Migration Strategy
-
Hi guys,
Just want to check on this site migration strategy. Basically we have an Australian based ecommerce site which is going to launch globally.
The company has two site. One is (http://www.domainUS.com – for US market) and one is Australian based (http://www.domain.com.au).
Basically the plan is to have one single global .com site (like ASOS.com) on a new domain which would be domain.com and put both the current http://www.domainUS.com (US VERSION) and http://www.domain.com.au (AUSTRALIAN VERSION) on the new domain: domain.com (global)
To make it even more complicated the new global domain (domain.com) is in the process of being purchased (someone else has the domain) and won’t be available till January 2016. But the company wants to execute the new global setup in November 2015 temporary on the .com.au version
The current migration plan is to create two different sub-folders one for US e.g. http:www.domain.com.au/us and one for AUD http://www.domain.com/au on the current domain Australian domain.com.au for the global launch in November 2015. Then once domain.com is ready in January 2016, then migrate to domain.com with the countries as sub-folder (as shown below in stage 3).
I was wondering if you guys think this would be an ideal migration strategy given the circumstances.
Link to screenshot of current migration strategy:
http://c714091.r91.cf2.rackcdn.com/4c2aae21dcbd548f27d96840227b81bc6b8b00c592.png
Any advice would be very much appreciated!
Cheers, Chris
-
This temporary set-up idea makes little sense to me... migrations are tough enough anyway, and the temporary middle stage is increasing both risk and complexity.
-
You definitely won't lose as much value with this strategy. It's a good stop-gap in a difficult situation.
-
Hi Matt,
Thanks for your answer!
Good tip on the 302s. Yeah definitely isn't ideal.
Currently the Australian site is the one with most of the domain authority and organic traffic. I'm also thinking at this possibly:
http://c714091.r91.cf2.rackcdn.com/4c2aae21dc8c159b81caae827029d8a1bbf57c90ed.png
So just leave the Australian site for now, the developers will have to simply deal with this on there end.
And the US site do the temporary 302 then change to 301 once the global site is ready.
What do you think of this instead?
-
This is pretty much complicated so let me summarize what you are up to and then will move towards my suggestion.
You have 2 domains at the moment, one targets US and the other target AU market. Now you are planning a global launch on a third domain where most probably you are going to redirect your existing pages.
The global domain is not with you so you want to go with a temporary strategy and that is to create a sub folder. US sub folder on AU website and AU sub-folder on a US website.
--
WOW, saying that this strategy is ideal for one or not will be difficult as there are lot of things missing which includes brand reputation, market share, audience trust on the brand and more.
I mean if you can wait for few months than going for a new domain is a better idea than going for a temporary strategy as this will be a very quick change for audience, first in November and another change in January.
Try to give the amount of time to audience in which they can adjust. Again, if the audience’s trust level with the brand is good and they can accept this kind of quick change then I don’t see a problem.
I am assuming that on sub folders you will link to another website instead of creating a new content on a sub folder. I believe create separate content on a sub folder is not a good idea as SEO issues and ranking will take months and within few months you have to move to another strategy.
I don’t see a problem with moving to a new domain but you have to keep in mind that when shifting two different website to a 3<sup>rd</sup> domain you will see lot of ranking fluctuation so if you have a good migration plan but no back up plan then you should consider having one right now or else you will see a big loss from the organic traffic.
Again, there are lot of points that can be discussed but this is what I think it is having the limited knowledge about the domains and business.
Hope this helps!
-
Do the two current sites (domainUS.com and domain.com.au) have a lot of authority?
The final location for these, in 2 subfolders, is ideal. I like where you're going with this. But the plan to jump to the .com.au/us and /au is ... well, sub-optimal. It's not ideal to have two sets of redirects essentially to solve a 2 month problem.
If the current sites aren't very authoritative, you'll probably be ok. If they have a decent amount of ranking power & current traffic, I would try to skip the middle step or at least use 302 instead of 301 redirects. Using the 302s mean the .com.au/us and .com.au/au sites won't get the value of the current sites for Nov/Dec/Jan but it does mean you're not going to chain 301s once January comes. You'll just remove the 302s and create 301s to the new domain.com/us and domain.com/au websites.
Those 301s will then pick up the majority of the current ranking power and give you the best possible boost.
If you can't hold off until the company owns the .com, that's what I would do at least.
