<b>Q: When is the GSC Change of Address tool actually useless?</b>

<b>Q: When is the GSC Change of Address tool actually useless?</b>

Fair question — it's oversold as a magic button.

Short answer: it only helps for a full domain-to-domain move where the whole site relocates. Outside that, it does nothing.

Long answer: Change of Address tells Google "everything from old-domain moved to new-domain." It's a signal, not the mechanism — your 301 redirects still do the real work. It does NOT apply to:

— http to https (same domain)
— www to non-www
— moving to a subfolder or subdomain on the same site
— partial moves (only the blog relocated)

For those, the redirects and canonicals carry everything; the tool will just refuse or have no effect.

Next step: if it's a true 1-to-1 domain move, verify BOTH properties in Search Console first, confirm your 301s work, then submit. Otherwise skip it and lean on redirects.