Migration from HTML to Wordpress - SEO Implications?
-
I am in the process of having a wordpress site developed to replace my current HTML site. (I currently have my website in html and a blog in wordpress in a sub directory). I am doing this in phases to try and preserve as much of my good rankings as possible. My first phase is to replicate my site with the exact same pages, meta data, and site structure. I'm hoping that google will see this as not much change and not change my rankings for the worse. I also made it a goal that my site speed tests be at least equal to what they are now. We will have to 301 all of the URLs however since it will be going from /example.html to /example. I believe my blog will also need to move into the root directory as well, so I need to 301 all of those pages.
I plan to wait a couple months for Phase 2. Phase 2 involves replacing old content (photo galleries), and introducing new content (virtual tours, videos, new pages, etc.) One of my reasons for moving to wordpress is to keep up with current trends a little easier since I have very little time. (I am owner, website maintainer, SEO - all on my own).
My question here is three parts. 1. Do you think this strategy will work to preserve my current rankings? 2. Do you have any lessons learned or advice to share with me to make this as smooth as possible? 3. Do I really need to wait to add new content? I might get antsy and want to do it sooner!
Thank you in advance!
-
I think it's a very dangerous idea to migrate your website to another platform on your own. No matter how diligently you do it, you won't be able to maintain your position in the search engines. I say this from personal experience.
It is better to contact the professionals. This team is excellent at helping you migrate your site to WordPress (Heidelberg). -
For lengthy-tail positions, typically you'll no longer see a dramatic drop. In truth, typically no drop in any respect. For some of the greater competitive positions, you most probably will see a mild loss. Some businesses do see a dramatic drop--but maximum probable due to different elements like microphone reviews. Over time, count on to regain the positions of the one in case you recognition on UX.
-
Thank you! I do plan to keep the internal linking the same, except the URL will change of course. The site structure is staying the same, except the blog will be moving to the root directory instead of being in a sub directory.
Thanks for the advice on the XML sitemap!
-
Good to know! Most of my searches are very specific, so I would say they are long-tail keywords.
-
I'd say for any drops, 4-6 weeks is pretty reasonable. To agree with Kevin again, most drops are user error (not doing redirects correctly etc) or as he said, major design/UX changes.
You may want to also be sure to implement an XML sitemap right away, and submit it to Search Console.
Also try to keep your internal linking the same where possible (menus, breadcrumbs, sidebars etc).
-
For long-tail kw positions, generally you will not see a dramatic drop. In fact, many times no drop at all. For some of the more competitive positions, you most likely will see a slight loss. Some companies do see a dramatic drop--but most likely because of other factors. Over time, expect to regain those positions if you focus on ux.
Dan's comments were spot on. I typically launch early on a saturday morning (2am or so) and make sure everything works. If you do launch, and the site blows up, you can always switch the 'a' record to the old site (assuming it is at a different server) and troubleshoot.
-
Thank you, this is also very helpful! I've never used Screaming Frog SEO Spider, so I will look into this! As for scheduling, that's why I am doing this in January. We are a tourism business, so we will peak in Feb / Mar. I'm hoping that 4-6 weeks will be enough to bounce back if we drop any. I do run Google PPC as well, so if it does drop, I'll have to up my PPC campaign. How long does it usually take to settle back out?
-
Thank you! That is very helpful. I will test the 301s! And thanks for letting me know to expect a 15% loss. Will that come back over time? I don't even want to lose one spot! Haha!
-
Hello! Kevin pretty much answered it but just wanted to add a few things:
1. To prioritize pages to check etc, export your top landings pages from Google Analytics. Run those through Screaming Frog SEO Spider in list most to check status codes and be sure they redirect. This way you're accounting for the highest trafficked content as a priority.
2. Schedule the exact switch for a low traffic time of day/week to be cautious.
To reiterate what Kevin said - having working redirects is the essential component here!
-
1. Do you think this strategy will work to preserve my current rankings? Yes, as long as the 301's are done properly and expect around a 15% loss.
2. Do you have any lessons learned or advice to share with me to make this as smooth as possible? Make sure to test the 301's before hand. Specifically, change your hosts file to the ip of domain. Next, go to google and do a site:yourdomainname.com and click on each result and make sure the redirects are done properly. Also, pay attention to Google Search Console, Analytics and etc for 404's and such. Make sure your .htaccess file isn't huge and add a new sitemap and etc.
3. Do I really need to wait to add new content? I might get antsy and want to do it sooner! No, but I would wait until the dust settles (more of a personal preference) as you need to focus on the launch.
Sounds like you have it handled! It's all in the prep and how to handle issues post-launch in a time-sensitive matter. Good luck!
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
-
Are provincial third-level domains bad for SEO?
My prospect's domain ends in ".on.ca" (Ontario, Canada). The structure of their site is companyname.on.ca (main page) and all other pages are sub-folders (companyname.on.ca/page-name-1 All pages are no more than two levels deep. I'm wondering if anyone knows if the provincial sub-domain (.on.ca) presents an SEO challenge?
