Redirects

An SEO Expert Explains How To Migrate Websites

October 10, 2024
5 min read

An SEO Expert Explains How To Migrate Websites

Moving a website is like moving to a new house. Assets must be accounted for, detailed plans made, and reliable help hired. It’s heavy lifting—and requires great care that valuable items aren’t broken in the process. 

Organizations migrating websites should apply that same diligence and attention to detail. One key consideration is SEO. Just as you wouldn’t want your grandmother’s fine china squashed in a box, you don’t want your SEO rankings damaged by an oversight.

This guide breaks down everything you need to know about preserving (or even improving) an organization’s SEO during a website migration. From understanding the different types of URL redirects to dealing with pesky 404s, here’s how to migrate a website without losing SEO value.

Reasons for a Website Migration

Website migrations occur when an organization updates the URL for one or more websites. When done correctly, visitors to the old website(s) will automatically redirect to the new address. Organizations choose to migrate websites for a variety of reasons, including: 

  • Rebranding: An organization that owns multiple brands or has made significant changes to its current one will often opt for a website migration. That can entail moving two or more websites to one address or shifting a single website to a new address.
  • An acquisition or merger: When an organization acquires a new business or joins forces with a new one, its digital profile needs to mirror that change by moving one or more websites to a central location.
  • Improved user experience: Not all website migrations entail big business changes. Some organizations choose to overhaul their website to make it more palatable to visitors. Updating a clunky URL, improving SEO, consolidating duplicate web pages, and removing outdated ones are all reasons to switch.
  • Legal considerations: Large companies with the same name as other websites may encounter trademark disputes. They can change domains to prevent this from happening.

Note: In tech speak, a website address is known as its domain. It's the URL typed into an address bar (e.g. google.com). It also appears in email addresses associated with that website. Website migrations rely on URL redirects to shift domains; i.e., to move one web page to another address.

How Website Migrations Impact SEO

Website migrations require considerable work. However, the right tools and know-how can make redirecting visitors to a new URL easy. There are two types of URL redirects: permanent and impermanent. Companies migrating websites will want to choose permanent for most, if not all, of their new web pages. 

Here’s why: Search engines like Google rely on software that scours websites called crawlers to determine valuable content. Crawlers search for websites containing backlinks to trusted sites that establish authority. Strong backlinks result in better SEO rankings. 

When a website redirects, it sends out a signal saying a resource has moved to a new URL. Signals associated with permanent redirects let the search engine know to associate the website’s new URL with its old SEO ranking. If a company chooses an impermanent redirect, the crawler doesn’t know which page to rank for SEO—the old one or the temporary one. As a result, it loses SEO value. 

301 redirects are permanent and the primary focus of this article.

Best SEO Practices for Website Migration

Because SEO is such an important consideration with website migration, organizations will want to ensure they take every precaution to preserve or improve their SEO ranking. Here are general factors to be aware of and fundamental steps to take.

  1. Conduct a content audit: Start by cataloging every page in the website(s) you plan to migrate. Note the kind of page it is (landing, homepage) and document the corresponding page it will move to. Pro tip: don’t connect every page to your homepage (or another single source). This is a mistake that can seriously impact your SEO score.
  2. Update 404s and other outdated content: As you conduct your audit, you may come across pages that show up as 404s. Use a Backlink Analytics tool to find 404s and redirect them to a closely matched page. If the 404 page is now irrelevant, delete it. 
  3. Eliminate duplicate content: This step is especially important for organizations merging one or more websites. Near-identical pages should be consolidated. Using a tidy and thorough spreadsheet can help to easily identify these instances.
  4. Avoid redirect chains and loops: A redirect chain occurs when a website input signal must hop through multiple URLs to arrive at its final destination. Even more problematic is the redirect loop, which sends users from one URL to another, and then back to the original. While the word on the street is that a website can host up to five URLs in a chain without impacting SEO, it’s still a good idea to make a clean transition between your old web pages and new ones. Resolve redirect chains and loops using a tool like SiteDetour, which identifies surplus URLs so you can eliminate them.
  5. Migrate pages meticulously: If you’ve done your homework, migrating an old website to a new one can be a relative breeze—especially if using a tool like SiteDetour. Using your content audit as a source of truth, enter the new URL for each web page you want to migrate. Be sure to choose a 301 redirect.
  6. Monitor content for up to a year: After migrating your website, go through it to make sure all the pages are properly synced. Don’t worry if you see a slight dip in your SEO—as long as you use 301 redirects, it should quickly return to normal. It’s advisable to monitor your SEO ranking for up to a year after a website migration.

