Website Redevelopment
A website redevelopment is a large and complex task, migrating content from one website to another, and there are several things that need to be considered from an SEO standpoint. Our SEO Office Hours Notes cover these, along with best practice recommendations from Google to ensure your site redevelopment is successful.
Check out our in-depth website migration checklist for a practical guide on how to manage major site redevelopment projects.
Let Google Know About Site Merging Through Redirects
Redirects are the best way to help Google process a site merging. Bear in mind that site merging or site splitting takes more time for Google to process than a site migration.
Google Completely Re-evaluates Relaunched Sites
When you relaunch a website, even using the same URLs, Google re-evaluates the site in its current status so rankings may be affected. Ensure no important content has been removed and internal linking is good on the new site so content is crawlable and discoverable.
Fine to Make Large Scale Site Changes at Same Time But Cause Bigger SERP Fluctuations Than Phased Changes
No problem with making large scale changes to the content on a site all at once, but this will result in larger SERP fluctuations. Spreading content changes over time will result in smaller fluctuations over a longer period of time.
Adding Bulk Pages Is OK
Adding a large number of pages in bulk, such as adding an archive, is fine from an SEO point of view, however, Googlebot will try and crawl the new pages so helps if server has capacity to deal with that.
Use Canonical Tags to Test a New Website Before Migration
When you want to test a new website in parallel with the old one, you can launch the new site on a sub-domain and canonicalise the new pages to old pages.
Link Authority Is Lost When a Site Completely Changes
If the content on a site significantly changes to a new topic, any authority from backlinks will be lost.
Crawl Rate Increases After Site-Wide Changes
Google crawls site-wide changes a bit faster than they normally would.
Expect Ranking Fluctuations Following a Platform Migration
Google will take some time to reprocess a site following a platform change, especially if URLs and internal linking have changed, but if you see any long term impact you should explore any potential issues.
Google Detects if a Site Completely Changes Content
If you buy an old domain and change the content, Google will treat it like a new website.
Don’t Change URLs and Domains at the Same Time
Don’t change URL paths when changing domains or protocol, as it makes it harder for Google to process the change.