The SEO Guide for Successful Web migrations #EUSearchCon

#webmigrations at #EUSearchCon by @aleyda from @orainti
The SEO Guide
for Successful
Web migrations

Sometimes SEO
adventures will ﬁnd you
when you least expect it…

“I am looking for
someone to help me
with a Web migration”
-A potential client

Web migrations don’t
need to have a
negative impact you
can always use them as
opportunities to grow…

Whether in HTTPS migrations, rebranding or redesign
scenarios

As well as Websites consolidations
WEBSITES CONSOLIDATION

That’s why is critical to be
prepared and know which
road to take during those
tricky times…

I’m (sadly) not a wizard, but today I’m going  
to show you how to succeed with them
* International SEO Consultant & Founder at Orainti.
* Conference Speaker at +100 Events in +20 Countries.
* Author “SEO. Las Claves Esenciales.”
* Blogger at Search Engine Land & Search Engine Journal.
* European Search Personality of the Year in 2018

Let’s start by
understanding how far do
you need to go and for
what purpose…

Not all Web migrations are the same, the level of  
change will be different depending on their goal
Different URLs, Same Domain
Different Protocol, Same Domain
Different Domain
Same URL
Product rebranding, area renaming or structural content changes
HTTP to HTTPS swap
Company rebranding, acquisition or Web consolidation
Redesign or CMS migration while keeping URL structure
Alternate URLs, Same Domain
Independent Mobile site migration or disabling non-canonical AMP

The focus of our SEO work will also differ based  
on the required structural Web changes in each case
Different Domain
Same URL
Keeping old brand & terms rankings while stop referring to old URLs
Redirecting them to their relevant canonical Secured URLs
Keeping old brand & terms rankings while redirecting to new domain URLs
Keeping their crawlability, indexability & content relevance
Redirecting them to their relevant canonical URLs

It’s then important to align the relevant SEO principles  
through the whole process, considering the migration type
Different Domain
Same URL
2.
Execution
1.
Planning & Testing
3.
Validation & Monitoring
HTTP to HTTPS change
Independent Mobile site migration or non-canonical AMP disabling

Let’s start by Planning and Testing  
the Web migration before its execution

Identify the affected URLs based on the  
Web migration scope
Page level
Category level
Site level
Redesign, HTTP to
HTTPS change,
company rebranding,
acquisition or Web
consolidation
Area renaming
Product rebranding

Develop an audit to check what is important to keep and  
to improve in them, based on their optimisation & rankings
Pages Crawlability
Pages Indexability
Rankings
Traffic
Link popularity
Old New
301-Redirects
SSL CertificatePages Content Relevance
Pages Internal linking
Pages Speed

Establish then the required technical & content changes  
in the relevant pages, depending on the migration nature
Old New
Thin, Duplicate Content
Slow Speed
Hierarchical Navigation
Relevant Titles
Page specific, expanded Content
Fast Speed
Hierarchical Navigation
Relevant Titles
To Keep
To Improve
301-Redirects

For example, at a page level for a
high name overlay rebrand
Page Level rebranding with High Name Overlay

Or also at a page level but with a low 
or no name overlay for a rebrand
Page Level Rebrand with Low Name Overlay Page Level Rebrand with No Name Overlay

Or at a site level, for company rebrand or acquisition,  
among a few other main migration scenarios
Site Level

Once deﬁned, align and agree with the project’s stakeholders
to get approval, resources & support for their implementation
SEO
Design & UX Development
Marketing

When the required changes have been established and
agreed, crawl the affected URLs and gather their SEO metrics
Crawlability
Indexability
Internal linking
Relevance
Rankings
Traffic
Link popularity
Speed

You can do this easily by integrating third-party  
data sources directly into your crawl simulation
Screaming Frog & Deepcrawl

This will also allow you to identify orphaned pages, to avoid
missing any important URLs that you need to migrate

Obtain the trafﬁc and ranked queries for  
which these pages are ranking
Sitebulb

So you can easily consolidate all the information of the top
pages to be prioritised in the Web migration
Top Pages Technical Configuration Relevance Popularity Traffic Ranked Queries

And be able to assess well if they should be kept or not,  
and where they should be migrated in the new location

Establishing the patterns to keep or to improve in the new
pages vs. the old URLs technical and content status
Old Pages Titles, Descriptions & H1s New Pages Titles, Descriptions & H1s

