An SEO's Guide to Website Migrations | Faye Watt | BrightonSEO's Advanced Technical SEO Summit July 2020

@FayeWatt seeker.digital/website-migrations
An SEO’s Guide to Website
Migrations
@FayeWatt / Seeker Digital

Who am I?
•SEO Manager
•Seeker Digital
•@FayeWatt
•BristolSEO

Types of migrations How to redirect a domain Migration planning
Setting up a local server Migration checklist Migration timeline

What is a website migration?

“A website migration is a process to describe
signiﬁcant changes to your website's
domain, platform, structure, content or
design.”

Types of website
migrations

seekerdigital.com seeker.digital
Domain name change

Merging multiple domains
domainone.com
domaintwo.com
domainthree.com
domainfour.com

Platform migration

New design

http to https

Or a combination!

Migration Type Diﬃculty
HTTP to HTTPS Low
Domain Low
URL Structure Moderate
Design Moderate
CMS High
Server Low
Multiple Domains Moderate to High

How to redirect a domain

fayewatt.co.uk fayewatt.com
Domain forwarding

Not all that easy

Why migrations go wrong

Lack of planning/strategy

Lack of time and/or budget

No SEO consultation

Slow to ﬁx issues post
migration

Launch date during peak
traﬃc period

What are the consequences?

Removed High Traﬃc
Product Pages

example.com/category-name/product-name
example.com/product/category-name/product-nam
e
Completely New URL restructure

No Redirects setup

What were the consequences?

Loss of search visibility

Loss of traﬃc

Increased bounce rate

Loss of conversions

Loss of links

Increased page load time

��

How to avoid a migration
disaster?

6 Stages

1. Planning

Planning: Don’t Rush

Planning: Migration Type
Domain, CMS, HTTP, Design

Planning: Tasks
Create a list of all the tasks based
on the migration type

Planning: Timeline
Create a timeline for each task with
expected delivery dates

Planning: Launch Date
During a quiet period i.e. not Q4 for
ecommerce!

Planning: Testing
Allocate time for testing pre-launch

Planning: Solutions
Allow time for ﬁxing any issues found
pre-migration

Planning: Post-migration
Be prepared for post-migration issues

Planning phase 2: Content

Planning: Deﬁne Pages
Deﬁne which pages will be on your new
website

1st: Produce a List of All URLs
Curate a list of URLs using ScreamingFrog,
Ahrefs, Google Search Console, and Google
Analytics

Crawled
URLs
ScreamingFrog

Linked URLs
Ahrefs

URLs Google
has Identiﬁed
Google Search
Console

Traﬃc URLs
Google
Analytics

Planning: Content Audit
Identify high traﬃc & high value pages
to keep

ScreamingFrog
Connect Google
Analytics API

ScreamingFrog
Connect Ahrefs
API

ScreamingFrog
List Mode

Planning: List of URLs
Produce a list of all the URLs you want
to keep

Planning: URL Structure
Plan the URL structure

Planning: Redirect Mapping
Map the old URLs to the new URLs
& create rules

2. Data collection

Pre-Migration: Collect as
much data as possible

Data Collection:
Website Crawl

Page titles and
descriptions
Page headings Body content
Canonicals Robots directives Structured data
Images
Internal linking structure
External linking structure Site architecture map HTML

Data Collection:
Sitemap

Data Collection:
Benchmark Performance
Benchmark the legacy website’s
performance for comparison

Benchmark:
Index Status

Benchmark:
Site Performance

Benchmark:
Site Audit Issues

Benchmark:
Keyword rankings

Benchmark:
Website Analytics

Benchmark:
Backlink Proﬁle

Benchmark:
HTML, CSS,
JavaScript &
Media Files

3. Staging environment

Staging Environment
Set up a staging environment
e.g. staging.fayewatt.com

HTTP Authentication
Stop search engines and users from
accessing your staging environment with
HTTP authentication

Pre-Launch: Crawl
Crawl the staging environment and compare to the
old website, looking for any missing, incorrect, or
broken data

Common issues

Pre-Launch: Missing Content
Review new website structure and check for
any missing pages or sections of content

Pre-Launch: Missing URLs
Does the number of pages match the old
website?

Pre-Launch: Internal Links
Update internal links to the new URL to
avoid internal redirects

Pre-Launch: Canoncials
Update canonical links to the new URL

Custom 404 Page
Design a custom 404 page

Pre-Launch: Sitemap
Create an updated sitemap

Pre-Launch: Site Audit
Set up your staging environment on your
SEO audit tool & identify any crawl errors

Redirects
Check old URLs 301 redirect to the
new URL

Redirects
Avoid using 302 or JavaScript
redirects

Redirects
Avoid redirect chains

A B C

Redirects
Don’t forget any legacy redirects!

Testing
Continually monitor and retest the site for
new issues once any changes have been
made – no matter how small!

Pre-Launch: One ﬁnal crawl…
Run a ﬁnal crawl of the old website
the day before the new site goes live

Keep control of your old
domain!!

4. Launch day

Launch Day: Search Console
Check Google Search Console is
correctly set up

Launch Day: Google Analytics
Check Google Analytics is set up correctly
and recording sessions

Launch Day: Robots.txt
Double check your
robots.txt ﬁle and make
sure search engines can
crawl your site!

Don’t want to see
this

Launch Day: Index
Look for any noindex
directives

Launch Day: Redirects
Check your legacy URLs are correctly 301
redirecting

Launch Day: Crawl
Crawl the new site and compare to the old
website, looking for any missing, incorrect, or
broken data

Launch Day: Missing Content
Check for any missing content or sections
of content

Launch Day: Page Speed
Perform a page speed test across your most
important page types

Launch Day: Sitemap
Add or update your sitemap in
Google Search Console

5. Post Launch

Post-Launch: Backlinks
Reach out to your most valuable links

Post Launch:
Technical SEO Audit

6. Monitor and review

Monitor and Review
Number of indexed
pages

Monitor and Review
Check old URLs are
being removed and
replaced by new
URLs

Monitor and Review
Review your backlink proﬁle and identify
any lost links

Monitor and Review
Monitor organic traﬃc and keyword
rankings

Monitor and Review
Check crawl stats in Search Console

Monitor and Review
Continually monitor and ﬁx any crawl
errors

Once again…
Keep control of your old domain(s)

Don’t Forget...
SSL

Thanks for Listening!
@FayeWatt
seeker.digital/website-migrations

An SEO's Guide to Website Migrations | Faye Watt | BrightonSEO's Advanced Technical SEO Summit July 2020

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