New Site - 301 the old one to hold SEO?

Hello,

I'm stuck with a design issue and need some direction.....

We are designing a new website for our business using WordPress. My old site is a bespoke design from a web design company.

What is the best way to be able to still use the little amount of SEO we have performed on the old site, and transfer it to the new site? The current site has about 50 or so web pages. Should I take each page and 301 it to the new web site?

I planned on using the same domain name (which is keyword rich for our market), but the more I think about it, the more I am realising my limited understanding of how this works.

What is the best way to handle this?

Thanks for the input!

-Dave

 

If your domain is established I would recommend sticking with it unless it's absolutely critical that you move to a new domain.

If you do decide to move make sure you use a 301 redirect from the old pages to the new - this tells Google (and other engines) that the page has been permanently moved to a new location, so any ranking that the old page has will be passed to the new one. If you were to setup a brand new domain and don't perform 301 redirects it will take a long time for the new site to rank for your keywords, which I'm sure will have an undesirable effect on business!

Regarding SEO, try to replicate whatever you have already - make sure you transfer the page titles, H1,2,3,4 tags, images & ALT tags and other general content to the new site, and try to keep the page structure and navigation the same. This will give you the best chance at remaining stable in the search results.

Just remember that if you transfer to the new domain and your site disappears from the search results DON'T PANIC! Google is renowned for the 'Google Dance' where your website appears to bounce in and out of the search results after a major change.

Hope this helps

 

Hey EM,

Thanks for the advice....

My site is about a year old...so not too established, but I am ranking 1st page for an important long tail.

There are two reasons for the new site. The first is my old site was visually static and boring. The second is my current web designer/host has horrible customer service.

My time with them expires next month....but the domain has over a year before we have to renew it. When I move to my new host, the old host 'keeps' the design, as it was designed and supported by them. How do I go about telling them I am bailing their lame @sses, and still be able to 301 the old URLs?

If I use the same domain, but the pages are named in a different way, will that affect how we use the 301 re-direct?

This is all new to me...sorry for the disjointed nOob questions!

Cheers,

Dave

 

Oh I see - you're keeping the domain but just moving hosts.

In general a move to a new host should have little or no effect on ranking in Google, providing you keep the same page names and locations. While you can 301 redirect to new page names, I'd recommend just sticking with the ones you've got.

If you do decide to rename the pages, you should be able to do the following:
1. Setup new hosting space with new hosting company
2. Upload the new site to your hosting space (assuming you've already had the new site designed and built!)
3. Create a .htaccess file with 301 redirects and upload to new hosting space.
4. Initiate the transfer of your domain from your old host to the new one.

Once the domain has been pointed to the new host the .htaccess file will become active and redirect all visitors (and SE) to the new pages.

Hey presto! Say goodbye to your rubbish host!

Note: Don't initiate the transfer before you've built the new site - not only will this risk an extensive period of down-time for the site, but you also risk the old host removing the site before you have a chance to copy all of your old content.

 

good advice