhat; it's a legal business and it will create a lot of difficulties from accountant point of view.

In your case the best option is to have permanent 301 redirect old domain to new domain.
Use wildcards wherever necessary.

I have done this few months back with an expired domain redirecting all the back links to new pages.
It can be done in cpanel, you can find videos on youtube how to do this.