Consolidating product pages during website migration
-
Hello,
We are an e-commerce & content site undergoing a website migration and redesign in the coming months. We will be getting an entirely new website. Many of our URLs will be changing:
Current URL setup: www.mysite.com/catalog/SKU12345/product-title-here
Future URL setup: www.mysite.com/catalog/product-title-hereSo we're aware we will be using plenty of 301 redirects to achieve this.
Further to this though, we currently have a product page for each configuration of a product - for example, a single-sided bookmark has its own page and URL, and the double-sided version of the same bookmark has its own page and URL. In our site redesign, we are hoping to consolidate each of these instances into one product page where users can select single or double-sided and the price will update accordingly. The bookmark URLs would then go from:
_www.mysite.com/catalog/SKU12345/bookmark-single-sided _(call this URL A for simplicity)www.mysite.com/catalog/SKU67890/bookmark-double-sided (call this URL B)To (after migrating to the new URL structure for the new site, and the now-consolidated single- & double-sided product pages):
www.mysite.com/catalog/bookmark (call this URL C)- What is the best way to make this transition without losing too much of our SEO value? I understand there is nearly always traffic loss with URL changes but I'd like to at least minimize the damage as best I can. We have backlinks and ranks for many product pages so I want to make sure we pass as much of this as we can.
- (And is this at all further complicated by the fact that URL A & B won't exist on the new site, and URL C doesn't exist on the current site? Does this impact the use of the 301 redirects and if so, how?)
- Are we better off to approach this page consolidation after the site migration and treat it as a separate project? This is something that is important to our user experience, and is definitely a change we want to make.
Any advice is appreciated - thank you! I'm a fairly beginner-intermediate SEO so this is all somewhat new but I want to be able to at least convey some understanding to our developer of what we need to do. I was able to find this discussion (https://mza.bundledseo.com/community/q/merging-pages-and-seo) which describes a similar situation and solutions if we were just consolidating the pages but doesn't quite have the complicating factor of the entire site migration happening at the same time.
Thanks so much!
-
Thanks Alex; this is really helpful insight. Lots to think about! Thank you again - I sincerely appreciate it!
-
Well, I guess that's the million dollar question.
It's not as simple that Google will simply replace the SERP with the new page. That will be the apparent behaviour until Google updates the listing, as anyone who clicks the link will be redirected, but Google will quickly "notice" and then reapply the algorithm and decide whether the new page should be in the same place. I wouldn't expect that fact that the old page ranked to directly affect the ranking of the newly redirected page, however, the fact that any links to the old page will be being redirected will have an impact.
As far as new rank, I would expect a similar effect to that of simply updating all the content and not changing the URL, and of course, we don't know what exactly would happen then.
If I had to guess, given what you've said, I would say that very specific searches may rank worse (E.g. "double-sided bookmarks") but that more generic terms might rank better (E.g. "customizable bookmarks")
-
Hi Alex,
Thank you for your detailed response! This is assuring. To answer your question, we are keeping the same domain name but it would be hosted differently and supported differently than it currently is.
Definitely guilty of overthinking these things! Ha.
This is really helpful and re-assuring. Can you provide any insight on how this page consolidation would affect rankings? Say we have our double-sided bookmark product page ranking on the first SERP for the query "customizable bookmarks". With our migration and page consolidation, this product page will be redirected to a new bookmark page. When Google crawls us next and sees we've redirected that page, it'll start displaying the new page in the SERPs in place of the old - in the same rank as the old page? Is that correct? And then that rank might drop if it seems that new page is not meeting searcher's needs in the way the old page was?
Just wanted to see if you had any thoughts on that side of it.
Thanks again Alex - so so much!
Katie
-
When you say migration, are you talking about moving the site to a new domain, or simply to a new platform while maintaining the current domain? To be fair, I don't think it makes too much difference either way, I was just trying to get it clear in my head.
I think you may be over thinking it.
-
_What is the best way to make this transition without losing too much of our SEO value? I understand there is nearly always traffic loss with URL changes but I'd like to at least minimize the damage as best I can. We have backlinks and ranks for many product pages so I want to make sure we pass as much of this as we can. _
I would simply redirect both the old URLs to the new URL with a 301, I don't see any issue with doing this as the new page will have all the relevant content.
-
(And is this at all further complicated by the fact that URL A & B won't exist on the new site, and URL C doesn't exist on the current site? Does this impact the use of the 301 redirects and if so, how?)
No, not really. So long as the new page exists before you create the 301 (or at the same time) there is no issue there. -
Are we better off to approach this page consolidation after the site migration and treat it as a separate project? This is something that is important to our user experience, and is definitely a change we want to make.
I don't think so, I would definitely do it as a single project. Except from a "it's slightly less complicated if we break it into parts" point of view, the only benefit SEO-wise in breaking it into two projects would be from a monitoring angle, i.e. if something were to go wildly wrong with your rankings you would know which part of the transition had the impact and maybe be able to diagnose quicker.
Hope that helps!
