Domain Migration Case Studies from 2008 – Present
My first rebranding and domain migration was for Funky Pigeon back in 2008. Their old domain was remind4u.com and I learned the process using the Google Change of Address tool together with tracking their page 1 rankings in comparison to Moonpig.
The time it took for me to achieve Google page 1, position 1 rankings for them was 11 months full time at 40 hours a week. Let’s say for arguments sake my salary was around £21,000 so this put things into perspective for you in terms of cost. This blog post is a case study that I published on the UKBF SEO UK Forum.
Website Migration to WordPress - Case Study on Google Ranking Retention from Redesign
One of my clients www.racenightservices.co.uk had always been a strong contender in Google over the years for numerous page 1 keywords relating to race night DVDs and more importantly Race Night Downloads.
It was a critical business decision since April 2015’s ‘Mobilegeddon’ update by Google – their old website was in immediate need of being mobile-friendly together with retaining the various Google page 1 rankings.
As the sole source of income it was paramount that this was handled effectively, everyone knows with an Ecommerce site you have to be Google page 1 for the best sales and profit.
I was solely responsible for this project, and I have to admit, I was a bit nervous – despite having carried this out before – so thought I would document this project as a case study.
The website was being moved over to WordPress, with WooCommerce and Yoast installed.
Before You Start The Domain Migration Benchmark Your Search Phrases
I guess my own rebrand experience may help others here, this around 4 years ago. I bought www.seolady.co.uk a couple of years after my original domain www.1weekseo.co.uk but just let it sit there.
I’d 301 redirected seolady.co.uk to 1weekseo.co.uk, once I had the new branding logo and creatives I was ready for the switch from 1weekseo.co.uk to seolady.co.uk. At the same time I was installing SSL/HTTPS so it was a 2 birds 1 stone scenario.
To ensure you know 100% that you have retained rankings, first of all, you need to benchmark your current search phrases in Google (I use a spreadsheet and search manually, I don’t use tools to track my keywords). Once this has been completed then you should verify both domains by uploading an HTML file to your website from Google Search Console.
In my case, I swapped the domains over when they were both verified, as I’m not eCommerce all my URLs stayed the same. I then completed a Google change of address from my old domain to my new one and asked for a crawl (Now called ‘URL Inspection) on both domains and also both sitemaps.
I proceeded to create new blog posts on my new domain and continued my SEO work on my target search phrase “SEO Freelancer UK” and after 18 months I nudged up from Google page 2 to page 1.
Will My Google Rankings Drop During A Website Platform Migration?
Your Google ranking positions will fluctuate for the first 2-3 weeks, so relax. If a search phrase completely bombs down several pages in SERPs then something’s not been carried out correctly.
I’ve been a project manager on dozens of domain and platform migrations, Google rankings are always maintained. In this case, a situation of a platform migration from antique coding to WordPress which was eCommerce, exactly the same routine as usual, except for this time we ran into trouble.
The client and I had benchmarked around 30 important ‘money phrases’ with 1 specific search phrase which bought in the most wonga. Whaddya know, the developer I worked with completed the migration EXCEPT one category URL had changed, if you guessed it was the number 1 primary money phrase then you get a prize.
As a remedy I implemented a 301 redirect as standard and asked for a recrawl. If I remember correctly it took around 10-14 days to get back to Google ranking on page 1, position 1 for the money phrase.
At present, I have a niche dog trainer who bought her name as a domain around 12 years ago, she recently had a rebrand because she’s released a niche dog training book and used a 9 month old domain and her rankings have dropped. I completed the process of verifying her old domain (checking the stats she has some lovely niche backlinks) then once again used the Google change of address tool.
This was from September 2020 – a 225% traffic increase week vs week in Google Analytics
eCommerce Ranking Recovery – 2 week initial timeline
- Benchmarking of old and new keyword rankings before work starts
- Full Google access for Search Console and Analytics
- Video Consultation with the business owner and/or website developer who completed the migration
- Data mining to verify what steps were made
- Old and new sitemap investigation
- 301 redirect analysis
- Consultation with the developer regarding URL recovery
- Search Console and sitemap URL inspection
- Wait for 3 days
- Checking of benchmarked keywords
- Follow up consultation to take stock of the Google results
- Ongoing SEO Roadmap of tasks (if required)
As this is a short blast of intense work, time must be scheduled in advance with all parties being available to work together. I’ve been recovering dropped rankings in these situations for over 6 years and across a variety of platforms, Magento, WordPress, Shopify and custom HTML.
Please note: In some cases the one-off fee and 2 week timeframe is enough. Every website is unique so some websites may require additional SEO in a highly targeted fashion, specifically concentrating on the revenue search phrases that have dropped as a priority.
Send me a message today explaining your situation and the remedies you have already tried.
Platform Migrating Domain or Having a Website Redesign? Retain Your Google Rankings
Recently I have noticed an uplift in the number of clients contacting me for advice in moving from an old domain to a new one. Google doesn’t trust domains until they are 2 years of age, so by swapping domains from an aged one (say 10 years old) to a new one (You’ve just bagged a new one) it’s a 100% given your rankings will bomb and you will disappear from SERPs for phrases that used to rank high on Google page 1.
It’s all about the revenue, making money online isn’t easy, with time and many hours work to demonstrate a success online it’s critical to have a step by step plan in place during the migration process which involves Search Console tools specifically for this purpose.
eCommerce Website Help Magento WordPress and Shopify Remote SEO Advice
So, you have an online store and you are going mad because your competitors are ranking higher than you for the same product keywords, time to hire me for a Google audit (99/100 clients fail my audit) and we can chat over Zoom or Skype.
