How to Implement Massive SEO Modifications
-
Hi everyone,
I'm implementing some fairly significant changes on a clients website and wanted to know if it was better to implement all the changes at once or if I should implement the changes gradually.
The changes are:
1. Amended information architecture
2. Completely new URL's
3. New meta data and some new on page content
4. Meta robots 'no index, follow' approximately 90% of the site
Can I make all these changes in one go (that would be my preference), or should I gradually implement? What are the risks?
Many thanks
James
-
Hi Joe,
Thanks for the response. Having had a variety of different opinions, and still not being 100% on the right answer, I spent a LOT of time crawling through SEOmoz Q&A:
Takeaways from my digging around are:
- Changes to title tags and URL's should be implemented separately. As you state above, reason for this is so that you can pinpoint problems if they arise (see point 3 of the answer) http://www.seomoz.org/qa/view/49136/revising-urls
- Title tag changes should also be implemented in stages. Homepage, top 50 pages, everything else (again, see point 3 of the answer): http://www.seomoz.org/qa/view/39946/title-tags-global-changes. (As an interesting aside, Dr Pete clearly states that when making sitewide changes, dont make more than one set of changes per page, it could cause an over-optimisation penalty)
- URL structure changes should be implemented all in one go: http://www.seomoz.org/qa/view/45183/update-url-structure (this link is an amazing guide from everett sizemore on exactly how to implement URL changes, recommended reading!)
I appreciate there's no right and wrong answer, but I think that with the above in mind, the approach I'm going to take to these changes is a scientific one. Make a change, assess results, move forward.
1. Implement title tag changes in stages (monitoring site performance at every stage). Homepage/Category Pages/Everything else.
2.Add new on page content.
3. Add new information architecture (couple of new categories- nothing significant)
4. Implement URL changes through 301 redirects all in one go. Keep old site XML sitemap in place. Once site has been crawled (and new pages found) move to new sitemap and update internal links
4. Implement meta robots 'noindex, follow' to various sections of the site. Not all in one go, but section by section, monitoring results and then moving on if no issues arise
Would be interested to know what you think of that as a plan? Also, need to send out love to Dr Pete and Everett Sizemore for their Q&A answers!
James
-
#2 - completely new url's says it all for me. The others are all subs of that change. If possible you need to address these changes in some form of 301 redirect so that the spiders can follow your changes. update the .htaccess file or even create static php redirect headers or similar if you have to. This should prevent the search engines from reporting the dreaded 404 and getting the page dumped.
#4 - The no-index is not something you have to worry about as you are removing pages from the SERPs, not trying to get them ranked. Any page that is getting no-index is out of the SEO equation at this point.
#3 - this will improve rankings/search-ability so you are not looking at seeing a negative effect here. Updates on these pages, if done correctly, generally have favorable results and at the worst have 'no change' in the SERPs
#1 - I would need to know more detail on this one, but the new architecture will probably be reflected in #2's urls so if that it solved, so is number 1. Again, a more clear, easily accessible architecture hopefully allows the spiders to effectively categorize the sections of your site. The new IA will probably be more pleasing to users which will have its own benefits as well.
---- And the final vote... All at once, just address the 404's and you should be ok
-
NoIndex 90% of a site? Interested to hear why that makes sense in any situation. Maybe only implement have of those noindex tags at first to see if you get the desired result.
As for the title, meta and content, all at once is fine. Hopefully your new stuff is better than the old! Best of luck!
-
I came here to tell him to do the exact opposite! I was going to suggest doing one change at a time to measure and or A/B test results to make sure maximum benefit of each was given. After reading your response and his issues, i've changed my opinion and agree with you that its probably best to do all of these at once in one MAJOR revision and then tweak after that.
-
Considering how massive the changes are, I'd say it's best to do them all at once. This will let you start rebuilding as soon as possible. Making one big change and then waiting to start ranking again, followed by another big change that could drop them out of the rankings again would likely cause a longer period of your client not getting traffic. I wouldn't say that the on-page and metadata changes need to be made at the same time, if there are limited resources.
One problem with doing this all at once is that it will be more difficulty to evaluate the effect of each change. This might not be a huge deal to you, but sometimes it is nice to know what return came from each change.
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
-
Quick SEO Audit of my site.
Hello, I hope you are doing great. I am working on a website that is related to flea collars for cats and dogs. And I want you to make a quick audit of the site where am I lacking. It could be great if you can help ASAP. You can view my site here :
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Request4peace0 -
Brightcove SEO Best Practices?
