Impact of website redesign when changing to wordpress
-
Agency designed website and not sure what platform was used. Are now working minor redesign of site but wants to do so in word press. I don't have any problem with word press but don't want to start over ranking for key phrases. I don't want to change URL from mysite.com for the home page. What is the right way to make sure this is done correctly. I could not find a resource on the site. I don't mind researching this but am not sure what to search for to find info. Thanks
-
Many thanks Ryan.
-
An example would be on an Apache server with mod-rewrite enabled
Options +FollowSymLinks
RewriteEngine on
RewriteRule (.*) http://www.newdomain.com/$1 [R=301,L]The above 3 lines of code would be placed in the .htaccess file on the old web server. Replace the newdomain URL with the actual address of your new domain.
An excellent page which I would suggest bookmarking: http://www.seomoz.org/learn-seo/redirection
-
"A regex expression would need to be written to map the old urls to the new ones" I was interested in knowing about this. Thats why i asked the question.
-
I am not entirely clear on your question and I am not a regex expert. I muddle through and get the job done as needed.
Basically you would write the code based on the old URL and the new URL. The expression says to replace www.oldsite.com with www.newsite.com in any URL.
-
Thanks. What would be the regex expression if i were ro redirect 25 pages to new site, without changing the extension and the site is on Apache server. Will regex expression take care of redirecting to multiple pages ( 25 in this case )
-
In a worst-case scenario, yes.
A regex expression would need to be written to map the old urls to the new ones. Depending on the changes made to the URLs, a single expression can cover multiple or even all URLs.
-
Hi Ryan,
"Option 3 - If your URL structure is changing, then each page from the old site would need to be 301 redirected to the new URL."
Supposing there are 25 pages in the old site, then shall we have to mention each page in .htaccess file for redirection.
-
Thank you for clarifying Alan. The solution depends on your migration plan.
Option 1 - If you are keeping the same domain name (mysite.com) and your URL structure remains the same, there is absolutely nothing you need to do. You are replacing your old page code with new WordPress code.
Option 2 - If you are moving to a new domain (newsite.com) then your web pages should be 301 redirected to the most appropriate page on the new site. If the URL structure is remaining in tact, this redirect can be made with a single command.
Option 3 - If your URL structure is changing, then each page from the old site would need to be 301 redirected to the new URL.
The redirect will ensure 90%+ of your page's link value is retained. Depending on the popularity of your site it may take a month for Google to reindex all of your site's pages. During that time some results may bounce in search results. Once a month has past, your pages should settle to around where they were before.
Normally a site change like this is done to improve the site in some aspects. The improvements from the change should offset the minor loss of link juice.
I would also share it is important to have experienced, competent developers working on your site. I have seen migrations which were outstanding, and others which were so bad the entire site needed to be completely reworked from scratch. You should obtain a detailed analysis of the quality checkpoints for your new site.
Good luck.
-
Sorry for the lack of clarity. I am not an seo. I just try to keep up with the topics a little bit so as,owner, I can make sure we are maximizing search spending. My question is when the new site goes up, what happens to the old pages that the google bots have indexed and made assessments regarding ranking. So based on links etc to those old pages there is a certain ranking for words that we are making to the 1st page and that I don't want to move down 40 or 50 slots because it is a new page. So, is there any thing I need to make sure that the design agency does regarding the old pages to make sure that any rankinking juice or whatever transfers to the new corresponding redesigned page. I don't want google sending people to the old pages but the new while i want those new pages to step into our 1st page slot. Does that make sense. Should we use redirects? Or is that not necessary?
-
Hi Alan.
I would like to help but am really unclear on exactly what you are asking. I understand you are migrating a site from an unknown platform to WordPress.
I don't understand what you mean when you say "but don't want to start over ranking for key phrases."
You can definitely keep your mysite.com URL for your home page with WordPress.
If your questions are specific to WordPress, I would recommend asking on wordpress.com or wordpress.org sites. There are several SEO plugins specific to WordPress which can help manage URLs. Yoast is a very popular one.
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
How to optimize my website with new Google Feature snippet fuctionality?
Recently I have interacted with Google's new Feature Snippet Functionality. Please refer to the link shared. https://www.google.com/search?q=family+health+insurance&rlz=1C1CHBD_enIN893IN893&oq=family+health+insurance&aqs=chrome.0.35i39l2j0l3j69i60l3.4692j0j7&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8 I'am looking for the way to optimize my website for the same? If anyone has any clue then please help me with this. search?q=family+health+insurance&rlz=1C1CHBD_enIN893IN893&oq=family+health+insurance&aqs=chrome.0.35i39l2j0l3j69i60l3.4692j0j7&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8
On-Page Optimization | | adlift0 -
International website - Image names
Hello All! In an international website, it is recommended to have a copy of every image for every language in the website (with translate filenames)? or it is better to use only one copy of each image and change only the alt attributes? Thanks for the help.
