How to Implement Massive SEO Modifications

[jamesjackson]

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

[jamesjackson]

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

[Millibit]

#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

[BTeubner]

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!

[malachiii]

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.

[JoeAmadon]

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.