My company has decided to go with Brightcove as a video platform so we can better monetize all of the video content we create and better customize the experience as well. We have a pretty decent YouTube presence, and I won't let them stop using that because it would totally alienate us from part of our audience. So I was hoping someone could help me with the following: Are we able to keep videos hosted on YouTube as well as Brightcove without any risk of duplicate content? If we use the Brightcove player to embed videos in our on-site content, are we hindering potential organic search visibility? On the embeds, it's looking like it's using an iframe in our content (https://www.leafly.com/news/cannabis-101/sativa-indica-and-hybrid-whats-the-difference-between-cannabis-ty) - We're using a Brightcove WP plugin for the embed, but I was wondering if anyone had suggestions on a better way to implement/if this is even an issue at all. Are there any other general best practices/insights anyone has working with this platform? I found this article on their site, but I was wondering if there was anything else I should consider. Thank you in advance for any insights/answers!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | davidkaralisjr0 -
International SEO and Website Redirection
Hey there Mozzers, If you have a website for example www.example.com and you wanted to target Australia and UK and you owned the .com.au and .co.uk. Would that be ok if everything redirected to the .com ? I know that having the .com.au is a signal for Google but the redirection is causing me troubles. Would that be huge of a difference if everything redirected to the .com version of the site?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | AngelosS0 -
SEO before Replatforming - Good Idea?
Hello, We are in the midst of a major replatforming of our current website, the process will take roughly six to nine more months to complete. We are completing revamping our site - the new site will be on the same domain, but almost everything is changing - from the category structure, hierarchy, architecture, different regions on separate URLs will not be on the same with a currency converter, URLs - you name it, we're changing it. There has been internal discussions for some time on whether we should hire an outside firm to help us with our SEO. I have a lot of experience in SEO but my role has changed recently and we have had trouble filling my previous role. We are not looking for help with the replatforming project, we have a great plan in place to preserve link equity, tags, etc. We are looking for general SEO help as if replatforming wasn't on the table. My question is, is this smart to do before replatforming? In my opinion, it's not. Our new site will have completely different URLs and will be so dramatically different. We could have someone do some keyword research, but we have already done the bulk of it. We have thought about and researched keywords for every new page we are creating. But from a technical SEO perspective, I don't see the point in getting someone. In addition, we just had a major SEO audit done last year and we completed the tasks from that audit on the current site; however, most of the changes were technical, not content based. Thoughts?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Colbys0 -
Django and SEO - Multicountry site - Is Django really SEO friendly?
Hi Everyone, Our client is requesting that we use Django for her project. I am really uneasy about this for several reasons. The client wants a multi-country site that is completely SEO friendly. I love Wordpress and if I had to do this project it would be a Wordpress site with WPML + Yoast plugins site. Questions Is Django SEO friendly and what "plugins" should I be using? Is there a multi-country plugin for Django that keeps or adds typical SEO features? Can you recommend any great articles? Any example sites would be GREATLY appreciated Thanks
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Carla_Dawson0 -
Any SEO value in gTLD redirect?
So, my client is thinking of purchasing several gTLDs with second level keywords important to us. Stuff like this...we don't want .popsicles, just the domain with the second level keyword. Those cost anywhere from $20-30 right now: grape.popsicles cherry.popsicles rocket.popsicles companyname.popsicles The thinking is that it's best to be defensive, not let a competitor get the gTLD with our name in it (agreed) and not let them capitalize on a keyword-rich gTLD (hmm). The theory was that we or a competitor could buy this gTLD and redirect it to our relevant page for, say, cherry popsicles. They wonder if that would help that gTLD page rank well - and sort of work in lieu of AdWords for pages that are not ranking well. I don't think this will work. A redirected page shouldn't rank better that the page it links to...unless Google gave it points for Exact Match in the URL. Do you think they will -- does Google grade any part of a URL that redirects? Viewing this video from Matt Cutts, I surmise that a gTLD would be ranked like any other page -- if its content, inbound links, etc. support a high DA, well, ok then, you get graded like every domain. In the case of a redirect, the page would not be indexed as a standalone so that is a moot point, right? So, any competitor buying a gTLD with the hopes of ranking well against us would have to build up pagerank in that new domain...and for our purposes I see that being hugely difficult for anyone - even us. Still, a defensive purchase of some of these might not be a bad idea since it's a fairly low cost investment. Other thoughts?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Jen_Floyd0 -
How can we improve the seo on our site?
Hello everyone. I have been reading through this site for a while and tried to put everything together that I have learned so far. Would any of you mind looking at our site and providing any pointers or areas we can still improve on or areas I completely missed. I appreciate any feedback you can give! Our site is faithology.com Thanks again! Brandon
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | BMPIRE0 -
Social Media and SEO
What is best? Increasing DA and PA on a specific social media profile such as twitter or spreading out the DA and PA on a variety of different profiles?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | casper4340