Gradual roll out of new webpages on temporary subdomain
-
I’m working for a company who is looking to gradually replace an existing website with a new website.
They will replace the homepage, then a section, then another section, and so on, until the new site is complete.
All new pages will sit on a temporary subdomain.
So, for example, the URL for the homepage at the moment is www.domain.com, but as soon as the new homepage is ready, that will be launched on a temporary URL / subdomain - www2.domain.com - replacing the old homepage.
The new pages will then gradually increase on www2.domain.com (so journeys will inevitably move across domains) until the whole of the new website is ready on www2.domain.com - at which point it will move on to www.domain.com.
I know this isn’t a good way of doing things - I would much prefer the new site is completely built and then it just replaces the old site with the necessary 301 redirects in place - but the company wants to see the gradual roll out of new page designs.
So, my question is, what’s the best way to manage this without negatively impacting rankings for the existing domain (www.domain.com)?
-
The most important is to redirect all your backlinks via 301 to the new URLs. As you've been told, why not develop the entire site in the subdomain and then move it to the new one, so you don't play with redirects and traffic from one subdomain to another.
-
I'm not sure how the search engines look at 302 redirects which are in place for a prolonged time. I'll be interested to see if anyone else on this thread has additional insights about that. What I can say is that I've used 302 redirects in some cases for prolonged period of time (although not as long as 12-18 months, perhaps more like 4-6 months) and have not experienced issues from that approach. But others on this forum may have more experience with 302 redirects over that period of time.
The other thing I'll mention is that some tools like Moz Pro will report 302 Redirects as "issues". My perspective is to look through these because some might be unintentional, and then to ignore when they are inentional/strategic.
-
Hi seoelevated,
Thanks for your response. I have been considering a 302 approach, but I am concerned about how long I can leave 302s in place. If from start to finish, the roll out takes 12 - 18 months, will that cause any problems?
Thanks!
-
Unless I'm missing something in the thread here, it seems to me this would be better served by 302. My rationale is that you will be eventually going back to the www URL and you want that to retain the full equity of all its links. So, during the interim period, you would have 302 redirects, and then when you switch back to www, you would simply remove all the redirects.
The only downside I see to that is that during the interim period, one thing you won't be able to measure as the site is gradually updated, is the incremental impact of the new page designs on SEO. You will still be able to measure the new page design in terms of conversion rate and other UX factors, but measuring impact on SEO wouldn't really be feasible.
-
Yes, I got it. That's the only option to do this if you want to pass link juice to www2.domain.com while you are working on the new site. There is no way to not lose traffic if you want to redirect everything on the page by page basis. Traffic will bounce back after you move back to www.domain.com, but it can takes time.
Ross
-
Hi Ross.
Everything will have a 301.
For example:
- When I launch the new homepage on the temporary subdomain, I will add a 301 redirect from www.domain.com to www2.domain.com.
- When I launch a new section page, I will add a new 301 redirect from www.domain.com/section1 to www2.domain.com/section1.
- When I launch a new product page, I will add a new 301 redirect from www.domain.com/product1 to www2.domain.com/product1.
And then, eventually, when everything is moved back to the www domain, I will setup the following 301 redirects:
- Homepage - From www2.domain.com to www.domain.com
- Section page - From www2.domain.com/section1 to www.domain.com/section1
- Product page - From www2.domain.com/product1 to www.domain.com/product1
Does this make sense? So, everything will have a 301 redirect.
I'm just concerned about the fact I'm basically having to 301 redirect a whole site away from it's original domain to a temporary subdomain, and then back again. Should I be concerned about this?
-
The only problem I see here that you will lose traffic by setting 301s to www2 and then removing those 301s.
Ross
-
Hi Ross.
Thanks again for the response.
There will only ever be one version of a page, and each time an old page is replaced with a new version, I will 301 redirect from the www version to the www2 version.
My concern is, at the end of the web build all pages on www will have been 301 redirected to www2, and then I’ll need to 301 redirect them all back again to www when the new site is moved off the temporary subdomain. Do you see any problems with this approach?
-
If not then I would deindex completely the www2.domain.com and do not set up any redirects at all. Just have your www.domain.com working in a normal way until you migrate your www2.domain.com to www.domain.com. Also, If you planning to change the URLs on the new version of the website then you need to set up 301 redirects from old URLs to new URLs on your server ( apache or ngnix) so you do not get any broken links.
Ross
-
Are you planning to have both versions of the site working at the same time?
Ross
-
Thanks for the response.
But is it okay to 301 redirect, for example, the homepage to a temporary www2 subdomain, and then back again once the whole site is ready to move back to the www domain?
-
Hi there,
The most important is to redirect all your backlinks via 301 to the new URLs. Also, you can take a look at this guide.
Ross
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
-
Competitor's new site ranking with out much keywords - How?
Hi all, One of our competitors have recently redesigned their website with new content. Now I can see much less keywords in the content. And page title also changed away from keywords. Still this is ranking at good position. How? Previously they used to have much landing pages with related keywords which some of them are missing now. Still I wonder why this website is ranking high? Thanks
Web Design | | vtmoz0 -
New ecommerce site: Close old site and full domain redirect or keep it linking to new site?
