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 -
Move To a full new Website
Hey everyone, I'm going to change my website's Domain, Server, CMS and Theme I can't find any full & detailed answer to how to do that without losing anything, is anybody here has a full resource or could tell me a how-to checklist for doing that. Thanks in advance,
Web Design | | Mahmoud.ahmad.taha0 -
Responsive design to serve different page for IE8 - SEO Implications?
A client is planning on developing a responsive designed website which redirects visitors using IE8 to a static webpage that encourages users to visit in another browser. What are the SEO implications of a server redirect just for IE8 visitors? Possible solutions: would containing a link on the static page to "continue browsing" and give the visitor access to the entire site in IE8 work well? Or should a CSS overlay message appear to IE8 visitors, no redirect, that encourages them to visit in another browser? Or serving a separate stylesheet for IE8 visitors, and not giving a responsive experience be optimal? Any suggestions or thoughts are appreciated. Cheers, Alex
Web Design | | Alex.Weintraub0 -
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 -
New more "helpful" internal linking causing SERP & traffic drop?
Still dealing with the weird traffic drop on my website. I have removed a bunch of old links from a defunct blog, 301 thin pages, added text to remaining pages. I'm still stumped. So awhile ago I freshened up my website and thought I was "helping people" by making sure they could CONTACT the studio more easily... I added more links to the "contact page" I thought this would help conversions...This changed the number of links to my entire site....Would this be the problem with my ranking/traffic drop? http://bayareaboudoir.com/babinternal1.pdf
Web Design | | Squee1 -
Thoughts on how to speed up my site? (Other site ideas.)
I was wondering if someone had a few minutes to talk a look at our site and see how to speed it up. I've ran some of the speed tests and I get different results, so I'm not sure if my site would be considered "slow" or not. Also if there any other things that jump out at you (usability, side bar, things I should change / add / take away to make a users experience better, etc.) please let me know. Any feedback is good feedback to me. 🙂 I'm using WP Super Cache as well. Thanks!
Web Design | | NoahsDad1 -
Site Re-Design - Running old XML site map for 301's
Hi all, We are going to launch a new site design for our current e-commerce site. I have taken this opportunity to change some categories due to keyword research and all old categories will be 301ed to best fitting new category. So I have 2 questions about moving stuff over; 1. I read that leaving the old xml site map running for the first week, would help, because this would give crawlers the chance to run through the site and follow the 301s, which would help pass the juice. How true does this sound? 2. I was thinking of re-writing all category and sub category titles, meta descriptions and on page content. The positive of this is loads of fresh content - but doing this all at the same time with the new site launch might see some major dropping in search ranking. I've identified our top traffic keyword terms/pages, would it be more wise to leave these pages, and change the others, or would the total new fresh burst have a better impact? Cheers
Web Design | | ToxicFox0 -
Looking for quality, cheap web design company recommendations
Does anyone have any recommendations of a very cheap web design company from India or other countries where the work is also high quality? I can project manage the development and provide a set of web standards such as to use valid code, no meta keyword tags, no flash, etc etc. I am looking for companies I can trust to perform the actual work. The web is full of companies but examples of quality work with WordPress, Joomla and particular ecommerce platforms is very thin or non-existent. If you can share any companies which you have personal experience with, I would appreciate it.
Web Design | | RyanKent0