How to Implement Massive SEO Modifications
-
Hi everyone,
I'm implementing some fairly significant changes on a clients website and wanted to know if it was better to implement all the changes at once or if I should implement the changes gradually.
The changes are:
1. Amended information architecture
2. Completely new URL's
3. New meta data and some new on page content
4. Meta robots 'no index, follow' approximately 90% of the site
Can I make all these changes in one go (that would be my preference), or should I gradually implement? What are the risks?
Many thanks
James
-
Hi Joe,
Thanks for the response. Having had a variety of different opinions, and still not being 100% on the right answer, I spent a LOT of time crawling through SEOmoz Q&A:
Takeaways from my digging around are:
- Changes to title tags and URL's should be implemented separately. As you state above, reason for this is so that you can pinpoint problems if they arise (see point 3 of the answer) http://www.seomoz.org/qa/view/49136/revising-urls
- Title tag changes should also be implemented in stages. Homepage, top 50 pages, everything else (again, see point 3 of the answer): http://www.seomoz.org/qa/view/39946/title-tags-global-changes. (As an interesting aside, Dr Pete clearly states that when making sitewide changes, dont make more than one set of changes per page, it could cause an over-optimisation penalty)
- URL structure changes should be implemented all in one go: http://www.seomoz.org/qa/view/45183/update-url-structure (this link is an amazing guide from everett sizemore on exactly how to implement URL changes, recommended reading!)
I appreciate there's no right and wrong answer, but I think that with the above in mind, the approach I'm going to take to these changes is a scientific one. Make a change, assess results, move forward.
1. Implement title tag changes in stages (monitoring site performance at every stage). Homepage/Category Pages/Everything else.
2.Add new on page content.
3. Add new information architecture (couple of new categories- nothing significant)
4. Implement URL changes through 301 redirects all in one go. Keep old site XML sitemap in place. Once site has been crawled (and new pages found) move to new sitemap and update internal links
4. Implement meta robots 'noindex, follow' to various sections of the site. Not all in one go, but section by section, monitoring results and then moving on if no issues arise
Would be interested to know what you think of that as a plan? Also, need to send out love to Dr Pete and Everett Sizemore for their Q&A answers!
James
-
#2 - completely new url's says it all for me. The others are all subs of that change. If possible you need to address these changes in some form of 301 redirect so that the spiders can follow your changes. update the .htaccess file or even create static php redirect headers or similar if you have to. This should prevent the search engines from reporting the dreaded 404 and getting the page dumped.
#4 - The no-index is not something you have to worry about as you are removing pages from the SERPs, not trying to get them ranked. Any page that is getting no-index is out of the SEO equation at this point.
#3 - this will improve rankings/search-ability so you are not looking at seeing a negative effect here. Updates on these pages, if done correctly, generally have favorable results and at the worst have 'no change' in the SERPs
#1 - I would need to know more detail on this one, but the new architecture will probably be reflected in #2's urls so if that it solved, so is number 1. Again, a more clear, easily accessible architecture hopefully allows the spiders to effectively categorize the sections of your site. The new IA will probably be more pleasing to users which will have its own benefits as well.
---- And the final vote... All at once, just address the 404's and you should be ok
-
NoIndex 90% of a site? Interested to hear why that makes sense in any situation. Maybe only implement have of those noindex tags at first to see if you get the desired result.
As for the title, meta and content, all at once is fine. Hopefully your new stuff is better than the old! Best of luck!
-
I came here to tell him to do the exact opposite! I was going to suggest doing one change at a time to measure and or A/B test results to make sure maximum benefit of each was given. After reading your response and his issues, i've changed my opinion and agree with you that its probably best to do all of these at once in one MAJOR revision and then tweak after that.
-
Considering how massive the changes are, I'd say it's best to do them all at once. This will let you start rebuilding as soon as possible. Making one big change and then waiting to start ranking again, followed by another big change that could drop them out of the rankings again would likely cause a longer period of your client not getting traffic. I wouldn't say that the on-page and metadata changes need to be made at the same time, if there are limited resources.
One problem with doing this all at once is that it will be more difficulty to evaluate the effect of each change. This might not be a huge deal to you, but sometimes it is nice to know what return came from each change.
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
-
Audit my SEO Project
Hey professionals, I works on "MyInfo Community" as a SEO worker, anyone can help me to audit my this project? Because i am newbie in this field. Thanks!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | smartpoedgr0 -
SEO- Manufacturer v Distributor
In respect to a safety clothing manufacturer manage SEO on behalf of, I've noticed that product distributors own 85% of the page 1 SERPs leaving product manufacturers such as my client largely under represented for the vast majority of search queries such as 'safety boots'. Love to hear your opinion on why this is and how I can combat it? TIA!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | resolved0 -
Is tabbed content bad for SEO?
I work for a Theater show listings and ticketing website. In our show listings pages (e.g. http://www.theatermania.com/broadway/this-is-our-youth_302998/) we split our content into separate tabs (overview, pricing and show dates, cast, and video). Are we shooting ourselves in the foot by separating the content? Are we better served with keeping it all in a single page? Thanks so much!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | TheaterMania0 -
SEO Effect of Outbound Links
Greetings MOZ community: What is best practices when it comes to creating outbound links to other websites? Will adding such links improve the MOZ domain authority of my site? How many outbound links should be added to each page? For example I run a commercial real estate web site in New York. About 20 pages are written about neighborhoods. If several outbound links are added to each neighborhood page, and these links point to pages that provide further information about that neighborhood, will my neighborhood pages where the links originates from see improved ranking (or ranking potential)? Are these outbound links a critical SEO factor? Thanks everyone!!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Kingalan1
Alan0 -
Best set up for mobile site for SEO
Hello Does anyone have any input into what is the best way to have a mobile website URL structure for not responsive display sites. mobile.site.com www.site.com/m/ or neither have it just display on the same URL. Thanks
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | christaylorconsulting0 -
Which part of SEO take the most time?
Which part of SEO do you think will take the most time? and Why?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | marknorman0 -
SEO for a redirected domain name
Our client is a law firm with a name that is challenging to spell. We have procured a domain name for them that is catchy, easy to spell, and plays well into their brand, or at least the current campaign. We're using the campaign domain to direct traffic to their website with a 301 redirect. We have placed the campaign domain in a variety of offline mediums including print and outdoor. The client is currently in the number 1 spot for a good number of our highest priority keywords, so I do not want to do anything to jeopardize that. I'm also not sure this campaign will be their "brand" long-term so I don't want to risk making a switch and making it back. So for now, I'm most comfortable leaving the campaign domain as a redirect to their primary domain. Recently, the client approached me complaining (legitimately) that when people google the campaign domain, they are brought to search results for an entirely different domain because Google "corrects" the domain name for them. This is obviously a bad thing, with many users defaulting to entering urls into Google instead of the address bar. If you tell Google that it was wrong about the autocorrection, our site is in the number 1 position. I liken the situation to Overstock.com using O.co as their offline domain, but overstock.com as their online domain. But imagine if you googled o.co and google brought you to a list of results for "on.co" because it assumed you fat-fingered it. Is there anything I can do to prevent the domain name from getting corrected by Google?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | steverobinson0 -
Could Sub domains damage our SEO?
Hi there, We're currently looking into integrating a new internal search function to our site which will involve housing the search results on a sub domain of our site. We have no intention of these search result pages becoming landing pages for organic traffic but would the inclusion of a sub domain affect the optimization of the main domain? i.e. could it effect our authority? Nige
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | NigelJ0