We have rebranded and are working on our new site (B). Our old site (A) has a much higher domain/page authority than our new site. Currently we have the original Site A still there, with all links/pages pointing to the new Site B when people click. I am unsure whether we'd be best to close down the Site A completely and do a full domain redirect to Site B. Site A: 10 years age and has a moderate amount of links to it.
Web Design | | ModowestNZ
Homepage - PA: 24 DA:11 Site B: 6 months age, few links
Homepage - PA: 1 DA:2 My concern with the full domain redirect is that the indexed/ranking pages would dissapear. The benefit is less brand confusion for our niche range of party accessories.0 -
Manufacturer, New Direct-to-Consumer Site (Separate Site, or Sub-Domain?)
Hi All! Working with an established manufacturer, been around for many years, it's an internationally known brand, and their products are sold by thousands on distributors. They recently started a new website (separate from their old established B2B manufacturer site) which will be used to sell direct to customer. The new site is great, with a nice responsive design, clean look, flexible, etc. The problem is, it's a new site with low Domain Authority. The manufacturer's B2B site has been around a while, very high Domain Authority. So, I'd like to be able to harness all the link equity they've build instead of trying to optimize a brand new site. The problem with this old established site is that it IS in fact old. The design is terrible, it's not responsive, old code, bad look and feel, etc. We could incorporate the new B2C site (which has its own CMS) into a sub-domain, like store.site.com. But, I'd worry that site.com's crapiness will limit growth potential for the new pages at store.site.com. Same issue were we to add the new site into a sub-folder, like site.com/store/. On the other side, we could just keep the new site, with it's own domain, sitestore.com, and have product pages and/or category pages from the manufacturer's B2B site link to the relevant pages on the new B2C site. Thanks!
Web Design | | fiberglass0 -
New Re-design will my website rankings drop?
Hi guys, I have had to re-design my site although we are only 4 months into the seo game we have seen some good progress with our rankings. My question is there anything I need to consider before implementing the new designs so it doesn't effect my current rankings or any of our SEO work. Our current designs are content thing and so we have had to create more content to better optimize our site, however if doing so will this loose our current ranking position? Apperciate any advice around this Thanks
Web Design | | edward-may0 -
Is it ok to redirect an old URL to new URL with anchor tag?
Ex. OLD URL - http://www.mysite.com/shoes/red/description NEW URL - http://www.mysite.com/shoes/red#desc Thanks in advance!
Web Design | | esiow20130 -
Subdomains For Real Estate Website
I am currently working on a proposal for a clients Wordpress website development which includes ongoing SEO after the website is developed. I have looked into a number of options and the one that seems the most cost effective involves using subdomains for the individual listings pages. What I want: clientsdomain.com/listings/idxnumber/ What I can get for a decent price: listings.clientsdomain.com/idxnumber/ So the majority of the website will actually exist on a subdomain because the IDX API will automatically populate pages for all of the MLS listings in the area (hundreds or thousands). Meanwhile the domain itself will have all the neighborhood pages and other optimized content, blogs and whatnot. My concern is that dividing the website like this will have negative effects on SEO. There wont be duplicate content across subdomain and main domain, but they will share a lot of links back and forth. I haven't found any recent sources on the topic. Almost everything I have found says that dividing a website in this manor is bad for SEO, but these articles are often many years old. Does anyone know of a Wordpress plugin/IDX company that can provide a solution that doesn't use a subdomain and actually just lists each MLS page within a directory? I am open to using another platform, I am just most familiar with Wordpress. Will using a subdomain in the ways mentioned above have a profound negative effect on SEO? Thank you for your time in responding, I greatly appreciate it.
Web Design | | TotalMarketExposure0 -
301 Redirect from Old Domain to New Domain
I am building a new website and I plan to 301 Redirect my Old Domain (olddomain.com) to a brand new Domain (newdomain.com) in the upcoming months. To do this I was planning to update the htaccess file on both the old and new domains. The htaccess file on the old domain would look to 301 redirect all pages on the old domain to the new domain. The htaccess file on the new domain would detail any specific URL redirects I want to implement (ie. olddomain.com/EXAMPLE/TEST will redirect to newdomain/TEST) - this will ensure link equity is retained and bounce rates are kept at a lower level. Does this sound like the right approach? Also, what do I need to do with the old domain going forward? Do I need to keep this forever in order for the 301 redirect to work or can I eventually just forward the domain to the new one permanently?
Web Design | | DHS_SH0 -
New website put up and ALL my keywords fell a LOT!???
I helped a client redesign their new website and we just went live a couple weeks ago. This morning I checked his campaign and 53 keywords fell DRAMATICALLY. Like 35-50 places down in Google for dozens of keywords!? I haven't ever seen a drop that's so dramatic when putting up a new site. Have you ever seen this? Will they bounce back? This site isn't significantly different than the last one. We did forward two other domains to this new site but that wouldn't make a difference, would it? Any feedback would be greatly appreciated! Matthew
Web Design | | Mrupp440