Any new tips on how to speed up re-listing after re-design?
-
A few things around re-designing an older but well performing site for search and retaining/ improving SEO value.
Lots of effort has been put into content marketing and optimising individual pages on this site, it has a lot of links coming in from well-respected sites (but the domain name will remain the same so that shouldn't be an issue) so I'm very anxious about how the redesign will effect ranking, although the new site will be far more user friendly, beautiful, responsive where the old one is not and faster to load.
Would really like to avoid the search engine drop when the site first goes live if at all possible- One idea on this was to make the new site live on another domain - .co.uk for example, whilst keeping the old site up on the .com for a month or so, then switching the records so the new site is then visible on .com and the .co.uk redirects to it.
Does this sound at all sensible?!
Also any more advice on how best to ensure the new site will do better, not worse for search is hugely appreciated. We have cut a lot of content to make it more user friendly and easy to find information. We will be making sure all old links are redirected to new site (but as there are fewer pages on new site, will it matter if 5 old URLS point to one new URL for instance?)
Also what's the difference between 301 and 302 redirects!
Thank you so much in advance, massively appreciated your time!
-
This is brilliant info John, thank you so much. Could you clarify what you mean by
"Think about a) sending small amounts of traffic to your new pages to track conversions and interaction and b) you can expose some specific pages to the search engines to see how the search engines treat them. This would be very hard to do with a separate site." ?
Are you suggesting rolling out the new site page by page would be better than all at once? That wouldn't be possible if rolling out the site on the current domain... It would be great to get a proper handle on exactly what you mean.
Thanks for the contact info- I will be in touch!
-
Hi Emjmoz! Lots of stuff going on here. On to your questions.
First about redirects. 301 redirects are permanent redirects, which tells the search engines that a page has permanently moved to the location where the redirect ends (eg you redirect /page/ to /page1/, /page1/ is the final destination). Historically, only 301 redirects have passed link equity through them and been guaranteed to drop the original page (so /page1/ should now rank and /page/ should drop from the search index). Google has, in recent years, been slower to honor 301 redirects but all of this still holds true, and if you're having a big issue with Google not dropping a specific URL you can always Fetch as Googlebot within Search Console. To drop them out at scale, you can short term create a specific XML sitemap with the old URLs and submit in Search Console. Once you see the majority drop out, unsubmit that sitemap.
302 redirects are temporary, meaning the search engines will think that the original page may come back. 302 redirects historically do not pass link equity and do not drop the original URL out of the index. Some search engine representatives have said that if a 302 redirect is left in place for a long time they will start to treat it as a 301, but this is really in answer to some major CMSs using 302s by default and thus hurting their customers.
If you are doing a proper site migration to new URLs, use a 301.
To your question about duplicating the site on a different domain (eg .co.uk) for about a month and then redirecting it back to the original, I would question this. It would be better to put the new site on a subdomain or with a specific parameter on the end of the URL with those URLs canonical'd back to your current existing URLs. Otherwise, you risk duplicate content and hurting your search performance. As you roll the new site out, you should also think about a) sending small amounts of traffic to your new pages to track conversions and interaction and b) you can expose some specific pages to the search engines to see how the search engines treat them. This would be very hard to do with a separate site.
Good luck!
I also see that you mention that you'd like to find someone you could call on for future questions. My company GetCredo.com helps with this. Just search "technical seo getcredo" in Google and you'll find a list that you can contact. Or, feel free to reach out to me on Clarity.fm.
-
It would be great to find someone I could trust to call on for future SEO questions, I really need some technical SEO contacts I can work with long term!
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
-
With Google's new Speed Update, what does that mean for AMP pages?
Hey everyone! I wanted to get the other Mozzers opinions on this. With Google announcing a new Speed Update that will affect mobile rankings, I wanted to ask: How will AMP pages play into this? Let me know what you think!
Web Design | | TaylorRHawkins
Thanks!2 -
How to Redirect Old Domain to a New Domain?
One of my clients has chosen a new domain for her website so we will redirect the old domain to the new. I understand that once redirected, most of the authority built up over the years for the old domain will pass through to the new domain. Is this correct? Can this be done through the Wordpress dashboard, say with a plugin perhaps? I have a plugin called 404 Redirected I was going to try to use for this purpose. Finally, the client has other domains (5 total) she has used for one reason or another. She wants to consolidate all of them and have everything redirected to her new domain. Do you see any downside to this in terms of crawling, Google trust and authority? I know there are some user experience issues to deal with, but we're addressing those. I just don't want to do anything that may cause Google not to trust the new domain. Thanks, Dino
Web Design | | Dino640 -
Content thin for new home page been told to change it? any suggestions?
Hi guys, I'm newbie.... I have been told that my home page is content thin, and if I want to rank really well in the search i need to have more relevant content on my homepage - the site is only new 2months and I can see we are now at 39th place in the search, if i make changes to the home page design and add more content will this effect this current ranking?
Web Design | | edward-may0 -
How to redirect special pages to new domain?
Hello. I have 2 websites in diffrent category and i want to move some of my visitor that arrived in specific page of doamin1 (url like this: http://example.com/pages/.........)to root of domain 2.
Web Design | | vahidafshari450 -
Major URL changes in new site launch
Hey Guys - we recently launched a new website for a client. Prior, all of their URLs were dynamic via an old-school Cold Fusion CMS. We basically had to rewrite 90% of the sites URLs (site is like 300 pages). The new URLs are SEO friendly and the on-page SEO is strong; but the page rank/authority is starting from scratch from these pages and placement has decreased more most of the new pages with competitive keywords. We set up all of the 301 redirects properly and are actively monitoring in Google Webmaster Tools. **Anything else I can do to lessen the pain and get these pages higher page rank/authority sooner rather than later?**Thanks for all of your help.
Web Design | | NobleStudios0 -
Responsive design and Google analytics mobile tracking codes?
Hi all, We are currently rebuilding a site using responsive design, however i have just had a thought. On another site where we have a mobile site under a sub-directory we utilise mobile tracking codes as we found that this was far more accurate for recording visits. On a responsive design site evidently all pages, desktop and mobile, will be under the same URL, yet the content will adjust to the screen size of the device. Should we also change the tracking code to be mobile code on the lower resolutions or would the same code be sufficient?
Web Design | | Sarbs0 -
How about some SEO tips for small local businesses
The amount of time I hear people say write good content and people will naturally link to you. I appreciate this must be valid for large websites that a driven by content. However, it doesn't really hold much hope for smaller businesses with just service information etc. I work for a small business that does web design in the UK. However, I'm finding it difficult to do any sort of link building. In my opinion nobody is going to link to any of our content naturally or if it is, its going to be small time. Our rankings have dropped slightly (only to 4th in our local county). I've done the following thinks to try get it back up there but its having little or no results. Adding us to local business directories External Articles on site Cleaned up some duplicate title tags. What link building can I do? Is link building the home page sometimes not always the way to go? What content can I write that google will like? See what I mean? My rankings did climb a little bit but then dropped straight back down to their original places 2 weeks later. Help would be appreciated.
Web Design | | sanchez19600 -
Hosting/design company that is both cheap and has a nice partner package. Any ideas?
I need to signon with a hosting/design company that is both cheap and has a nice partner package. Any ideas?
Web Design | | christinarule0