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Post Published on February 28, 2024
Last Updated on by Sharat Nair
Website migration for SEO – search engine optimization involves changing the website structure. It even includes its design and content. The main objective is to surge the website rankings on the search engine page. This part is considered a crucial component of website administration since it deals with search engines, rankings, visibility, organic traffic, and financial resources.
SEO website transfer is time-consuming and a daunting task. However, it is crucial since businesses must remain competitive in the digital marketplace and, therefore should take the help of website migration SEO services.
SEO Website Migration - An Overview
It can be challenging to migrate or move an existing website to a new domain, subdomain, or one directory to another directory. The entire process consists of changing the structure of the website, URLs, and the content in it. The website migration strategy must ensure the changed website ranking and authority on search engines remain intact.
There are many reasons why a business wants to migrate its existing website. It could be due to a change in the domain name, redesigning, merger of two or more websites, or shifting to a new Content Management System (CMS).
Why is it crucial to have SEO Website Migration?
How important is having a migration for a company website? This process of shifting to a new domain is a critical procedure since it can impact the visibility and ranking of the website. It can also affect the revenue and site authority with Google and other search engines. If the migration is done shoddily, there are possibilities of losing ranking, traffic, and revenue. Recovery is time-consuming and expensive.
How would you avoid losing traffic? - A checklist for SEO Website Migration
While changing a domain name or increasing the site security by changing from HTTP to HTTPS can be an excellent business move, one must consider how the search engines will react, as there is a high probability of losing existing traffic.
The best website migration practices prove effective when considering a website migration project.
Here are some of the significant SEO site migration checklist
* Decide carefully if migration is a good choice
Website migration can be a good reason to improve SEO, such as improving the site structure, fixing broken links, improving content, and removing redundant and duplicate content. However, once the new website comes up, Google will treat it as a new and original site and will take time to update its index accordingly.
So, one must keep in mind whether the website migration is worth it and have an SEO migration strategy in place. It could lead to a stronger rebranding and a more secure website with HTTPS in place – this is an SEO gain, more clicks, and links.
* Make use of a sandbox
Never migrate a website without first testing it on a test server. Before becoming public, ensure that the redirects operate correctly and do all of the necessary checks in private. Trying to accomplish everything all at once without testing is certain to result in problems, and if the faults are serious enough, they may set your site back weeks.
* Schedule your move at a slack moment
A well-planned and managed move should not have a long-term impact on your traffic, but you should prepare for a short drop. As a result, if your site’s performance is seasonal, it is advisable to do the move during a quiet period of the year.
* Before the migration, crawl your site
You must ensure that you have a thorough list of the URLs on your previous site so that nothing is lost during the changeover. Website migration SEO service uses this opportunity to uncover any crawl issues or redirects on the previous site. These have a habit of accumulating over time. During the migration, you must delete or change any links that lead to 404 pages.
* Compare data analytics
If any traffic is lost after migration, the pattern can be identified by exporting the Analytics data from the new website and comparing it with the old data. Website migration SEO services will determine which pages have lost traffic. Generally, the traffic is affected only on specific pages instead of the entire website.
* Update all internal links
The Website HTML links must point to the new website, not the old one. Among the best practices for migrating to a new SEO site is to rebuild the links, conduct a search, and replace operations on the database. The procedure should be carried out in such a way that it updates the domain name without modifying the folder structure (provided your site structure remains unchanged).
* Resolve difficulties arising out of duplicated content
Duplicate content concerns might arise from different errors during the transfer process. Be aware of these issues and take the following precautions to avoid them:
- IP addresses should redirect to URLs
- Watch for the folders that link to the same information, including “default” folders.
- Confirm that only HTTPS or HTTP is utilized and that only the www or non-www version of the website is available. The others should be redirected to the correct site.
* Map new URLs with old ones
Though all pages generally exist on the migrated site, it is important to list all the old URLs on a spreadsheet and map them with the new ones. Also, unless there is a strong reason to change the URL architecture, it is advisable to have them identical to the existing one.
* Keep track of traffic, performance, and rankings
The SEO migration plan should include having a careful eye on your search and referral traffic for at least a week following the move. If there are any traffic shifts, go down to the page level and compare traffic from the old site to traffic from the new site to see which pages have lost traffic. Crawl mistakes and linking problems should be checked on these pages in particular. If feasible, try to have any external links leading to the older version of the web page updated to the new one. Monitor your ranks for your target keywords using a service like SEMrush.
* PPC should be managed correctly
Update your PPC advertising to refer to the proper website. Because of the redirect, attribution in Analytics will be lost if your PPC ads refer to the old site.
* All other digital platforms should be updated
Updating all social media accounts, guest publisher biographies, and any websites owned by the business is an important component of SEO site migration best practices. Also, other platforms are used so that the connections are directed to the new site rather than the old.
* Look for your most visible links
Inform the most authoritative sites that link to you about the move and request that they adjust the link to redirect to the new website. Not all of them will do this, but those who do will help Google recognize that a site transfer has occurred faster.
* Keep track of your indexed page count
Google will not instantly index all the pages on your new site, but if the indexed page count seems unequal to the previous site after a month, something might be a miss.
Conclusion
If a website migration is carried out without a proper understanding of SEO, one can almost expect to lose search engine traffic in the process. Thus, keep website migration best practices in mind, if you intend to move your site.
SEO website transfer is a never-ending procedure. Professional guidance is indispensable. Thus, working with a full-service digital marketing agency like SEO Power Solutions may help with this. Their technical SEO professionals have the expertise to make the transition seamless.