Well-executed website migrations can maintain or even improve your SEO. The recommended content audit requires organizations to look in-depth at website content and make key decisions that improve search rankings. As a bonus, you’ll have the skill sets and tools to make more changes to your website further down the road—such as acquiring other websites or even setting up temporary pages for seasonal promotions, A/B testing web pages, and more.

SiteDetour is the perfect companion for website migrations. The URL redirect tool takes seconds to use, and the platform’s analytics provide valuable insights to make the transition seamless. To learn more, contact us today and we’ll set you up with a free demo.

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Redirects

An SEO Expert Explains How To Migrate Websites

April 3, 2023
5 min read
Seo Website Migration Checklist Image

A redirect is a tool used by websites for “rerouting” or sending a visitor to an alternative webpage. An example of a redirect would be when you type “example.com” in your web-browser, but are taken to a different website, like “new-example.com.”

URL redirects are an extremely common practice employed by webmasters and content managers to ensure visitors to their website are reaching their desired content.

When would I use a redirect?

  1. A page has been relocated within your site
    Let’s say your website has a page by the path “/t-shirts” – The “t-shirts” page has been a part of your website sitemap for years, and is one of your most frequently visited pages. Suddenly, you need to build out a more general page on your site that has t-shirts, and dress shirts. Your goal is to have the new page be accessible by a shorter, more general path, like “/shirts”. In this situation, you would want to use a URL redirect to ensure that traffic for the page “/t-shirts” is successfully rerouted to the new “/shirts” page of your website. Without a redirect in place, you could run the risk of visitors still accessing the old /t-shirts page, even though you want to drive all traffic to the new /shirts page. Due to the nature of SEO, it’s possible that there are many links throughout the Internet that still point visitors to the old URL, and it is the job of the URL redirect to ensure visitors still make it to the appropriate page.
  2. Your domain name is changing!
    Changing a website’s domain name is a drastic decision which must be handled with the utmost care. Let’s say your website has always been www.abc-brand.com. Due to a rebranding effort, you are changing your brand from “ABC” to “XYZ”, and thus your website’s URL will need to be adjusted to reflect the change. In this scenario, it would be critical that you 301 redirect all traffic requesting “abc-brand.com” to the new and improved “xyz-brand.com”. Furthermore, you would want to ensure that all pages within the abc-brand website are also redirected, like abc-brand.com/my-page being redirected to xyx-brand.com/my-page
  3. You have alternative domains that you wish to serve as “shortcuts” into your website
    It is a common practice for businesses to buy dozens of domain names that:
  • Are spelled similarly to their business name – consider “gogle.com” that redirects to google.com
  • Are variations of their name that visitors may otherwise know them as – consider “joes-tees.com” that redirects to the main business website, “joes-shirts.com”
  • Are shortened, easily typed versions of the primary domain name – consider “shirtsale2019.com” redirecting to “joes-shirts.com”. It is common to find this shorter, more memorable URL variation on physical advertisements because people are more likely to remember them. As such, a URL redirect would be used to reroute the alternative domain name to your primary domain name of your website.

How does a redirect actually work?

When you request a web-page from your browser, there is a server somewhere on the Internet that is receiving your request and responding with the appropriate content. Fundamentally, a redirect occurs when a web-server's response contains a special piece of data (an HTTP response header) instructing the browser to reroute the visitor to an alternative location.