Alex
-
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
How to speed indexing of web pages after website overhaul.
We have recently overhauled our website and that has meant new urls as we moved from asp to php. we also moved from http to https. The website (https://) has 694 urls submitted through site map with 679 indexed in sitemap of google search console. As we look through the google search console analytics we notice that google index section / index status it says: https://www.xyz.com version - index status 2
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Direct_Ram
www.xyz.com version - index status 37
xyz.com version - index status 8 how can we get more pages to be indexed or found by google sooner rather than later as we have lost major traffic. thanks for your help in advance0 -
New Website Launch - what to do with the URLs of the pages with ranks
Hey there, So, we are "redesigning" our website, it will have a new user journey and overall layout, use, and feel. Situation: Previously, most of our keywords ranked over time organically though all of them pull up our domain.com as the landing page. Now that we are redesigning the site, most of the keywords pointing to the home page will now have their own page. Keywords properly grouped and content will now be on topic and focused per page. Q: What are the things that we need to do so we won't lose those keywords? Appreciate your help. Also, if you can cite specific SEO checklist when redesigning a site, that'll be a great help! Thanks! Jac
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | jac.reyes0 -
Should I use individual product pages for different formats of the same product?
Hi All -- I'm working with a publishing client who is launching a new site. They have a large product catalogue offered in a number of format types (print, ebook, online learning, packages) with each one possessing a unique ISBN code. From past experience, I know that ISBN codes can be a really important ranking factor. We are currently trying to sort out product page guidelines. The proposed methods are: A single product page for all formats. The user then has the option to select which format they wish to purchase. The page would contain all key descriptors for each format, including: individual ISBN, format, title, price, author, etc. We would then use schema mark-up just to assist search engines with understanding and crawling. BUT we worry that the single page won't rank as well as say an invidual product page with a unique ISBN in the URL (for example: http://www.wiley.com/WileyCDA/WileyTitle/productCd-0470573325.html) Which leads to the next option... Individual URLs for each format. We understand that most e-commerce guidelines state you shouldn't dilute link equity amongst multiple pages with very similar products and descriptions. BUT we want searchers to be able to search by individual ISBN and still find that specific format within the SERPs. This seems to rule out canonicalizing, because we don't prefer one format over the other and still want say the ebook to show up as much as the print version. If anyone has any other options or considerations that we haven't thought about, it would be greatly appreciated. Thanks, U
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | HarborOneBank0 -
Should my back links go to home page or internal pages
Right now we rank on page 2 for many KWs, so should i now focus my attention on getting links to my home page to build domain authority or continue to direct links to the internal pages for specific KWs? I am about to write some articles for several good ranking sites and want to know whether to link my company name (same as domain name) or KW to the home page or use individual KWs to the internal pages - I am only allowed one link per article to my site. Thanks Ash
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | AshShep10 -
My home page is not found by the "Grade a Page" tool
My home page as well as several important pages are not found by the Grade a Page tool. With our full https address I got this http://screencast.com/t/s1gESMlGwpa With just the www address I got this http://screencast.com/t/BMRHy36Ih https://www.joomlashack.com
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | etabush
https://www.joomlashack.com/joomla-templates We recently lost a lot of positions for our most important keyword: Joomla Templates Please help us figure this out. Whats screwy with our site?0 -
Wordpress - Dynamic pages vs static pages
Hi, Our site has over 48,000 indexed links, with a good mix of pages, posts and dynamic pages. For the purposes of SEO and the recent talk of "fresh content" - would it be better to keep dynamic pages as they are or manually create static pages/ subpages. The one noticable downside with dynamic pages is that they arent picked up by any sitemap plugins, you need to manually create a separate sitemap just for these dynamic links. Any thoughts??
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | danialniazi1 -
Can use of the id attribute to anchor t text down a page cause page duplication issues?
I am producing a long glossary of terms and want to make it easier to jump down to various terms. I am using the<a id="anchor-text" ="" attribute="" so="" am="" appending="" #anchor-text="" to="" a="" url="" reach="" the="" correct="" spot<="" p=""></a> <a id="anchor-text" ="" attribute="" so="" am="" appending="" #anchor-text="" to="" a="" url="" reach="" the="" correct="" spot<="" p="">Does anyone know whether Google will pick this up as separate duplicate pages?</a> <a id="anchor-text" ="" attribute="" so="" am="" appending="" #anchor-text="" to="" a="" url="" reach="" the="" correct="" spot<="" p="">If so any ideas on what I can do? Apart from not do it to start with? I am thinking 301s won't work as I want the URL to work. And rel=canonical won't work as there is no actual page code to add it to. Many thanks for your help Wendy</a>
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Chammy0 -
Are there any negative effects to using a 301 redirect from a page to another internal page?
For example, from http://www.dog.com/toys to http://www.dog.com/chew-toys. In my situation, the main purpose of the 301 redirect is to replace the page with a new internal page that has a better optimized URL. This will be executed across multiple pages (about 20). None of these pages hold any search rankings but do carry a decent amount of page authority.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Visually0