Site Move - Your Predictions Please

I'm moving a site that now gets 1100 uniques daily with 6K hits daily.

It enjoys 15 #1's and about 60 top 10 positions in Google.

It will be shifted from a largely un-seo'ed 3d party e-commerce software package to a well seo'ed osCommerce installation.

The domain will stay the same.

Old:
No or generic sitewide META tags.
No SEO'ed URLs.
Crappy somewhat SEO'ed Titles.
Optimized Body Text.
Gif Navigation.

New:
Each page individual optimized META tags.
SEO'ed URLs.
SEO'ed Titles.
Optimized Body Text.
KW Textual & Improved Navigation

All old URLs have been set up to redirect (301) to the correct new ones. The bulk of the text will be the same.

What do you think will happen in terms of traffic and rankings (over the next 1-3 months)?

 

I think you'll see a small drop initially and then it should improve (So long as you've not done anything naughty on there)

Basically.

(Wow, that was a really brief estimation)

 

That's what I think. A small lull whilst G is trying to figure out what's going on and then when it gets the message it will pass on all link pop etc. to the new one and start appreciating the improved efforts and make it rank better.

That's also what I hope will happen

Nothing naughty going on.

Do you think a couple of links straight to the new urls will help get the process going or should I leave it up to G to find out about the redirects first and let them take it from there?

 

I would agree that a little drop may happen and then rectify itself, google is usually pretty good at working everything out when its done properly, I would not add links - rather let google find the pages moved and re-adjust, not confuse it with duplicate pages.

 

I'd leave links to the old URL for a while...

So long as every page is 301'd accordingly, it'll be fine.

 

I feel that if there is no change in content and domain name, there will be not much change, especially in Google cos it hardly takes notice of the things being done and it firmly believes in'Content is King'
Rakesh Anand,Around Delhi

 

Voted. I think you will be doing great, by moving it.

 

A few issues:

If you have links pointing internally to certain pages - this may be affected.
Workout your major traffic terms and focus initally on holding those.
Build a few extra inbounds whilst you are doing this (including to the new internal pages).
I would expect a dip then recovery.

 

Internal linking is all fixed up as well.

Loss of ranking is covered by PPC flexibility. I might bump Co-op weight to the big terms but am not decided on this.

I was thinking of doing a quick link building campaign that go straight into the new URLs, I wonder why some of you think this might not be a good idea.

 

may be some issues if the URL's change. Thought about writing a script to generate the mod_rewrite to do 302's?

 

302's are you trying to kill my site?

Like i said, it's all set up to 301 the old urls to the new ones.

 

I think its a good idea, but I would do it gently, a few quality links from quality relevant sites to internal pages.

 

I agree with the majority of people here. It's best to leave the 301s to take their toal before linking again. You dont want the new URL's to accidentally get sandboxed because Google hasn't indexed them.

Once it's indexed you can start marketing the site again.

 

3 People voted "Ranking and traffic, maybe PR soon as well, will drop due to loss of direct IBLs."

Care to explain why you think the 301's will not work the way most people believe they will?

 

Thats nonsense and the fact that they didn't post to back it up shows they probably don't even believe it.

People seem to just like voting for the worst regardless of the truth.

 

I think people just have OCD about getting their vote in on a poll. It's like people who go to vote in the election that haven't even bothered to find out what the parties policies are.

 

rankings and traffic may go down unless you do a 301 to map all new URL's. I assume sine you are changing commerce packages that the URL's will change also?

 

That goes without saying even though:

 

And:

Domain stays as is.

Was your 302 suggestion earlier a typo then?

 

Ahhh, you know you've made it when you starting quoting yourself! Well done TOPS