The technical details aside, a browser works by requesting a URL and rendering the page that is returned by the website. If the website wishes the user to be redirected, the server will respond differently than if it was serving a page; it will send an extra piece of data indicating that the visitor should be redirected to a specified location.

Without going into too much of the technical details – a redirect is a behavior performed by a web-browser whenever it receives a response containing a flag (an HTTP header) to do so.

What are the types of redirects available?

301 Redirect

Commonly referred to as a “permanent” redirect.

Indicates to search-engines and web-browsers that the requested page has permanently relocated to a new location.

Note: permanent redirects are often cached by web-browsers like Chrome and Firefox. Therefore, it may be tricky to retroactively update a 301 redirects target location once it has been established. Any visitors who have already received the 301 redirect response for a URL will likely be served a cached response from their web-browser when visiting the same URL again.

Suggestion Only use a 301 redirect when you know that the target location will not change.

Common Uses

  • A 301 redirect is appropriate when a website is changing it’s domain name. In this scenario, the site should be 301 redirecting all traffic for it’s old domain name to the new website URL.
  • Another common use-case for a 301 redirect is for pages within your website that have been permanently moved to a new URL

302 Redirect

Commonly referred to as a “temporary” redirect.

Useful for general-purpose redirects within your website, where you do not want visitor’s to cache the redirect response permanently.

Suggestion Use 302 redirects for pages that have changed URL, but are subject to be updated in the future

Common Uses

  • A page is temporarily being moved to a new URL
  • Conditions where the destination location of the redirect is subject to change
  • Navigating the user away from a page during an error

307 Redirect

Uncommon due to legacy browser support

Used for technical scenarios when a visitor’s HTTP request method should be persisted when they are redirected. For example, if a user submits a form, the browser normally issues a POST request to the form’s action URL. If the server responds with a 302 redirect response, the client’s web-browser would typically issue a GET request when handling the redirect. However, if the server responds with a 307 redirect response, the client’s web-browser will POST request to the redirect destination. Please note, form-data is typically lost when redirecting via POST request.

When do I need a redirect?

The most common use-cases that would require a redirect are:

  1. Changing your domain name
  2. Restructuring website pathing, resulting in URL changes for content within your website
  3. URL shortening – having a shorter, more memorable alternative to your primary domain name.
  4. Sending traffic from additional/alternative domain names (Example: gogle.com redirects to google.com)
  5. Sending traffic from your DNS zone apex / naked domain name to your “www” sub-domain (Example: domain.com 301 redirects to www.domain.com)

Important considerations when redirecting a URL

  1. Ensure your URL supports HTTPS connections! Otherwise you may have visitors who are receiving broken links.
  2. When redirecting a specific path within your website, you may want to match paths based on a pattern or Regular Expression, as opposed to a single path.
  3. Seriously consider whether you should use a 301 or a 302, based on the information above.

An SEO Expert Explains How To Migrate Websites

Moving a website is like moving to a new house. Assets must be accounted for, detailed plans made, and reliable help hired. It’s heavy lifting—and requires great care that valuable items aren’t broken in the process. 

Organizations migrating websites should apply that same diligence and attention to detail. One key consideration is SEO. Just as you wouldn’t want your grandmother’s fine china squashed in a box, you don’t want your SEO rankings damaged by an oversight.

This guide breaks down everything you need to know about preserving (or even improving) an organization’s SEO during a website migration. From understanding the different types of URL redirects to dealing with pesky 404s, here’s how to migrate a website without losing SEO value.

