Website Migration Tips

5 things you need to remember
for a smooth migration
Jon Earnshaw
@jonearnshaw @PiDatametrics
www.pi-datametrics.com
July 2016

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Dangerous
Adventures

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Swimming with sharks
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Free climbing
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Running with bulls
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Migrating your website
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Potentially one of the
most dangerous online
marketing adventures

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Here’s a classic
example

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Platform Migration - unnamed website loses all organic visibility

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And here’s another

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A high street bank - appears to suffer a loss of visibility

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Turns out to be a ‘straightforward’ TLD migration

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The Overall Outcome?

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Organic Visibility
After 15 days
28% visibility loss

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Organic Visibility
After 75 days
35% visibility loss

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Pre Migration
Visibility Index - grouping the terms together
Original TLD

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Pre and Post Migration
Visibility Index - grouping the terms together
Original TLD
New TLD
Never quite
recovered from
the loss

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And this is where
the rumours start!

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The old
‘migration myth’

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45%
60% - 70%
It could die
It depends

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But…
It doesn’t have to be
this way!

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This is a great
opportunity!

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Five key things
to get right

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1. Involve SEO from the start
2. Redirects and mapping
3. Utilise DATA
4. Make sure there’s an owner
5. Keep the stage from getting out

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1. Involve SEO from the start

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● Project resources and scope normally set very,
very early on
● Involve SEO in scoping and planning to build SEO in at all
appropriate touch points
● This person MUST be experienced in migrations
● Allow SEO person to build relationships and establish
credibility with the team

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2. Redirects and mapping

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● Crawl your site
● Check for old subdomains and orphan pages
● Create a detailed redirect map
● Every page matters - especially the priority ones
● If you’re in pre-build phase - review the theming
● Thoroughly test in staging and after launch

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And if you don’t?

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Incorrectly migrated content
The result of a failure to preserve authority
Many old URLs still indexed - months on
Steady rise
in soft 404s

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Impact on the SERPS?
01 April 2016
High value terms

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The cause and the fix
● Highly inappropriate redirects
● Substantial number of pages 302 to home
● Audit to determine appropriate redirects
● Regaining authority will take time!

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@PiDatametrics
3. Utilise DATA

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@PiDatametrics
● Benchmark current visibility early on
● How are we performing?
● Look for opportunities and feedback
● Determine current extent of conflict
● Who’s doing better and why?
● Find/modify existing redirects to avoid chains
● Monitor the migration window

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The migration window
What to expect...

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Imagine you were #1 for
“Best Bollywood Movies”

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Straight switch
Original domain
New new domain
migration window

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Brief coexistence then switch
Original domain
New new domain
migration window

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Good uplift
New domain
Original domain
migration window
Previous conflict
resolved
30 position
uplift

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@PiDatametrics
Another good uplift
New domain
Original domain
migration window
Previous
‘Glass ceiling’
20 position
uplift

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@PiDatametrics
4. Make sure there’s an owner

@jonearnshaw
@PiDatametrics
● Give one person responsibility to run the migration
● Involve them throughout the project to ensure they grasp
the architecture and the quirks of the site
● Empower them to make and enforce decisions

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5. Keep the stage from getting out

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● Remember that robots.txt only blocks crawling, NOT
indexing
● Use IP whitelisting
● Require a login
● Noindex meta

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Summary

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@PiDatametrics
● SEO is not the icing - it’s a key ingredient
● You can’t just SEO it!
● Get expert help
● See this as an opportunity
● Don’t always believe the old ‘migratory myth’
● Utilise data - before, during and after
● Plan

Thank You
Jon Earnshaw
@jonearnshaw @PiDatametrics
July 2016

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