Consolidating product pages during website migration
-
Hello,
We are an e-commerce & content site undergoing a website migration and redesign in the coming months. We will be getting an entirely new website. Many of our URLs will be changing:
Current URL setup: www.mysite.com/catalog/SKU12345/product-title-here
Future URL setup: www.mysite.com/catalog/product-title-hereSo we're aware we will be using plenty of 301 redirects to achieve this.
Further to this though, we currently have a product page for each configuration of a product - for example, a single-sided bookmark has its own page and URL, and the double-sided version of the same bookmark has its own page and URL. In our site redesign, we are hoping to consolidate each of these instances into one product page where users can select single or double-sided and the price will update accordingly. The bookmark URLs would then go from:
_www.mysite.com/catalog/SKU12345/bookmark-single-sided _(call this URL A for simplicity)www.mysite.com/catalog/SKU67890/bookmark-double-sided (call this URL B)To (after migrating to the new URL structure for the new site, and the now-consolidated single- & double-sided product pages):
www.mysite.com/catalog/bookmark (call this URL C)- What is the best way to make this transition without losing too much of our SEO value? I understand there is nearly always traffic loss with URL changes but I'd like to at least minimize the damage as best I can. We have backlinks and ranks for many product pages so I want to make sure we pass as much of this as we can.
- (And is this at all further complicated by the fact that URL A & B won't exist on the new site, and URL C doesn't exist on the current site? Does this impact the use of the 301 redirects and if so, how?)
- Are we better off to approach this page consolidation after the site migration and treat it as a separate project? This is something that is important to our user experience, and is definitely a change we want to make.
Any advice is appreciated - thank you! I'm a fairly beginner-intermediate SEO so this is all somewhat new but I want to be able to at least convey some understanding to our developer of what we need to do. I was able to find this discussion (https://moz.com/community/q/merging-pages-and-seo) which describes a similar situation and solutions if we were just consolidating the pages but doesn't quite have the complicating factor of the entire site migration happening at the same time.
Thanks so much!
-
Thanks Alex; this is really helpful insight. Lots to think about! Thank you again - I sincerely appreciate it!
-
Well, I guess that's the million dollar question.
It's not as simple that Google will simply replace the SERP with the new page. That will be the apparent behaviour until Google updates the listing, as anyone who clicks the link will be redirected, but Google will quickly "notice" and then reapply the algorithm and decide whether the new page should be in the same place. I wouldn't expect that fact that the old page ranked to directly affect the ranking of the newly redirected page, however, the fact that any links to the old page will be being redirected will have an impact.
As far as new rank, I would expect a similar effect to that of simply updating all the content and not changing the URL, and of course, we don't know what exactly would happen then.
If I had to guess, given what you've said, I would say that very specific searches may rank worse (E.g. "double-sided bookmarks") but that more generic terms might rank better (E.g. "customizable bookmarks")
-
Hi Alex,
Thank you for your detailed response! This is assuring. To answer your question, we are keeping the same domain name but it would be hosted differently and supported differently than it currently is.
Definitely guilty of overthinking these things! Ha.
This is really helpful and re-assuring. Can you provide any insight on how this page consolidation would affect rankings? Say we have our double-sided bookmark product page ranking on the first SERP for the query "customizable bookmarks". With our migration and page consolidation, this product page will be redirected to a new bookmark page. When Google crawls us next and sees we've redirected that page, it'll start displaying the new page in the SERPs in place of the old - in the same rank as the old page? Is that correct? And then that rank might drop if it seems that new page is not meeting searcher's needs in the way the old page was?
Just wanted to see if you had any thoughts on that side of it.
Thanks again Alex - so so much!
Katie
-
When you say migration, are you talking about moving the site to a new domain, or simply to a new platform while maintaining the current domain? To be fair, I don't think it makes too much difference either way, I was just trying to get it clear in my head.
I think you may be over thinking it.
-
_What is the best way to make this transition without losing too much of our SEO value? I understand there is nearly always traffic loss with URL changes but I'd like to at least minimize the damage as best I can. We have backlinks and ranks for many product pages so I want to make sure we pass as much of this as we can. _
I would simply redirect both the old URLs to the new URL with a 301, I don't see any issue with doing this as the new page will have all the relevant content.
-
(And is this at all further complicated by the fact that URL A & B won't exist on the new site, and URL C doesn't exist on the current site? Does this impact the use of the 301 redirects and if so, how?)
No, not really. So long as the new page exists before you create the 301 (or at the same time) there is no issue there. -
Are we better off to approach this page consolidation after the site migration and treat it as a separate project? This is something that is important to our user experience, and is definitely a change we want to make.
I don't think so, I would definitely do it as a single project. Except from a "it's slightly less complicated if we break it into parts" point of view, the only benefit SEO-wise in breaking it into two projects would be from a monitoring angle, i.e. if something were to go wildly wrong with your rankings you would know which part of the transition had the impact and maybe be able to diagnose quicker.
Hope that helps!
