301ing entire E-Com website - Using TopPages Report as a Guide
-
Hi Folks,
My company is in discussions with an ERP provider to migrate our existing website to a new backend system, new url structures..the whole 9 yards.
We have over 15,000 products, and a lot of "odd" url structures created by an outdated system that we were unable to adjust. All and all, if you're talking about a raw url count, it's in the 100s of thousands.
During discussions, we were told that bulk 301 redirects would be a problem. They could be performed manually though (greaaattt).
Due to this, I ran an OpenSite Explorer report, and isolated our top pages. After exporting the CSV, I was able to breakout "all" urls that have links from other domains.
My question is, has anyone used the OpenSite Explorer on a website of similar size, to form the basis of a migration? Do you have enough confidence in the tool to use it in this way, or should we re-negotiate our agreement until a way can be found to mass 301 ALL urls. I'm at least a little concerned that OpenSite Explorer isn't indexing all of the links out there. Gasp..or would there be a better tool to accomplish what I'm trying to do?
Thanks!
-
As much as we love OSE here, it is not a good bet for doing a complete inventory of your entire current site. I'd probably recommend a desktop crawler, like Xenu or Screaming Frog. See my comparison post here:
http://www.seomoz.org/blog/crawler-faceoff-xenu-vs-screaming-frog
I've got to believe that there's some logic that could connect the old and new URLs, though, even if it has to go through a database look-up. Creating 15,000 manual redirect rules isn't only going to be a huge pain, it may cause a huge processing bottleneck. I'd really push back on what "can't" means and why it can't be done. Too often, "can't" is code for "don't want to", in my experience.
-
OK...that makes it more difficult.
I was hoping that you might have some files whose filenames would be retained and would only need to move from one directory location to another within your new site structure.
Since it is possible to redirect the entire contents of a directory to another directory with a single line of code, this would have made it easier.
Sha
-
Hi Sha, thanks for your response.
1. Yes, we will use the same domain but structure will be completely changed.
2. Unfortunately, our current CMS is so backward, that it will be a complete file name and, directory change.
Thanks!
-
Thanks..great answer..and yeah, that's pretty much how I feel with that last sentence..ugghhh..
-
Just to clarify what you are doing here, a couple of questions:
- ... am I correct in assuming that you are wanting to use the same domain, but the site structure will be changed?
- Also, will there be ANY pages within the new structure that might simply be moved to a different location within the same domain (for example move from root directory to /sub directory), but retain the same file name?
These things will make a difference as to how you can approach the issue.
Sha
-
As far as I can tell, Open Site Explorer doesn't show all the links - in fact it shows only a very tiny proportion of the links to your site. Yahoo site Explorer, while it's still available, is a more accurate list of links to your site. For example on our little site, OSE shows 30 in bound links, but Yahoo shows almost 300!! As painful as it may be, I would 301 every page, but do them in SE Rank order, it only has to be done once, and when it's done it's done. That said, I'm surprised your web company can't find a way to automate it?!
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
-
Why my website internal links on moz is 0?
My Web site: https://www.basictrailers.com.au/ I have been using Moz for almost 3 months, from the start to now, the internal links are always 0. However, if I check the links on my Google Search Console, it is over 1500. So what is the problem? If Moz is trying to make its algorithm similar to Google, why that they even cannot find my internal links. That is ridiculous. 0fhTnQG
Moz Pro | | Lilycharlie2 -
Analytics reporting
I am new to the world of SEO and Google Analytics specifically. I want to find a way to easily see top pages, search terms, and traffic. In Moz I thought I could see this by using "traffic from search", but I only see one page that is ghost spam nothing related to any of my pages. I made sure the right account is connected and it is. Any suggestions on how to get this data easily?
Moz Pro | | CRMI0 -
Duplicate content across two websites
Hi. I'm looking at ways to compare duplicate content across two different websites instead of one, as with the Moz crawler. Instead it will flag up up duplicates present on both site A and B.
Moz Pro | | Blink-SEO0 -
Duplicate content in SEOMOZ report
Hi guys, The SEOMOZ report shows there is duplicate content on my Magento ecommerce: footdistrict.com Example: http://footdistrict.com/nike-air-royalty-386169602.html?___store=footdistrict_en Duplicate content shown on the report: http://footdistrict.com/marcas/puma.html?___store=footdistrict_en
Moz Pro | | footd
http://footdistrict.com/new-balance-m400rk.html?___store=footdistrict_en
http://footdistrict.com/new-balance-gm500mbn.html?___store=footdistrict_en
http://footdistrict.com/new-balance-m400nnb.html?___store=footdistrict_en My guess is that this is due to the fixed footer that we have set where modal windows pop up with delivery info and so on. As such, all the content within it is repeated through all the pages What do you recommend me to remove this duplicate content? I have read about duplicate content issues but they don't usually deal with div tag duplicate issues, modal windows and so on. Thanks Regards0 -
54 new 404 errors on my website?
Hi There In the latest report I have 54 404-errors. All last week, previously I had 2 404s that I fixed. In report say: Title404 : ErrorMeta DescriptionTraceback (most recent call last): File "build/bdist.linux- x86_64/egg/downpour/init.py", line 391, in _error failure.raiseException() File "/usr/local/lib/python2.7/site- packages/twisted/python/failure.py", line 370, in raiseException raise self.type, self.value, self.tb Error: 404 Not FoundMeta RobotsNot present/emptyMeta RefreshNot present/empty Are these normal 404 errors I have to look at and fix? Or is this some script that running on my server and causing errors? In general - what should I do to fix this? Thanks Dean
Moz Pro | | Passanger880 -
Merged websites issue
Hi Before my time, company big.com took over company small.com. They decided to replicate big.com web pages onto small.com - so both websites have identical pages and copy, just different domains. Within the small.com sitmap.xml they list only big.com urls. They are also using big.com google analytics tracking code on small.com. I have no idea what happened to the original content on small.com or if they put 301 redirects on. I am thinking: do a 301 redirect on small domain to big domain. A) Agree? Small domain is likely to have valuable historic inbound links which are now going to 404 pages. After I do the 301 should these then appear in big.com SEOMoz campaign and on big.com webmaster tool for me to fix? B) Views? Or should I get up webmaster tool on small.com and fix that first? C) Views? Many thanks in advance guys, sorry its a long statement! Richard
Moz Pro | | Richard5550 -
SEO Moz ranking reports
I am confused. The SEO Moz ranking reports state that my site show show up in a specific position in SERP for a specific keyword yet when I google the keyword the ranking is different. Are these ranking reports merely indicative or are they supposed to be accurate?
Moz Pro | | casper4340 -
Can anyone tell what action plan should I follow to optimize my website using SEOmoz PRO?
Dear Sir/Madam, I have been using SEOmoz PRO tool from last 15 days and have used most of the SEO tools and got a fair idea about my sites performance but I am still confused as how can SEOmoz PRO tool help me in optimizing my website.It gives me the comparison reports which is great.But I want to know about what SEO plans should I implement to improve my site's SEO Ranking. Can you please suggest and revert back at the earliest. Regards, Prashakth Kamath
Moz Pro | | 1prashakth0