Web Design | | 22Eighteen1 -
How to deal with 100s of Wordpress media link pages, containing images, but zero content
I have a Wordpress website with well over 1000 posts. I had a SEO audit done and it was highlighted that every post had clickable images. If you click the image a new webpage opens containing nothing but the image. I was told these image pages with zero content are very bad for SEO and that I should get them removed. I have contacted several Wordpress specialists on People Per Hour. I have basically been offered two solutions. 1 - redirect all these image pages to a 404, so they are not found by Google 2 - redirect each image page to the main post page the image is from. What's my best option here? Is there a better option? I don't care if these pages remain, providing they are not crawled by Google and classified as spam etc. All suggestions greatly received!
Web Design | | xpers0 -
Should Blog Category Archive URLs be Set to "No-Index" in Wordpress?
It appears that Google Webmaster Tools is listing about 120 blog archives URLs in Google Index>Index Status that should not be listed. Our site map contains 650 pages, but Google shows 860. Pages like: <colgroup><col width="464"></colgroup>
Web Design | | Kingalan1
| http://www.nyc-officespace-leader.com/blog/category/manhattan-office-space | With Titles Like: <colgroup><col width="454"></colgroup>
| Manhattan Office Space Archives - Metro Manhattan Office Space | Are listed when in the Rogerbot crawl report for the site. How can we remove such pages from Google Webmaster Tools, Index Status? Our site map shows about 650 pages, yet Google show these extra pages. We would prefer that they not be indexed. Note that these pages do not appear when we run a site:www.nyc-officespace-leader.com search. The site has suffered a drop in ranking since May and we feel it prudent to keep Google from indexing useless URLs. Before May 650 pages showed on the Webmaster Tools Index status, and suddenly in early June when we upgraded the site the index grew by about 175 pages. I suspect the 120 blog archives URLs may have something to do with it. How can we get them removed? Can we set them to "No-Index", or should the robot text be used to remove them? Or can some type of removal request be made to Google? My developers have been struggling with this issue since early June. The bloat on the site is about 175 URLs not on the site map. Is there any go to authority on this issue (it is apparently rather complicated) that can provide a definitive answer? Thanks!!
Alan0 -
Missing Meta Description Tag - Wordpress Tag
I am going through my crawl diagonostics issues and I have lots of "Missing Meta Description Tags". However when I look at the url's they are Wordpress Tags, which do not have a meta description. Shall I just ignore these errors or should I find a way to add a meta description? Is it important?
Web Design | | petewinter0 -
WordPress blog hosted on GoDaddy domain mapping help
We set up a WP blog that's hosted through GoDaddy. For various reasons, we purchased a URL to use to get through the technical build and set up and are trying to map that to a subdomain of our company website. (We can't host it on our own server, unfortunately). My question is: for WP blogs hosted via WP you can buy a domain mapping upgrade and I'm trying to find a similar plugin that could offer the same thing that would apply to our GoDaddy hosting and point to our subdomain (GD apparently doesn't offer the domain mapping). Anyone have any thoughts, please?
Web Design | | josh-riley0 -
Yahoo to Wordpress Permalinks
I have had a yahoo site for a couple of years. I want to start blogging so I had a worpress site built. After the site was build I noticed the urls from the previous site were not the same. For example www.besthomecaremn.com/about_us is now www.besthomecaremn.com/index-php/about_us. The company working on the site told me that that yahoo did not support permalinks and they could not make them match exactly. This is a problem because several of my pages rank differently for different terms: /about_us, /employees, /clients, /contact_us, etc, all rank differently. When they came up in the search results and were clicked on you were taken to the old site so it was like we had two sites. The company has now set that to send you to a page that says this page under routine maintenence. They are basically telling me they cannot make the urls for those pages stay the same. I am very frustrated and don't really know what to do at this point. Are they right? Can it really not be done? Can those pages alternatively be set to redirect to the new page urls or will that negatively affect the rank for those pages and how? Should I have them put the old site back up and swith hosting companies? Any advice on what to do in this situation is greatly appreciated.
Web Design | | AndreB0 -
Wordpress SEO Change of Structure
Hi, I have a Wordpress SEO Question. I ran the SEOMOZ checker on my website and it discovered roughly 70 of my 250 blogs had a URL length problem. I have removed the year and month from the WP structure as I read elsewhere that it is not important. The blogs displayed as follows: domain.com/blog/2011/02/contents-of-the-blog and the new structure is: domain.com/blog/contents-of-the-blog I have resubmitted the new structure to Google Webmaster Tools XML and updating the on-page sitemap on my main site. My blog was cached on 25<sup>th</sup> October and seems to be caching every 7 days, my website cached on the 24th and I wonder if I should do any follow up work to ensure the content gets crawled properly. a) Individually 301 redirect the old URLs to the new. b) Individual Canonical links for each. c) Adding the old pages to the robots file and disallowing. Any advice would be greatly appreciated.
Web Design | | tdsnet0 -
How do you get rid of the .html and .php extensions at the end of urls?
What is the whitehat way to properly remove the .html and .php extensions at the end of urls? Example: http://www.seomoz.org/learn-seo.php should be (and is) http://www.seomoz.org/learn-seo
Web Design | | Ryan-Bradley0