Reasons for a Website Migration

Website migrations occur when an organization updates the URL for one or more websites. When done correctly, visitors to the old website(s) will automatically redirect to the new address. Organizations choose to migrate websites for a variety of reasons, including: 

  • Rebranding: An organization that owns multiple brands or has made significant changes to its current one will often opt for a website migration. That can entail moving two or more websites to one address or shifting a single website to a new address.
  • An acquisition or merger: When an organization acquires a new business or joins forces with a new one, its digital profile needs to mirror that change by moving one or more websites to a central location.
  • Improved user experience: Not all website migrations entail big business changes. Some organizations choose to overhaul their website to make it more palatable to visitors. Updating a clunky URL, improving SEO, consolidating duplicate web pages, and removing outdated ones are all reasons to switch.
  • Legal considerations: Large companies with the same name as other websites may encounter trademark disputes. They can change domains to prevent this from happening.

Note: In tech speak, a website address is known as its domain. It's the URL typed into an address bar (e.g. google.com). It also appears in email addresses associated with that website. Website migrations rely on URL redirects to shift domains; i.e., to move one web page to another address.

How Website Migrations Impact SEO

Website migrations require considerable work. However, the right tools and know-how can make redirecting visitors to a new URL easy. There are two types of URL redirects: permanent and impermanent. Companies migrating websites will want to choose permanent for most, if not all, of their new web pages. 

Here’s why: Search engines like Google rely on software that scours websites called crawlers to determine valuable content. Crawlers search for websites containing backlinks to trusted sites that establish authority. Strong backlinks result in better SEO rankings. 

When a website redirects, it sends out a signal saying a resource has moved to a new URL. Signals associated with permanent redirects let the search engine know to associate the website’s new URL with its old SEO ranking. If a company chooses an impermanent redirect, the crawler doesn’t know which page to rank for SEO—the old one or the temporary one. As a result, it loses SEO value. 

301 redirects are permanent and the primary focus of this article.

Best SEO Practices for Website Migration

Because SEO is such an important consideration with website migration, organizations will want to ensure they take every precaution to preserve or improve their SEO ranking. Here are general factors to be aware of and fundamental steps to take.

  1. Conduct a content audit: Start by cataloging every page in the website(s) you plan to migrate. Note the kind of page it is (landing, homepage) and document the corresponding page it will move to. Pro tip: don’t connect every page to your homepage (or another single source). This is a mistake that can seriously impact your SEO score.
  2. Update 404s and other outdated content: As you conduct your audit, you may come across pages that show up as 404s. Use a Backlink Analytics tool to find 404s and redirect them to a closely matched page. If the 404 page is now irrelevant, delete it. 
  3. Eliminate duplicate content: This step is especially important for organizations merging one or more websites. Near-identical pages should be consolidated. Using a tidy and thorough spreadsheet can help to easily identify these instances.
  4. Avoid redirect chains and loops: A redirect chain occurs when a website input signal must hop through multiple URLs to arrive at its final destination. Even more problematic is the redirect loop, which sends users from one URL to another, and then back to the original. While the word on the street is that a website can host up to five URLs in a chain without impacting SEO, it’s still a good idea to make a clean transition between your old web pages and new ones. Resolve redirect chains and loops using a tool like SiteDetour, which identifies surplus URLs so you can eliminate them.
  5. Migrate pages meticulously: If you’ve done your homework, migrating an old website to a new one can be a relative breeze—especially if using a tool like SiteDetour. Using your content audit as a source of truth, enter the new URL for each web page you want to migrate. Be sure to choose a 301 redirect.
  6. Monitor content for up to a year: After migrating your website, go through it to make sure all the pages are properly synced. Don’t worry if you see a slight dip in your SEO—as long as you use 301 redirects, it should quickly return to normal. It’s advisable to monitor your SEO ranking for up to a year after a website migration.

Well-executed website migrations can maintain or even improve your SEO. The recommended content audit requires organizations to look in-depth at website content and make key decisions that improve search rankings. As a bonus, you’ll have the skill sets and tools to make more changes to your website further down the road—such as acquiring other websites or even setting up temporary pages for seasonal promotions, A/B testing web pages, and more.

SiteDetour is the perfect companion for website migrations. The URL redirect tool takes seconds to use, and the platform’s analytics provide valuable insights to make the transition seamless. To learn more, contact us today and we’ll set you up with a free demo.