Moz Q&A is closed.
After more than 13 years, and tens of thousands of questions, Moz Q&A closed on 12th December 2024. Whilst we’re not completely removing the content - many posts will still be possible to view - we have locked both new posts and new replies. More details here.
Rebranding/Url Structure Change
-
Hi Everyone,
First off thanks for taking the time to looking at my question. I was wondering about rebranding and URL structure changes. Right now my company is planning on changing their domain and doing a massive change to their site which includes a url structure change. The idea is in September they will be changing the site to be a combination of wordpress and ruby on rails (currently the site is ruby on rails). The homepage and design on the site will be completely different and parts of the site will be in php and other parts will be in ruby. The URL structure will also be changing completely at the same time. Each page will be completely different in structure, including the homepage (currently now it redirects you to a subfolder page that is your local page [i.e. nyc if you are in new york]). Then, the following month, they will be changing their domain name to a different domain.
I have asked them to do this in stages. First the domain, second the rebrand, and third the URL restructuring or we could lose SEO traffic but they asked a freelancer his opinion and the freelancer said that you could do the rebrand change with the URL restructure and then domain later and while you're SEO may disappear, it'll definitely return in 3 to 4 months. Could you tell me who is right and what the correct method is to make this change?
-
In general, it is best to do all of the changes (the domain, branding, and URL work) all on a development site (that is blocking search engines) and then release the new site only after everything is complete. If you space it out piecemeal over too long of a time, it will look very messy both to Google and your website visitors. Releasing a new, properly-migrated website all at once is the quickest way to mitigate any "SEO" damage and return to your prior traffic and ranking levels quickly.
However, it'd be impossible for me or anyone to be more specific without doing a deep dive into your site. However, there are some general best practices for site migrations. For reference on all of these, I'd take a look at what Moz did when migrating from seomoz.org to moz.com. Moz has a webinar and associated blog post that goes through all of the technical details and results. Aleyda Solis also has a good migration checklist with links to more resources here.
I hope that helps -- good luck!
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
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
-
Changed the trailing slashes - how it effect SEO?
Hi, I'm doing a project called https://www.machinerygate.com/ Due to trailing slashes issues, our developer requests to remove the trailing slashes from the URLs. However, the homepage with and without trailing slashes the same effect right. How about the inner pages affect SEO. Because we just started to do SEO and not even one single link of Inner pages done with the process. However, for example, the URL for https://www.machinerygate.com/machinery/cranes/ is before with trailing slashes and it is on google indexed with trailing slashes. Due to some bug, google inspection tool has been not functioning nowadays and I'm finding hard to index the new URL without trailing slashes https://www.machinerygate.com/machinery/cranes to index on Google. If this gets indexed, how the URL with trailing slashes will be, does it automatically redirect to URL without trailing slashes or not? Please share your thought about this concern.
Branding | | Navya1241 -
Why not just use an alias if the only change is a different domain Name?
We are rebranding our store with a new name. We have purchased a NewDomainName. Can I just make the "Old Domain Name" an alias for the "NewDomainName"? The site will not change in any other way than having a new logo. This is an e-commerce site with over 100 categories of artisan made products. So once we move the site, the old domain will be empty. Thank you Stephen
Branding | | stephenfishman1 -
Should our rebranded company update our existing Instagram profile or delete it and start from scratch?
Our company just did a complete rebrand with a new name and logo. Instagram allows us to change our name, username, logo, and information, unlike Facebook, but there isn't a lot of online content about whether or not that's the best route. Any thoughts?
Branding | | RyanHeffernon0 -
Endless Scrolling and prev/next
Hi, We have a new website on https://www.neakriti.gr We have asked for endless scrolling between our articles, so when we get at the end of one article, the next loads. Looking at the produced html code I saw the articles contain and to other articles. When I asked the development team why this happens, I got a reply that its needed for the endless scroll of the articles. But to my understanding "prev" and "next" is only used on pagination cases, and endless scroll between articles has nothing to do pagination. Here is an example article
Branding | | ioannis.anifantakis
https://www.neakriti.gr/article/ellada-nea/1524252/fthinoporinos-o-kairos-tin-tetarti-stin-kriti-deite-analutika-tin-prognosi/ If you "view html code" on that article you will see this "next", "prev" declarations to other articles. Can anyone please let me know if the declaration of "prev" and "next" articles should stay or if I should ask the development team to remove it? Thanks0 -
Rebrandly vs. Bitly?
I want an alternative to Bitly (because we must change our short domain (BSD) and Bitly Support for its free service is excruciatingly bad; I'd gladly pay). Rebrandly appears to be a good alternative at $100. per year. Can anyone recommend Rebrandly and speak to its strengths and weaknesses vs. Bitly? Thank you. Rick
Branding | | Knockleigh0 -
Organic Brand Clicks/Traffic Drop - Why?
Hi Moz Community, I've been reviewing Search Console and have been noticing that there has been a consistent drop in brand clicks. The overall number of keywords (especially for the top 2 pages) have been increasing, according to SEMRUSH, however, traffic and sales are still in decline. There are no algorithmic and manual penalties, in addition, paid search activity has been increasing in the leadup to Christmas. Has anyone experienced this and potentially advise how to diagnose and resolve this issue?
Branding | | rec1230 -
Copy/pasting the article from another website and referencing correctly not to get penalized
Hi all I am looking at copy/pasting an article from another website which is very relevant to my business, is there a standard practise/best practise for SEO to do this and ensure Google doesn't think i am plagerizing content etc.. Link to source down the bottom? Using Quotations... making a page noindex or no follow etc?
Branding | | IsaCleanse0