On-Page Optimization | | dMaLasp0 -
Getting 404 Errors on Fonts After Website Redesign
Hi, I recently redesigned my website and I changed a few URLs so I have been keeping an eye on 404 errors and setting up redirects as needed. However, my 404 error log keeps getting filled font related URLs like this: <colgroup><col width="960"></colgroup>
On-Page Optimization | | DohenyDrones
| /fonts/AvenirLTStd-Heavy.otf), url(/fonts/AvenirLTStd-Heavy.woff), url(/fonts/AvenirLTStd-Heavy.eot), url(/fonts/AvenirLTStd-Heavy.eot? |
| /fonts/FrutigerLTStd-Black.otf), url(/fonts/FrutigerLTStd-Black.woff), url(/fonts/FrutigerLTStd-Black.eot), url(/fonts/FrutigerLTStd-Black.eot? |
| /fonts/AvenirLTStd-Heavy.otf), url(/fonts/AvenirLTStd-Heavy.woff), url(/fonts/AvenirLTStd-Heavy.eot), url(/fonts/AvenirLTStd-Heavy.eot? |
| /fonts/AvenirLTStd-Book.otf), url(/fonts/AvenirLTStd-Book.woff), url(/fonts/AvenirLTStd-Book.eot), url(/fonts/AvenirLTStd-Book.eot? |
| /fonts/FrutigerLTStd-Bold.otf), url(/fonts/FrutigerLTStd-Bold.woff), url(/fonts/FrutigerLTStd-Bold.eot), url(/fonts/FrutigerLTStd-Bold.eot? |
| /fonts/FrutigerLTStd-Bold.otf), url(/fonts/FrutigerLTStd-Bold.woff), url(/fonts/FrutigerLTStd-Bold.eot), url(/fonts/FrutigerLTStd-Bold.eot? |
| /fonts/FrutigerLTStd-Black.otf), url(/fonts/FrutigerLTStd-Black.woff), url(/fonts/FrutigerLTStd-Black.eot), url(/fonts/FrutigerLTStd-Black.eot? |
| /fonts/AvenirLTStd-Book.otf), url(/fonts/AvenirLTStd-Book.woff), url(/fonts/AvenirLTStd-Book.eot), url(/fonts/AvenirLTStd-Book.eot? |
| /fonts/AvenirLTStd-Heavy.otf), url(/fonts/AvenirLTStd-Heavy.woff), url(/fonts/AvenirLTStd-Heavy.eot), url(/fonts/AvenirLTStd-Heavy.eot? | Any idea what is causing these 404 errors? Is this something that might hurt my SERP?0 -
Mass changes of titles and descriptions can cause issues?
I have a big website with all the titles and desc NOT optimized...if i change all of them in one day this can cause seo issues on my site? It's okay to do that?
On-Page Optimization | | markovald0 -
Is my megamenu negatively impacting my SEO?
Hello everyone, I have a megamenu with 87 links in total. We offer a ton of products, so when we decided to have this developed, it seemed like a no-brainer because a straight drop-down menu was really hard to digest. But I have been wondering if it is creating too many links on every single page and/or muddling the signals to the search engines. If anyone could take a look and give me their insight, I would really appreciate it. Thanks, www.cleanedison.com
On-Page Optimization | | CleanEdisonInc0 -
E commerce Website canonical and duplicate content isssue
i have a ecomerce site , i am just wondering if any one could help me answer this the more info page can be access will google consider it as duplicate and if it does then how to best use the canonical tag http://domain.com/product-page http://domain.com/product-page/ http://domain.com/product-Page http://domain.com/product-Page/ also in zencart when link product it create duplicate page content how to tackle it? many thanks
On-Page Optimization | | conversiontactics0 -
Rewrite URL for big website
My website is currently have over 1000 000 links indexed by Google , i'm going to rewrite all of these links, is this crazy ? Can someone give me a checklist to avoid going wrong way ? My website: http://www.webtretho.com/forum/ My current url format: webtretho.com/forum/f[forum_id]/[thread-title-thread_id/ Ex: Old URL: http://www.webtretho.com/forum/f90/chia-se-dau-hieu-mang-thai-1357342-new/ New URL: http://www.webtretho.com/forum/chuan-bi-mang-thai/chia-se-dau-hieu-mang-thai-1357342-new/
On-Page Optimization | | firstjames0 -
5 websites, 1 root domain name: good or bad?
Hi guys, I'm new here, so this might be a basic question to the experts here! So here is my situation: I have 1 "umbrella" website (root domain name) that contains 4 different websites, for a total of 5 different websites. They are related, but we needed to brand each website differently to fit each strategy. Q: I have 23 domain names.. this means I have 23 sub-domain names?
On-Page Optimization | | Jacky_C
Q: Is this practice good or bad for my SEO?
Q: should I analyze each domain name/SD? Here are my 5 websites
RD: furisgreen.com
SD1: furcouncil.com
SD2: furfashions.com
SD3: naffem.com
SD4: beautifullycanadian.com Thank you for your help!!0