SEO Considerations for a Platform Change
-
We are getting ready to move our e-commerce platform from Zencart to Magento as the original Zencart framework is pretty dated. while I'm excited to move to a more modern platform, I'm terrified at the potential SEO risk involved with doing so given that all URLs will likely be different and we're considering updating many product listings. Almost all of the site's traffic is organic, so maintaining rankings is extremely important.
I'd love any advice, but especially that related to:
-
Best way to redirect all new URLs sitewide
-
The prudence of heavily editing product listings at the same time of redirecting the URL (i.e. updating product descriptions)
-
Site structure: Should I strive to keep the new site link structure as similar to the old as possible?
-
Resources or guides on transitioning a site from a SEO perspective
-
Other major facets I'm missing
I appreciate any help or sights you can offer! Thank you....
-
-
I'd say to start with an excel spreadsheet and then copy them all over in one big batch. You're probably going to need some coffee.
At the very least, you should keep the redirects there for 6 months. If you drop the 301's then you also lose the inbound links, so it's best to keep them there as long as possible.
-
Bryce,
Thanks for your reply! A follow-up question:
Is the best way to do 300+ page-to-page redirects simply by entering them all into the .htacess file? If so, how long do I need to keep these .htaccess redirects available? Once Google indexes them, and indexes the redirects, will they be permanently stored in the Google cache? Or should I leave them permanently just in case?
-
1) Best way to redirect all new URLs sitewide
Page to Page redirects is the best solution, even though it's a major pain. I would take a look at your traffic data for at least the past 90 days, possibly even further, and create a 301 map from every page with inbound traffic to the correlating page on the new site.
2) The prudence of heavily editing product listings at the same time of redirecting the URL (i.e. updating product descriptions)
If you're up to it. However if rankings drop then you won't be able to track it back to a particular change.
3) Site structure: Should I strive to keep the new site link structure as similar to the old as possible?
If the current site structure converts well, then maybe you should stick with it. The nice thing about switching to a new platform is it's a great opportunity to reinvent your site if you feel like it needs it.
4) Resources or guides on transitioning a site from a SEO perspective
This article might be a little dated, but it should point you in the right direction. http://www.seomoz.org/blog/10-things-relaunch-your-website
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
-
Pushstate and Infinite Scrolling Article Pages: Is it detrimental to not change URLs as the page is being scrolled?
I've noticed a recent trend of news sites using infinite scrolling on article pages to garner more pageviews and I can assume serve up more ads. Here is an overview. Here is an article from NBC news that uses this technique: http://www.nbcnews.com/pop-culture/music/grammys-2016-here-s-why-adele-s-performance-was-out-n519186 Studies have shown that this technique has decreased bounce rates by +15% for some sites. My question is: If a site is using the technique without changing URLs as the user scrolls down what overall negative effects does this have? Obviously you wouldn't be getting credit for the extra pageviews but I was wondering if there were any indexation implications with this. Here is an example of article infinite scrolling without changing the URL: http://www.wftv.com/news/national-content/deputies-wife-attacks-husband-because-he-didnt-get-her-a-valentines-day-gift/87691927
Web Design | | Cox-Media-Group1 -
Changing from All-in-One SEO to Yoast SEO
I am currently using, and have always used the All-in-One SEO plugin for my website, but I have have heard time and again that the Yoast SEO plugin is superior. How do I transfer to this plugin instead? Do I need to deactivate the all in one seo plugin? What happens to all the tags that are already there for the thousands of pages, including the main page, that is functioning from the all in one SEO plugin?
Web Design | | dtlalaw0 -
Will changing our URL's to MVC friendly URL's have a positive or negative affect on our rankings and link juice?
We've recently changed our site over to a new hosting system, we've got similar pages and are now looking at changing the URL's to ensure we do not loose our link juice from our previous site. My question is regarding the URL's, is it worth us changing our URL's to MVC friendly URL have a good or bad affect on our rankings and or link juice? Thanks
Web Design | | SimonDixon0 -
Does redesigning a website affects SEO results
We have a website and we are getting good traffic to it. Its a travel related domain registered many years back. Now its ranking high for most of the potential keywords even if it is not at all SEO friendly (Domain is an exact match keyword). We are planning to redesign it. Will that affect the SEO Ranking? We need to ask some more doubts: 1. When redesigning we are planning to change the inner page URL. So it it wise to redirect (301) old URL to the new URL? Old url will not be there after redesigning. But its currently having page ranks. 2. Can we redirect more than one old url to a single new page? 3. Google new updates said "they will be going to diminish the exact match results domains". Does that updates affects us? 4. Any more suggestions for the redesigning?
Web Design | | jjv0 -
Homepage Menu Change
For the site I work on we would like to make a change on the homepage from having categories on the left nav to a meta menu on the top nav. The reason we are doing this is an attempt to both make finding products better for the customer and we feel it is more aesthetically pleasing. Could this negatively affect our SEO and ranking even if we use the exact same links? Are there any other negative repercussions you feel could come from this? Thanks for any help!
Web Design | | ClaytonKendall0 -
Is my company's privacy policy diluting our SEO efforts?
Good morning! I'm new to the SEOmoz community. This morning, I spot checked a couple pages using the Term Extractor. When looking at the results, I noticed that we're ranking for many of the terms contained in our privacy policy. Our privacy policy is set up in the footer of our page templates and appears as a light box that pops up over the page you're viewing, so it looks like every page (from a search engines perspective) contains every word of our 900-word privacy policy. Since several of our legal terms are showing up as "targeted terms" within the tool, would it benefit me to change the privacy policy link from a light box to something else? Perhaps a link to a static page that contains our privacy policy instead? Are the search engines smart enough to see the repeating text and ignore it from page to page, or am I just diluting all of my SEO efforts here? I'm after big wins here, and don't want to be too nitpicky, but concerned this could be a big SEO no-no that I might want to correct. Thanks in advance for your expertise! Ben Culbert
Web Design | | SheriGolla0 -
Local SEO - Title Tag?
For www.bluedotlandscaping.com/fencing.htm in which we mostly only care about Greenvile and Spartanburg counties in SC. Is <title>Patio designs - Water features - Brick patio by Blue Dot Landscaping</title>
Web Design | | SCyardman
good... or or do you prefer... <title>Patio designs - Water features - Brick patio - Greenville, Spartanburg, Simpsonville</title> Thanks for your help, Rich0 -
HTML5, semantic web & SEO
HTML5 is supposed to revolutionize the way browsers, web clients and services are supposed to "understand" information on the web. I have been planning on converting my site to HTML5 ever since it went into a working draft last spring, however I wanted to know if upgrading to HTML5 would offer any SEO benefits or if it would actually have a negative effect on how my site is perceived on the web. I guess my real question here is "Do search engines recognize HTML5 sectioning?" Is content found in semantic sections like <header>, <footer>, <nav>, <aside>, treated any different than content inside generic HTML4 containers like, or ? </aside> </nav> </footer> </header>
Web Design | | TahoeMountain400