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
-
Major Drop in Traffic Outside AU After Migration
We have a major drop in traffic after migration especially in the US and other international countries but we are more worried about the US. Before Migration:
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | christwix
February 3 - March 18, 2018 (44 days)
vs
After Migration:
March 20 - May 2, 2018 (44 days) See GA traffic comparison (screenshot 1) Also, based on SEMrush the traffic, the United States is down by 46% (see screenshot 2) while Australia has decreased by 12% (screenshot 3). What could be the main issue issue of this? Would really love to hear an in-depth explanation about this. Keen to hear your thoughts about this. Cheers, iNMdNNq OTq5wYn gCBmFOF0 -
Site deindexed after HTTPS migration + possible penalty due to spammy links
Hi all, we've recently migrated a site from http to https and saw the majority of pages drop out of the index. https://www.relate.org.uk/ One of the most extreme deindexation problems I've ever seen, but there doesn't appear to be anything obvious on-page which is causing the issue. (Unless I've missed something - please tell me if I have!) I had initially discounted any off-page issues due to the lack of a manual action in SC, however after looking into their link profile I spotted 100 spammy porn .xyz sites all linking (see example image). Didn't appear to be any historic disavow files uploaded in the non https SC accounts. Any on-page suggestions, or just play the waiting game with the new disavow file? Hku8I
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | CTI_Digital0 -
Best strategy for duplicate content?
Hi everyone, We have a site where all product pages have more or less similar text (same printing techniques, etc.) The main differences are prices and images, text is highly similar. We have around 150 products in every language. Moz's algorithm tells me to do something about duplicate content, but I don't really know what we could do, since the descriptions can't be changed to be very different. We essentially have paper bags in different colors and and from different materials.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | JaanMSonberg0 -
How do i migrate from Volusion to Magento with the same domain using 301 redirect?
We are thinking about migrating our site from Volusion to Magento due to traffic reasons, our site's been growing and we're going way over the bandwidth limit (40gb) for Volusion every month. It only make sense for us to start on Magento CE where we can host it on our site and use our own bandwidth. We will be using the same domain, and changing our URLs to make things better (we were somewhat restricted by Volusion so we couldn't optimize some of our URL addresses). Here's comes the main question, since we are ranking pretty good for the keywords that we're targeting, we ABSOLUTELY DON'T want to lose any traffic or ranking from our pages, I know that there's something called the 301 redirect that we can use, but how can this be done? When we migrate the site, we will need to point our domain to Magento from Volusion, so basically Volusion store will be down... if we are changing domain names then the 301 redirect makes sense because we can have the original store live while it's redirecting to a completely new address. Is there any method to still setup this 301 redirect, or is there something else I can do to save our rankings??? Thanks in advance!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | s2bkevin0 -
Migrating EMD to brand name domain. Risk of Penguin Penalty?
We would like to migrate from an EMD to a brand name domain, since our service offer has become much broader than indicated by the current EMD. The current domain name is a money keyword. Do you believe there is a big risk of suffering a penguin penalty if we go ahead with the domain migration, due to large share of anchor texts containing keyword of old domain name? Quick facts about our site:
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | lcourse
-about 500.000 pages indexed by google PR6 10 years old 1200 linking root domains 30% of linking root domains contain our domain name with domain ending as anchor text 5% of linking root domains have just the domain keyword as anchor text Any thoughts?
Thanks0 -
My Link Building Strategy Good or Bad?
Okay I am new to SEO and I have read a few SEO beginner guides and have been practicing SEO over time now. I am trying to do SEO for a new clients site that is a completely new site with no MR and MT and here is my current link building strategy. Can you please review my link building plan and help me out with suggestions and corrections 1. Directory Submissions- From what I understand since the new google penguin updates this isn't as effective of a method but I am trying get high PR directory list, but a lot of them require paid standard submission reviews, otherwise it takes 2-3 months 2. Local Directory Submissions- Such as yelp, angee's list, whitepages, and other local directories. 3. Social Bookmarking- submit links to social bookmarking sites with target keyword(s) as anchor 4. Article Writing & Submission: create articles and submit to high pr article directories with different article titles and also wanted to see different submissions I can make with each article 5. Press Releases- submit to high pagerank press release directories, also wanted to see how many submissions is generally the rule of thumb for press releases. 6. Blog Outreach for Product Reviews: Submit products to blogs with PR 2+ to get review and backlinks 7. Forum Profile Creation- create forum profiles and engage in topics with signature with a link, I understand that since the penguin update this isn't something I should emphasis on 8. Blog Commenting- comment on relevant blogs that have dofollow links and nofollow links for link diversity 9. Guest Blogging- Write unique content and outreach to related blogs for guest posting opportunities 10. .edu & .gov links- How do I gain .edu & .gov links I have read several articles and I am having a hard time understanding this concept, would commenting on .edu & .gov blogs and profiles be an effective method or the correct method for gaining these types of links?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | azokaei0 -
Linking Strategies 2013 - Regular Routines/ Tips
So, what is the latest linking strategies and the best practices for the new year? I'm looking to start a clean, fresh website and would love to implement a great new strategy or tactics that really work with the right amount of effort. Is there a guide available? Preferably from website on-page optimization all the way to a regular routine of what to do. I know it won't be easy, but that's why I love the ever changing world of SEO!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Paul_Tovey0 -
What are the best strategies to organize a htaccess full of 301 re-directs
I have a client with a htaccess file that is a total mess! What are the best practices to organize all the re-directs, and make it more manageable in the future. Any resources would be appreciated.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | anchorwave0