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)?