As well as deﬁning pages that might need to be created to
keep certain rankings based on the scenario, like a rebrand
Old Pages
New Pages
Legacy Pages Old Branded 
Queries
Transactional
Queries and
New Branded
Queries
Transactional
Queries and Old
Branded
Queries

Make sure these are implemented ﬁrst in a private test site
that is blocked to external access without authentication

Validate the changes by manually comparing ﬁrst the  
top old vs. new types of pages in the test environment
Pages Crawlability
Content Indexability
Old in Test New in Test
301-Redirects
SSL CertificatePages Content Relevance
Pages Internal linking
Pages Speed
test.x.com/old test.x.com/new
Home Page
Category Page
Sub-Category Page
Product Page
Main Blog Page
Blog Category Page
Blog post
Each Affected Page Type
Verify

List crawl the old URLs to check if the 301-redirects have
been set as speciﬁed & go to the relevant new locations

Do a full audit of the new Web destination in test to also
check if the new pages are completely optimised as speciﬁed

You should also start tracking before the launch the new  
vs. old Web locations rankings for the targeted queries
SEOmonitor & Advanced Web Rankings

If it’s a new Web location, set it also with Analytics & Search
Console, and remember to use the old settings if relevant

In migrations with an HTTPS switch make sure the certiﬁcate
is previously installed, including subdomains & CDN zones

Once you have effectively planned & tested the
migration, it’s time to move with the execution

Check if the 301 redirects from the old to the  
new URLs have been implemented as speciﬁed

Prioritise to ﬁx those high-trafﬁc pages with 301-redirects
going to wrong or non-indexable pages and redirects chains

Crawl the new web location and make sure the new pages  
are not only accessible but optimised as recommended

Look for URLs in the new location that might be blocked, no-
indexed or also linking or canonicalising to the old URLs

If the migration has included an HTTPS switch  
make sure there are no mixed content issues too

Once ﬁxed, you can submit your new URLs  
& XML sitemaps to be re-crawled

For domains level migrations, after checking the redirects &
new pages, submit it too w/ Google’s Change of Address
https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/83106?hl=en

After the Web migration is executed,  
it’s time monitor it and optimise more

Use a Web monitoring service that will send an alert if there
are changes in the new pages SEO related conﬁgurations
https://littlewarden.com/

Use the new Search Console “Index Coverage” to monitor if
the new URLs start to get indexed and the old ones disappear

Verify which have been already included and which  
have been left out the index & the reason, to ﬁx them

Monitor & compare the new vs. old locations main ranked
queries & pages, as well as SERP features w/ Search Console
Last 28 Days
15 Days Before and After the Migration
new website locationold website location

Check that rankings & CTR of your top queries in the new
location are regained w/ the relevant pages over time

Monitor the trend of additional keywords w/ your own rank
tracker, organising them in groups to facilitate analysis
SEOmonitor

Look in both desktop and mobile results to identify
ranking behaviour not evolving as expected
SEOmonitor

Track also your top queries vs. your competitors to see your
industry search visibility share before and after the migration
SEOmonitor

Complement your own tracking by following-up with third-
party visibility indexes to identify additional issues
New site has not completely
regained top 3 rankings
SEMrush, Sistrix, Searchmetrics

Check for your rankings impact on trafﬁc while looking on
bounce rate, time on site & conversion rate of top pages
SEOmonitor

By doing all this you should see a positive “before and
after migration trafﬁc” trend with Analytics

It’s about aligning SEO in the migration process while  
making the most out of the required changes to improve
Different Domain
Same URL
HTTP to HTTPS change
Independent Mobile site migration or non-canonical AMP disabling
2.
Execution
1.
Planning & Testing
3.
Validation & Monitoring
Marketing, Development, Content, Design & UX Coordination & Support
Making the
most out of
the required
changes to
optimise
them more

Here you have more SEO resources to have  
as reference in your Web migration projects
http://bit.ly/checklisttohttps http://bit.ly/monitoringmigrations

But what if the Web migration has been already done without
taking SEO into consideration and you need to recover it?

Don’t worry, I got you covered :) Check this post out
http://bit.ly/recoveringmigration

It’s time to win your own Web migration adventure!

The SEO Guide for Successful Web migrations #EUSearchCon

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The SEO Guide for Successful Web migrations #EUSearchCon