3 Website Migration Tips for SEO
If you’re about to undergo a website migration and want to maintain optimal SEO visibility, then here are 3 tips to consider.
Pull 3 months of Google Webmaster Tools data for post migration comparison purposes
Before doing a full data migration, it is important to backup your data and make sure all necessary elements are fully in place before you migrate the information to a new platform. It is possible to lose information in the process so you must maintain quality control and have some sort of back-up system in place just in case you run in to problems. Having at least 3 months worth of GWT data on hand is helpful for post-migration check ups to verify that everything was transferred correctly. You can go through the records and compare information line for line to make sure the migration was in fact successful.
Have all 301 redirects ready to go when you migrate your website
It’s also important to have all of your 301 redirects ready to go when the new site launches. You do not want your clients to experience any loss in service by clicking on expired or dead links. Worse is finding an old link with incorrect information that might misinform your clients and cause confusion. For the most seamless transition possible, it’s worth it to put in the extra work on the front end to make sure all of your information is safe, ready for transfer, properly copied, and have some sort of checks and balances in place to make sure the migration was successful.
Make sure all meta data/Goggle Analytics tracking is in place
Having complete and thorough metadata also ensures your information is ready secure for future migrations, hardware and software upgrades, etc. Metadata describes not only the information itself, but also gives information on how it was created, what was used to create it, when it was created, its size, name, and more. These clues will allow the data to be easily manipulated in the future, and more easily retrieved. Many behind the scenes people focus on information creation and storage, but retrieval and quality is most important for clients/users.
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