Alex
-
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
-
What to do with sold product pages when everything you sell are unique one off items
Hi there, This is something i have been unsure of for years. It's a little different to most ecom website situations. What would you do with product pages when every product is a "one off" unique product and once sold will never be for sale again? Should i redirect to a category page? 404? Leave it as is marked as sold or say it is sold and show links to similar items? At the moment we have 700 products for sale but over 5000 sold products that have their own product page and my concern is as this grows it could become a lot for a WordPress woocommerce site to handle? I don't want to do anything to slow my site down or unnecessarily bloat it but i want to do the right thing by the visitor and also not do anything to hurt my rankings. These pages often rank in google and may have been there for years before the item actually sells. To throw another curve ball, there may be multiple other products (for sale or already sold) with the exact same name but are unique and different from each other. These products pages will often be 98% the same content as each other too. To explain how this could be the case, we sell artworks from many different artists, Every artwork is an original and is unique. But many artists paint the same subject matter multiple times, albeit in a slightly different way from previous times. So you end up with a unique product that has everything the same as another (same artist, same name of artwork, same size, same description, different image, different sku) but is actually different and unique. This has left me somewhat uncertain of what is best to do. Any advice would be greatly appreciated. Thank you
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Scottlinklater0 -
Two Different IP address pointing to my website, does it will effect my website from SEO point of view
Due to some reason my website https://xyz.com is not redirecting to my main website domain - https://www.xyz.com so our tech team suggested - we will have the non-www name on a different IP and we'll 301 redirect that to the https://www.xyz.com. if it works does it will effect our website from SEO point of view? please let me know.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | BPLLC0 -
Multiple pages optimised for the same keywords but pages are functionally different and visually different
Hi MOZ community! We're wondering what the implications would be on organic ranking by having 2 pages, which have quite different functionality were optimised for the same keywords. So, for example, one of the pages in question is
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | TrueluxGroup
https://www.whichledlight.com/categories/led-spotlights
and the other page is
https://www.whichledlight.com/t/led-spotlights both of these pages are basically geared towards the keyword led spotlights the first link essentially shows the options for led spotlights, the different kind of fittings available, and the second link is a product search / results page for all products that are spotlights. We're wondering what the implications of this could be, as we are currently looking to improve the ranking for the site particularly for this keyword. Is this even safe to do? Especially since we're at the bottom of the hill of climbing the ranking ladder of this keyword. Give us a shout if you want any more detail on this to answer more easily 🙂0 -
Moving half my website to a new website: 301?
Good Morning! We currently have two websites which are driving all of our traffic. Our end goal is to combine the two and fold them into each other. Can I redirect the duplicate content from one domain to our main domain even though the URL's are different. Ill give an example below. (The domains are not the real domains). The CEO does not want to remove the other website entirely yet, but is willing to begin some sort of consolidation process. ABCaddiction.com is the main domain which covers everything from drug addiction to dual diagnosis treatment. ABCdualdiagnosis.com is our secondary website which covers everything as well. Can I redirect the entire drug addiction half of the website to ABCaddiction.com? With the eventual goal of moving everything together.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | HashtagHustler0 -
What to do about similar product pages on major retail site
Hi all, I have a dilemma and I'm hoping the community can guide me in the right direction. We're working with a major retailer on launching a local deals section of their website (what I'll call the "local site"). The company has 55 million products for one brand, and 37 million for another. The main site (I'll call it the ".com version") is fairly well SEO'd with flat architecture, clean URLs, microdata, canonical tag, good product descriptions, etc. If you were looking for a refrigerator, you would use the faceted navigation and go from department > category > sub-category > product detail page. The local site's purpose is to "localize" all of the store inventory and have weekly offers and pricing specials. We will use a similar architecture as .com, except it will be under a /local/city-state/... sub-folder. Ideally, if you're looking for a refrigerator in San Antonio, Texas, then the local page should prove to be more relevant than the .com generic refrigerator pages. (the local pages have the addresses of all local stores in the footer and use the location microdata as well - the difference will be the prices.) MY QUESTION IS THIS: If we pull the exact same product pages/descriptions from the .com database for use in the local site, are we creating a duplicate content problem that will hurt the rest of the site? I don't think I can canonicalize to the .com generic product page - I actually want those local pages to show up at the top. Obviously, we don't want to copy product descriptions across root domains, but how is it handled across the SAME root domain? Ideally, it would be great if we had a listing from both the .com and the /local pages in the SERPs. What do you all think? Ryan
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | RyanKelly0 -
When migrating website platforms but keeping the domain name how best do we add the new site to google webmaster tools? Best redirect practices?
We are moving from BigCommerce to Shopify but maintaining our domain name and need to make sure that all links redirect to their corresponding links. We understand the nature of 301s and are fine with that, but when it comes to adding the site to google webmaster tools, not losing link juice and the change of address tool we are kind of lost. Any advice would be most welcome. Thank you so much in advance!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | WNL0 -
Interlinking from unique content page to limited content page
I have a page (page 1) with a lot of unique content which may rank for "Example for sale". On this page I Interlink to a page (page 2) with very limited unique content, but a page I believe is better for the user with anchor "See all Example for sale". In other words, the 1st page is more like a guide with items for sale mixed, whereas the 2nd page is purely a "for sale" page with almost no unique content, but very engaging for users. Questions: Is it risky that I interlink with "Example for sale" to a page with limited unique content, as I risk not being able to rank for either of these 2 pages Would it make sense to "no index, follow" page 2 as there is limited unique content, and is actually a page that exist across the web on other websites in different formats (it is real estate MLS listings), but I can still keep the "Example for sale" link leading to page 2 without risking losing ranking of page 1 for "Example for sale"keyword phrase I am basically trying to work out best solution to rank for "Keyword for sale" and dilemma is page 2 is best for users, but is not a very unique page and page 2 is very unique and OK for users but mixed up writing, pictures and more with properties for sale.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | khi50 -
Keywords under product listing pages
Hi guys, One of my main concerns when we start redesigning the site Trespass.co.uk, is the current pages like this one http://www.trespass.co.uk/snow-sports/clothing/ski-jackets/womens-ski-jackets are bordering over optimisation. Is this the case as each product listed in the url above has "womens ski jacket" under each product. If we have 50 products on each product listing page with the product name + type of product, ie. flora womens ski jacket, xyz mens waterproof jacket. Are we over optimising the page for the main keywords by having them under each product? Would that page be over optimised for womens ski jackets? Thanks guys
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Trespass0