Created this presentation about Migration in October. SEO is very important during website migrations.

1. SITE
Migration
The horror stories to avoid

2. WHOA!
Where are all my pages on Google?

3. — Paulo Andraus, SEO for some time now
“IT IS HARD TO START DOING THE RIGHT
THINGS. BUT IT IS IMPOSSIBLE TO
SUCCEED DOING THE WRONG THINGS.”

4. From HAUNTED HOUSE TO
HAUNTED CASTLE
How to avoid losing your relevancy on
Google
01

5. It depends (the SEO default answer, I know). But:
● They’re complicated from an ENG POV.
● You should divide tasks in 3 sections
● Stakeholders and decision makers should be aligned.
What to expect from migrations

6. What to expect from migrations
They’re complicated from an ENG POV.
So many rules and logics for:
● Redirects
● Canonicals
● Content

7. What to expect from migrations
You should divide tasks in 3 sections
When prioritizing:
● Must have
● Should have
● Nice to have

8. Stakeholders
All departments are somehow involved in a
migration. CS will need new FAQ pages,
SEO will monitor traffic, Ads will need new
LPs, Design, Sales...
Decision Makers
Lead Management needs to balance all
priorities from all those teams to make sure
no opportunity or business is lost.
What to expect from migrations
Decisions must be aligned

9. Now / Soon / Later
LATER
Ensure the new site works
(QA) and the old site
points all the relevancy to
the new one.
NOW Soon
Monitoring traffic and
rankings (SEO), sales and
CTR (Ads) and User
Behavior metrics (UX)
Improvements throughout
the site with new CMS /
Framework capabilities
using A/B Tests.
What is needed from migrations

10. THE SEO Technicalities

11. IT Depends!

12. Two sites, canonicals, 302s, 301s,
measure everything, email marketing...
302s by section, maybe A/B tests
301s everywhere, measuring
site sections
Hard 301s everywhere, hoping
for the best.:
The 4 secret recipes
for a site migration
Slowest migration (6 months)
SLOW MIGRATION (3 months)
Fast migration (1 month)
Fastest migration (1 week)

13. Complicators
When you sell it to
someone else.
(nothing like a good deal with the
Devil)
No Stage
Name Change
People will need time to
get used to.
(where is his castle again?)
NO ENG Time
Successful migrations
need proper preparation
(like a good pot of potion)
New Structure
All the maintenance
needed
(like oil in those old chains)
Test everything in a
hidden place
(like a haunt house?)
i18n
Internationalization
opportunity
(Transylvania is a great market)
No old domain
Because it was too simple

14. Easy peasy
lemon squeezy
(in your eyes)

15. Preparation and meetings
with other teams. Project
Owner will define a
timeline.
Stage environment of the
new website. If it is a new
domain, hide it from
Google.
Start migrating relevancy
from sections Tier 4 and 3
using canonicals
Migrate relevancy for
sections Tier 2 and 1
using canonicals
Month 1
Month 2
Month 3
Month 4
The ideal timeline

16. Two websites running
along, 302 redirect from
internal pages to internal
pages
302 redirect the
homepage
301 redirect the
homepage and all other
pages
Check regularly for
broken redirects.
Month 5
Month 6
Year 1
Year 2
The ideal timeline
Part 2 (the return)

17. May your migration be
spooky, not scary!
Thank you!