When launching a site redesign, what is the best way to roll it out?
-
We are currently working on a site re-design and are getting close to launch.
When launching the newly designed site, what is the best way to roll it out?
301 Redirects with an under construction page? Just upload the entire site at once? or al little of both?
Thank You
-
Make sure you redirect the existing pages to new URLs using 301 permanent redirects. This would help retain the value of page to some extent and the existing visitors as well. Defining everything in a .htaccess file would be the best option, and can also use a code in a PHP file to further manipulate the redirects.
-
The company I work for did a complete text and layout overhaul in October of last year and it was a brutal undertaking. We were transitioning from ASP.net to PHP and implementing a new CMS. This meant we had to do the entire site at once. There were a few hiccups, but we found the complete overhaul to be fairly seamless.. some things to keep in mind are making sure the 301 URLs are working correctly, launch the website during low traffic times (weekend) to work out any unforeseen kinks, and request feedback from your visitors to see what they like / dislike for future changes.
-
If it's a total overhaul with new URLs, then you MUST use 301 Permanent Redirects for all the old URLs. However, if it is a features overhaul, I'd update gradually to ensure your rankings don't drop.
-
if it's a features overhaul, update each feature progressively over a few days or weeks.
if it's a total overhaul, 301 to all equivalent pages is the way to go. you shouldn't need an "under construction" in that case so long as all your content is ready. the 301 permanent redirect will let google/spiders/crawlers know that this is the new, most important content.
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
-
Best Web-site Structure/ SEO Strategy for an online travel agency?
Dear Experts! I need your help with pointing me in the right direction. So far I have found scattered tips around the Internet but it's hard to make a full picture with all these bits and pieces of information without a professional advice. My primary goal is to understand how I should build my online travel agency web-site’s (https://qualistay.com) structure, so that I target my keywords on correct pages and do not create a duplicate content. In my particular case I have very similar properties in similar locations in Tenerife. Many of them are located in the same villa or apartment complex, thus, it is very hard to come up with the unique description for each of them. Not speaking of amenities and pricing blocks, which are standard and almost identical (I don’t know if Google sees it as a duplicate content). From what I have read so far, it’s better to target archive pages rather than every single property. At the moment my archive pages are: all properties (includes all property types and locations), a page for each location (includes all property types). Does it make sense adding archive pages by property type in addition OR in stead of the location ones if I, for instance, target separate keywords like 'villas costa adeje' and 'apartments costa adeje'? At the moment, the title of the respective archive page "Properties to rent in costa adeje: villas, apartments" in principle targets both keywords... Does using the same keyword in a single property listing cannibalize archive page ranking it is linking back to? Or not, unless Google specifically identifies this as a duplicate content, which one can see in Google Search Console under HTML Improvements and/or archive page has more incoming links than a single property? If targeting only archive pages, how should I optimize them in such a way that they stay user-friendly. I have created (though, not yet fully optimized) descriptions for each archive page just below the main header. But I have them partially hidden (collapsible) using a JS in order to keep visitors’ focus on the properties. I know that Google does not rank hidden content high, at least at the moment, but since there is a new algorithm Mobile First coming up in the near future, they promise not to punish mobile sites for a collapsible content and will use mobile version to rate desktop one. Does this mean I should not worry about hidden content anymore or should I move the descirption to the bottom of the page and make it fully visible? Your feedback will be highly appreciated! Thank you! Dmitry
Technical SEO | | qualistay1 -
Image Height/Width attributes, how important are they and should a best practice site include this as std
Hi How important are the image height/width attributes and would you expect a best practice site to have them included ? I hear not having them can slow down a page load time is that correct ? Any other issues from not having them ? I know some re social sharing (i know bufferapp prefers images with h/w attributes to draw into their selection of image options when you post) Most importantly though would you expect them to be intrinsic to sites that have been designed according to best practice guidelines ? Thanks
Technical SEO | | Dan-Lawrence0 -
My beta site (beta.website.com) has been inadvertently indexed. Its cached pages are taking traffic away from our real website (website.com). Should I just "NO INDEX" the entire beta site and if so, what's the best way to do this? Please advise.
My beta site (beta.website.com) has been inadvertently indexed. Its cached pages are taking traffic away from our real website (website.com). Should I just "NO INDEX" the entire beta site and if so, what's the best way to do this? Are there any other precautions I should be taking? Please advise.
Technical SEO | | BVREID0 -
Best way to present a single image from a gallery?
Hi. I want to make a page for each image on my clients gallery, so that each image page will be indexed and rank. (It's a tattoo portal and theres a lot of traffic on specific tattoos) But as the setup is for now, the only way it will be different from the other image pages, is the H1 title. Can you guys give some examples on "spot on" galleries SEO-wise, i could draw some ideas from?
Technical SEO | | MichaelRoscoe0 -
Site being indexed by Google before it has launched
We are currently coming towards the end of a site migration, and are at the final stage of testing redirects etc. However, to our horror we've just discovered Google has started indexing the new site. Any ideas on how this could have happened? I have most recently asked for robots.txt to exclude anything with a certain parameter in URL. Is there a chance this, wrongly implemented, could have caused this?
Technical SEO | | Sayers0 -
Want to Target Mobile site for Google Mobile Version and Desktop Site for Google Desktop Version
I have ecommerce site with both mobile version and desktop version. Mobile version starts with m.example.com and full version starts with www.example.com I am using same content through out both site and using 301 redirection by detecting user agent vice-versa. My both sites are accessible to crawl by any google spider. I have submitted both sites's sitemap to GWT and mobile site having mobile sitemap xml, so google can easily recognize my mobile site. Is it going to help to rank my both sites as per my expectation? I need to rank for mobile site in Google mobile and ranking for desktop site in Google desktop version. Some of pages of my mobile site are started to appearing in Google desktop version. So how I can stop them to appear in Google desktop? Your comments are highly welcome.
Technical SEO | | Hexpress0 -
Best SEO strategy for a site that has been down
Because of hosting problems we're trying to work out, our domain was down all weekend, and we have lost all of our rankings. Doe anyone have any experience with this kind of thing in terms of how long it takes to figure out where you stand once you have the site back up? what the best SEO strategy is for immediately addressing this problem? Besides just plugging away at getting links like normal, is there anything specific we should do right away when the site goes back up? Resubmit a site map, etc? Thanks!
Technical SEO | | OneClickVentures0 -
How to setup tumblr blog.site.com to give juice to site.com
Is it possible to get a subdomain blog.site.com that is on tumblr to count toward site.com. I hoped I could point it in webmaster tools like we do www but alas no. Any help would be greatly appreciated.
Technical SEO | | oznappies0