What issues or problems are you having with your website? Whether you haven’t had an SEO before, or have hired a beginner or cheap SEO which has resulted in a Google rankings drop – to having had a redesign and you’ve seen a drop in Search Engine positions or you’ve recently launched a brand new website – I’m here to help.
Domain or Platform Migration – What Could Possibly go Wrong?
I advised the web developer to create the new pages in WordPress using the identical URLs that are currently in place, when the switchover happened I ensured everything was in place in Yoast, Google Webmaster (Search Console) verification, together with Bing and Alexa verification that were in place with the old design.
Following this I utilised the Yoast ‘Bulk Editor’ tool to manually create unique and keyword rich titles and a nicely written sales pitch for each of the meta descriptions. Every pages’ content was tweaked for SEO and had relevant keyword H1 and H2’s.
Once this was complete, I used the ‘Fetch as Googlebot’ on all options, and checked the sitemap was up to date. Then, we watched, and we waited.
One Keyphrase Bombed in Google – Why
After 4 days all keywords were still holding on Google page 1 – except one which was “Race Night Downloads” which dropped in rankings to halfway down Google page 2.
Very worrying, but also very weird, how come all of the other phrases retained rankings?
Upon investigation I spotted that the URL was http://www.racenightservices.co.uk/product-category/download-races/ when the old URL was simply http://www.racenightservices.co.uk/download-races/ which appeared to be a small oversight – within WordPress the WooCommerce settings had changed the URL structure.
Additionally, the content that appeared on the old page was stripped out as it was a category.
Solution and Regain Google Rankings
Fortunately I had a friendly developer on the project, and I requested a 301 redirect with this single URL from the old to the new.
I then re-added the text content to the product category, together with H1 H2 and H3 to suit and in 48 hours the page had recovered back to Google page 1.
Domain or Platform Migration – What Could Possibly go Wrong?
I advised the web developer to create the new pages in WordPress using the identical URLs that are currently in place, when the switchover happened I ensured everything was in place in Yoast, Google Webmaster (Search Console) verification, together with Bing and Alexa verification that were in place with the old design.
Following this I utilised the Yoast ‘Bulk Editor’ tool to manually create unique and keyword rich titles and a nicely written sales pitch for each of the meta descriptions. Every pages’ content was tweaked for SEO and had relevant keyword H1 and H2’s.
Once this was complete, I used the ‘Fetch as Googlebot’ on all options, and checked the sitemap was up to date. Then, we watched, and we waited.
One Keyphrase Bombed in Google – Why
After 4 days all keywords were still holding on Google page 1 – except one which was “Race Night Downloads” which dropped in rankings to halfway down Google page 2.
Very worrying, but also very weird, how come all of the other phrases retained rankings?
Upon investigation I spotted that the URL was http://www.racenightservices.co.uk/product-category/download-races/ when the old URL was simply http://www.racenightservices.co.uk/download-races/ which appeared to be a small oversight – within WordPress the WooCommerce settings had changed the URL structure.
Additionally, the content that appeared on the old page was stripped out as it was a category.
Solution and Regain Google Rankings
Fortunately I had a friendly developer on the project, and I requested a 301 redirect with this single URL from the old to the new.
I then re-added the text content to the product category, together with H1 H2 and H3 to suit and in 48 hours the page had recovered back to Google page 1.
Nina was highly responsive and acted with my best interests at heart, with an ecommerce site selling race night downloads for years, we simply couldn’t afford to lose our rankings, but it was critical we had a mobile responsive website to comply with Google.
– Gavin Wadeson, Race Night Services UK
2 Simple SEO Rules
- Benchmark your current Google rankings
- Ensure all URLs are 301 redirected from the old ones to the new ones.
I’ll need a few things to provide an accurate cost quotation:
- How old is the domain?
- How long ago was the website first launched?
- Have you had any previous SEO work carried out?
- When people use Google what search phrases would you like clients to use to find your website?
- Do you rank in Google already for any of these search phrases?
- When are you looking to migrate your website?
Redirect Old URLs to New URLs using Permanent Redirect
I’ve updated this blog as the methods I use haven’t changed at all. I’ve been handling domain migrations since 2008 with Funky Pigeon which you can read about.
Hire me by the hour for remote SEO and Google training sessions to learn DIY Digital Marketing for your eCommerce or local business website.Maybe you’re in need of a website fix? Poor website traffic problem? Google rankings dropped recently?
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Free Google Audit – 5 questions
- What is the domain address and how old is it?
- Have you had any previous SEO work carried out?
- When people use Google what search phrases would you like clients to use to find your website?
- Do you rank in Google already for any of these search phrases?
- What top 3 geographical areas are you wanting to target?
- Send me a message online today
Benefits of SEO Consultations via Zoom
- The ability to record sessions up to 40 minutes
- A higher quality option during COVID-19 lockdown, there’s been a massive upsurge in users streaming movies or TV programmes to keep entertained. Netflix, Sky and other on demand services often add additional demand to wifi services so keeping it simple with a voice call is recommended.
- Zoom is available in app stores, it’s a free download and has genuine praise when you read the reviews. Did you know? You can invite up to 100 people to join you – Connect with anyone on mobiles, iPad, iPhone, tablets of all models, MS Windows laptops/PC and Apple Macs.
- Outstanding customer support, check out their Zoom profile on Twitter
SEO Lady Reviews
Here’s a selection of my latest reviews and customer feedback when working with lockdown in mind! Contact any of the clients you see whom are associated with my work.
