Any blogger knows that, inevitably, there will come a time when you want (or need) to migrate your blog to a different platform such as WordPress or Joomla. The switch to a new platform can seem like a daunting task but with the right checklist, can be done smoothly, while maintaining the value of your current site.
Below you’ll find the following guides to migrate your site to a new platform:
• Background on Site Migration & Its Effects
• Best Practices Prior to Migration
• Best Practices During & After Migration
• Overall Migration Timeline
• Next Steps: Outside of the Migration
Background on Site Migration & Its Effects
A site migration can affect a site in both positive and negative ways. An overview of these effects is listed below:
Potential Negative Effects from a Migration:
- Loss in rankings, resulting in:
- Decreased visits and conversions
Why can this occur?
Often, the majority of these affects do not occur from the change in CMS, but from changes to content or structure required by the shift to the new CMS. The amount of changes needed to the existing structure & content will determine the amount of negative effects that occur.
- Ultimately, the more changes that are made when the content is ported over will cause confusion to search engines.
- For example, if once the site is migrated, the search engines cannot find the same content that once appeared in a certain location on the site; they will demote the rankings of that content.
- Additionally if the internal navigation of the site is adjusted, the search engines may not pass as much value to certain pages, again leading to demoted rankings.
- Often, these effects are temporary. It takes search engines weeks or months to fully crawl a new site. Once a new site is fully crawled, rankings can potentially rebound. Don’t panic if you see your blog’s rankings drop!
- If you plan to change the URLs of current content to a new location, it is vital that the original content is 301 redirected to its new URL, to clearly indicate to Google where the content now lives.
Potential Positive Effects from a Migration:
Switching to a new platform often means a more up-to-date CMS with advantages including:
- Increased flexibility to add title, h1 and meta descriptions
- Increased flexibility to create new pages and add new content
- The ability to make these optimizations lead to increased rankings, resulting in:
- Increased visits and conversions
Why can this occur?
Your current platform may be limiting in its features and site owners often switch platforms for new features, or more flexibility.
• This flexibility can lead to faster optimizations and faster benefits in search visibility.
So, how can I reduce the potential negative effects?
Try and maintain the content and structure of the existing site as much as possible, in particular:
• Maintain the same URL structure
• Maintain the same title, h1 and meta descriptions (if any exist)
• Maintain the same internal navigation (if it the site is already being properly crawled)
Best Practices Prior to Migration
Benchmark All Major Metrics
Please see below for a list of metrics we recommend benchmarking prior to the migration. Having a status on these metrics prior to the migration will help you to assess the progress of the site after the migration by having “before” and “after” data to compare.
Indexed Pages & Crawl Errors
• Use Google Webmaster Tools to track the number of pages currently indexed by Google.
• Also, use this tool to see how many crawl errors the site currently experiences prior to the migration (this will help you to assess of the number of crawl errors once the site is launched should be an area of concern).
404 Pages
• Use Webmaster Tools to determine the current total number of 404 pages appearing on the site. This will allow you to assess if the migration is leading to an increase in 404 pages.
Site Authority Metrics
• Record your sites domain authority and page rank prior to migration.
Backlinks, Linking Root Domains and Site Networks
• Use Google Webmaster Tools, as well as tools like OpenSiteExplorer or AHrefs, to determine the number of backlinks currently pointing to your site from other sites.
• Record the number of linking root domains (read: other sites) and site networks currently linking to your site.
Keyword Rankings
• Spot-check and record the keyword rankings of your priority terms just before migration.
Traffic, Conversions and Conversion Rates
• Using Google Analytics, record and reference the amount of traffic to your site on a monthly and yearly basis, as well as the number of conversions and conversion rates, prior to the migration.
Duplicate Pages
• Record the number of duplicate pages currently on your site. (This will help to assess if the migration leads to an increase in duplicate content that we’ll need to address.)
Setup Re-Design on a Beta or Development Site
• Depending on the flexibility of the platform you choose, the most ideal situation is to have a beta or development version of the site setup prior to the launch.
• This is highly recommended and allows you to troubleshoot and test the new site before it’s launched. (Reference)
• If a beta or development site is created, it is extremely important that it is not indexed in Google. If both the old site and beta site are indexed in search engines, they will appear as duplicate content and can cause a drop in rankings.
Best Practices During & After Migration
Submit New/Optimized Sitemap to Search Engines
• It is important to submit a new sitemap to search engines at the same time the new site is launched.
• The sitemap serves to indicate to search engines any changes made to the site and also indicates to the search engines the best path to crawling the site.
Monitor Site Performance Weekly
Once the site is migrated, monitor the performance of the metrics that you benchmarked prior to the migration, they are as mentioned:
- Indexed Pages & Crawl Errors
- 404 Pages
- Site Authority Metrics
- Backlinks, Linking Root Domains and Site Networks
- Keyword Rankings
- Traffic, Conversions and Conversion Rates
- Duplicate Pages
Conduct an Architecture Audit of Your Blog
Once your site is migrated, we recommend reviewing it for the following issues (some of the items reviewed in the audit overlap with benchmarked metrics):
Duplicate Pages & Duplicate/Missing H1s, Title Tags and Meta Descriptions
• Review the amount of duplicate content and eliminate the duplicate pages, or have them redirect to the correct page.
• Search for any missing tags and update them to include your key terms.
Redirects
• Review all redirected pages to ensure they’re redirecting to the correct locations and that they’re all 301 directs. (302s are frowned upon by Google so avoid them wherever possible.)
404 Pages
• Use Google Webmaster Tools again to find any 404 pages that exist on the new site and have the 301 redirected to their correct location and/or swap out any internal links to 404 pages to their correct new location.
Crawl Errors
• Review the site for any crawl errors and ensure these are corrected.
Internal Navigation & Linking
• Review the internal navigation structure of the site to ensure the structure is passing the strongest amount of link value possible through the site
Google Analytics Code
• Check to make sure the Google Analytics code is included on all pages of the migrated site to ensure no tracking is lost during the switch to the new platform.
Content
• Review the site to make sure no content was lost during the site migration.
Robots.txt
• When a search engine crawler comes to your site, it will look for the robots.txt file. This file tells search engines which web pages of your site should be indexed or which should be ignored.
• Review your Robots.txt file to ensure that it is optimized to tell search engines to crawl only the most relevant pages and to ensure it carries over any settings you may have had prior to the migration.
With the guides above, you can carry your site to a new platform smoothly, while still taking advantage of all the features your new platform has to offer!
