Migration Strategy
-
Hi guys,
Just want to check on this site migration strategy. Basically we have an Australian based ecommerce site which is going to launch globally.
The company has two site. One is (http://www.domainUS.com – for US market) and one is Australian based (http://www.domain.com.au).
Basically the plan is to have one single global .com site (like ASOS.com) on a new domain which would be domain.com and put both the current http://www.domainUS.com (US VERSION) and http://www.domain.com.au (AUSTRALIAN VERSION) on the new domain: domain.com (global)
To make it even more complicated the new global domain (domain.com) is in the process of being purchased (someone else has the domain) and won’t be available till January 2016. But the company wants to execute the new global setup in November 2015 temporary on the .com.au version
The current migration plan is to create two different sub-folders one for US e.g. http:www.domain.com.au/us and one for AUD http://www.domain.com/au on the current domain Australian domain.com.au for the global launch in November 2015. Then once domain.com is ready in January 2016, then migrate to domain.com with the countries as sub-folder (as shown below in stage 3).
I was wondering if you guys think this would be an ideal migration strategy given the circumstances.
Link to screenshot of current migration strategy:
http://c714091.r91.cf2.rackcdn.com/4c2aae21dcbd548f27d96840227b81bc6b8b00c592.png
Any advice would be very much appreciated!
Cheers, Chris
-
This temporary set-up idea makes little sense to me... migrations are tough enough anyway, and the temporary middle stage is increasing both risk and complexity.
-
You definitely won't lose as much value with this strategy. It's a good stop-gap in a difficult situation.
-
Hi Matt,
Thanks for your answer!
Good tip on the 302s. Yeah definitely isn't ideal.
Currently the Australian site is the one with most of the domain authority and organic traffic. I'm also thinking at this possibly:
http://c714091.r91.cf2.rackcdn.com/4c2aae21dc8c159b81caae827029d8a1bbf57c90ed.png
So just leave the Australian site for now, the developers will have to simply deal with this on there end.
And the US site do the temporary 302 then change to 301 once the global site is ready.
What do you think of this instead?
-
This is pretty much complicated so let me summarize what you are up to and then will move towards my suggestion.
You have 2 domains at the moment, one targets US and the other target AU market. Now you are planning a global launch on a third domain where most probably you are going to redirect your existing pages.
The global domain is not with you so you want to go with a temporary strategy and that is to create a sub folder. US sub folder on AU website and AU sub-folder on a US website.
--
WOW, saying that this strategy is ideal for one or not will be difficult as there are lot of things missing which includes brand reputation, market share, audience trust on the brand and more.
I mean if you can wait for few months than going for a new domain is a better idea than going for a temporary strategy as this will be a very quick change for audience, first in November and another change in January.
Try to give the amount of time to audience in which they can adjust. Again, if the audience’s trust level with the brand is good and they can accept this kind of quick change then I don’t see a problem.
I am assuming that on sub folders you will link to another website instead of creating a new content on a sub folder. I believe create separate content on a sub folder is not a good idea as SEO issues and ranking will take months and within few months you have to move to another strategy.
I don’t see a problem with moving to a new domain but you have to keep in mind that when shifting two different website to a 3<sup>rd</sup> domain you will see lot of ranking fluctuation so if you have a good migration plan but no back up plan then you should consider having one right now or else you will see a big loss from the organic traffic.
Again, there are lot of points that can be discussed but this is what I think it is having the limited knowledge about the domains and business.
Hope this helps!
-
Do the two current sites (domainUS.com and domain.com.au) have a lot of authority?
The final location for these, in 2 subfolders, is ideal. I like where you're going with this. But the plan to jump to the .com.au/us and /au is ... well, sub-optimal. It's not ideal to have two sets of redirects essentially to solve a 2 month problem.
If the current sites aren't very authoritative, you'll probably be ok. If they have a decent amount of ranking power & current traffic, I would try to skip the middle step or at least use 302 instead of 301 redirects. Using the 302s mean the .com.au/us and .com.au/au sites won't get the value of the current sites for Nov/Dec/Jan but it does mean you're not going to chain 301s once January comes. You'll just remove the 302s and create 301s to the new domain.com/us and domain.com/au websites.
Those 301s will then pick up the majority of the current ranking power and give you the best possible boost.
If you can't hold off until the company owns the .com, that's what I would do at least.
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
-
SEO Strategy - Content/Outreach/Links
Hi everyone I'm trying to prioritise my tasks for 2018 & wondered if anyone had any useful templates they use? In terms of SEO tasks, my priority was going to be content/outreach/links - Focusing on user guides/blogs onsite Then outreach articles/some PR that doesn't go against Google guidelines offsite. My struggle with the onsite content/blogs we produce is we have no real social media plan/manager so my content outreach always seems hampered by this. I've tried taking on some of the social stuff, but this ends up being too much for just me to do. I wondered if there were any other SEOs who face this issue and who have found some good solutions? I'm stuck in a bit of a rut and can't seem to effectively push forward with outreach/content writing. Thank you Becky
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | BeckyKey1 -
How do I not mess up a national seo strategy? All advice appreciated in advance!
