Planning a site migration? Migrations are one of the more difficult – and often dreaded – SEO tasks. To make it work, you need to avoid common pitfalls that can impact your visibility and result in lost traffic and revenue. In this Search Engine Journal webinar you will learn how to make sure your migration goes as smoothly as possible. Cody Gault, Migration Services Lead at Conductor, covers the most common site migration issues so you are prepared to handle them. In this presentation, you’ll learn: Where issues arise with migrations. How to avoid or solve migration issues. General SEO migration best practices in order to make sure you’re as successful as possible.

2. v
#SEJWebinar
Cody Gault
Migration Services Lead
10 Years In SEO
4 years of non-stop Migrations
Who Is This Guy?

3. Migrations are scary
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The majority of teams we work with have
zero experience with migrations
Roughly half the migrations we see
involve moving to a JS framework
Nearly everyone is worried about
losing rankings and traffic and usually
there isn’t a full plan in place to
mitigate risk
Most migrations are around 4-6
months, leaving teams feeling rushed

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Where we see the majority of migration issues
Technical SEO
problems
Rushed projects
Content
changes
Lack of
communication
Lack of action &
focus

6. Technical Issues
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JavaScript Issues
• Don’t launch without a form of pre-rendering
• The worst damage we’ve seen is when the client relies on Google to render the
content
• Don’t use JavaScript Links
• Google doesn’t crawl them and you’ll mess up your internal linking structure
• Don’t hide your content behind user interaction.
• Google can’t see it, Google can’t rank it

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Internal Linking
• Don’t drastically change your internal linking if you can help it
• While changes are likely to happen, you need to be aware of your previous internal
linking
• Burying sections of the site behind a few layers of pages never ends well
• Your menu links matter
• Your menu navigation is a strong signal to Google
• We’ve seen countless issues that stem from menu navigation being gutted

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What went wrong?
• JavaScript Links
• Content hidden behind JS Interaction
• Internal Linking Changes - Menu

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Launch Day Critical Issues
• Check Noindex tags
• Check redirects
• Check robots.txt
• Check Canonicals
• Rollbacks are not your friend and often bring problems

11. How worried are you about technical issues
during a migration?
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• Not worried
• Slightly worried
• Moderately worried
• Very worried

12. Content Issues
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Changing Content
• Do not change your content when migrating if you can help it
• Changing content removes a formerly stable element
• Google already needs to re-evaluate the site based on changes made
during the migration
• If you must change content, backup old content incase you need to re-add it
• Reverting content can be a key factor in a migration recovery

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Improper Redirects
• Properly target redirects
• Don’t mass redirect to the homepage
• If a page is missing, find a suitable match (product to product category)
• If an important page has no match, consider recreating the page

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What went wrong?
• Massive Content Changes
• Content Removal
• Internal Linking Changes
• Phased launch leading to cannibalization

16. How worried are you about content issues
during a migration?
#SEJWebinar
• Not worried
• Slightly worried
• Moderately worried
• Very worried

17. Migration Tips
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Communication
• Don’t bring developers in late
• We find that the later developers are brought in, the more likely technical issues
will persist
• Test early so that developers have time to fix issues
• Be respectful of developer time and properly prioritize issues
• Address issues early
• The sooner you can address problems with things like taxonomy, URL structure
etc., the better
• Don’t expect an issue to be taken care of after mentioning it, follow up on it.

19. Migration Tips
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Migration Tips
• The more you change, the harder it is to diagnose what caused a drop
• If you can hold out on certain changes (such as content) and piece it out after the
launch, it’ll be way easier to identify any specific issues
• Don’t be afraid to push back and delay the launch if critical issues are present
• Migrations are bumpy enough without adding additional issues into the mix.
• If a site is going to launch regardless of the issues, make sure to inform the client
or your higher-ups of the potential fallout

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Migration Tips
• Don’t launch during a Google Update
• Google updates make it hard to diagnose problems
• If one is coming up that they alert you to, pushing back the launch can make it
easier to identify how the migration impacted things
• Avoid Phased Migrations
• While Google now says they can handle phased migrations, we often see problems
with this approach
• Be especially wary of phased launches when dealing with international sites

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Migration Tips
• Start your redirects early
• Test your redirects if possible (you’d be amazed how rare this is)
• You’ll likely have mistakes that can be fixed with testing
• Be aware of potential better redirect matches down the line
• Triple check your redirects
• Check when the site launches
• Check later that day or the next day
• Check a week later just to be safe

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Recap!
• Most major issues with migrations aren’t always the most obvious
• Be aware of what’s changing and don’t be afraid to push back.
• Internal linking and content changes aren’t always good
• Keep the migration as simple and “clean” as possible
• Consider saving some changes for after the bulk of the migration
• Good communication and addressing issues early prevent major headaches later on