Hello Moz Friends So I have always worked on local seo, websites, and digital brand management. But one of my clients wants to go national. They sell building materials and the competition is pretty fierce. So here is my question and I thank you in advance for any advice: How do I not mess up a national seo strategy, based on local seo efforts? So for an example, say I put the NAP in the footer, but my client sells to 49 states, will this hurt a national campaign? And on the opposite, would getting local links from say construction websites in California, if my NAP is from Florida, hurt or help? I understand that most of this is seo 101, but I am so used to local seo, that I don't want to cause national issues by doing something local. Thank you again Moz Friends "Have a Positive Day" Chris
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | asbchris1 -
SEO Monthly Strategy
Out of curiosity, do any Mozzers use a monthly spreadsheet style SEO strategy that is set on a daily basis like this: Day 1 - purchase/write 3 articles
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | fertilefrog
Day 2 - comment on 5 blogs
Day 3 - upload article 1
Day 4 - directory submissions
Day 5 - blog promotion
Day 6 - etc..... If so, do you find this to be the most effective way of working, with this rigid structure?0 -
How Long Does It Take Content Strategy to Improve SEO?
After 6 months of effort with an SEO provider, the results of our campaign have been minimal. we are in the process of reevaluating our effort to cut costs and improve ROI. Our site is for a commercial real estate brokerage in New York City. Which of these options would have the best shot of creating results in the not too long term future: -Create a keyword matrix and optimize pages for specific terms. Maybe optimize 50 pages.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Kingalan1
-Add content to "thin" pages. Rewrite 150-250 listing and building pages.
-Audit user interface and adjust the design of forms and pages to improve conversions.
-Link building campaign to improve the link profile of a site with not many links (most of those being of low quality). I would really like to do something about links, but have been told this will have no effect until the next "Penguin refresh". In fact I have been told the best bet is to improve user interface since it is becoming increasingly difficult to improve ranking. Any thoughts? Thanks, lan0 -
Do I need to update my previous blog posts with my new SEO strategy'?
Hi Everyone, I have published 46 articles so far on my blog. Recently I changed my SEO strategy including changing main page titles, changing the targeting pages for each keyword, ... . Do you think it is a good thing to go back through all of my blog posts and change the internal link building and modify them accordingly. Thanks,
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | AlirezaHamidian0 -
Sitelink Trouble - CMS Migration
Hi Mozzers, My company recently took over a website for a client and moved them onto our CMS. We are having some issues right now with sitelinks. A few things have happened to cause this: 1. Our IT department didn't put in the proper 301 redirects from their old subdirectory pages to the new corresponding subdirectory pages. (Insert head smack here.) 2. In addition to taking over the client's desktop domain, we've also taken over the client's mobile site. The mobile site has changed from m.domain.com to www.domain.mobi. Again, there was a missing 301 between the two (head smacking ensues). As a result, Google has selected the following pesky sitelink for one of the sitelinks returned during a brand search for the client. The brand search is returning a sitelink under www.domain.com as:
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | EEE3
IIS7 IIS7 When you click on the sitelink for IIS7, it's a link to m.domain.com which NOW redirects to www.domain.mobi. My question is how long until the IIS7 sitelink goes away and is there anything we can do to speed it up? What we've been doing to fix this: 1. Demoting sitelinks in GWT for www.domain.com that have the old subdirectory structure while the 301 redirects are being implemented. I can't demote this m.domain.com as a sitelink for www.domain.com because it's a different subdomain, and GWT will only allow me to demote subfolder pages or the www.domain.com itself 2. We've verified m.domain.com and demoted its homepage as a sitelink. Still not sure how this could stop it from showing up for a brand search that returns www.domain.com Thanks in advance!0 -
Which Authorship Strategy Works?
We want to claim our articles and get our picture next to our articles in the search engines. I was offered this article http://www.virante.com/blog/2012/01/08/how-to-show-your-author-photo-in-google-search-results/ but Google has this article: http://support.google.com/webmasters/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=1408986 Google's way is simpler, Is that all I need to do? This is for a Joomla site Thanks!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | BobGW0 -
Strategies in Renaming URLs
We're renaming all of our Product URLs (because we're changing eCommerce Platforms), and I'm trying to determine the best strategy to take. Currently, they are all based on product SKUs. For example, Bacon Dental Floss is: http://www.stupid.com/fun/BFLS.html Right now, I'm thinking of just using the Product name. For example, Bacon Dental Floss would become: http://www.stupid.com/fun/bacon-dental-floss.html Is this strategy the best for SEO? Any better ideas? Thanks!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | JustinStupid0