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It is quite common that we come across site owners who want to revamp their site, which is to either give the site a new outlook or to add and improve its functionalities. This is mainly owing to the fact that we need to keep up with the constantly evolving technologies and human expectations. Hence, the need for website upgrades and updates is no surprise.
However, most businesses shy away from revamping their website as they fear that they would lose their search engine result page (SERP) rankings they achieved from continuous hard work. But this is not the case. There are many techniques that you can follow in order to protect your SEO achievements just as they are. This is not a hard task either, it is just that you need to be a bit more careful when making some changes.
A change to a website can come in different forms such as UI changes, platform changes, and content changes. Each type of change can bring about an adverse impact, but these impacts are avoidable. This is why it is important to handover your website responsibilities to a professional web designer in Toronto.
If we were to focus on preserving a website’s SEO rankings even after a website revamp, the following are a few changes that need consideration in order to not lose your rankings.
If you were to change the website’s domain name, there are two key factors you need to pay attention to.
Making your site visitors aware of the change in domain names can be done rather easily as all it would require is either a public alert through social media or an email. However, when it comes to updating associated links to the new domain name, the process may not be that simple. But there are two ways you can get about it, that is to request a change of all links - which cannot be guaranteed, or to make use of a 301 redirect that would reroute your old link to the new domain.
Are you aware that a website’s blogs, associated pages, and other elements, all have their own URLs or permalinks? Therefore, make sure to redirect or update your link to the new URL structure because if not, your visitors would come across many “404 File Not Found” errors.
The content management systems (CMSs) used by websites differ from one another based on varying factors such as the domain of your website, the provider, and the platform it is being hosted on. Thus, when migrating, it is important to carefully transfer the content as any issues that arise may impact your website content. If you cross transfer between platforms, such as designing a WordPress website from the scratch transferring the content from another CMS platform, the best way to go about this is to have all your content backed up before the migration, therefore, even if something does go wrong you would have a copy of the content with you.
When changing your hosting service provider, the change in your server location can affect your SERP rankings. This is caused by the impact this change has on the algorithms used by Google as a particular Google algorithm ranks your website based on the relevance of the website for user searches and the location of the server.
To add to it, here are a few extra tips and tricks that should ease your website transition.
It is always recommended to make website transitions during periods in which there is low traffic to the site. This may be a seasonal time frame where sales are low, or even late nights and weekends. The main purpose of doing so is to avoid your site visitors from experiencing any difficulties in case something goes wrong during the transition.
Sometimes, your website ranking may take a dive even despite the precautions you take. This is because search engines take time to re-rank your URLs, it could even take several weeks. Therefore, patience is key during a website redesigning as there is nothing you can do in a situation like this. However, you could phase out your transition and control the impact it can make on your search engine results page rankings.
Although most people overlook the differences and importance of HTTP and HTTPS, it actually does have an impact on your SEO efforts, and thereby on your search engine rankings. What makes HTTPS (Hypertext Transfer Protocol Secure) stand apart from HTTP (Hypertext Transfer Protocol) is the additional security SSL certificate provides when transferring data across the internet. This additional security protects your website from a broad range of security issues and also ensures secure transactions within your site. This is why most customers shy away from making purchases on an eCommerce website that has yet to move from HTTP to HTTPS. Not to forget, even Google has considered this as a factor in ranking websites since 2014.
1. Should I do a direct or phased transfer of my website?
Phasing out your website to your professional web designer is the best option as you will be able to monitor the impact the transition makes.
2. Can I verify the number of pages indexed?
Yes, you can use Google’s indexed pages checker to verify the number of pages that have been indexed after the transition.
3. Does it take a long time for Google to detect the changes made on my URL?
This depends on a broad range of factors that are not definite. However, it can take any time period between 4 days and 4 weeks.
4. Does re-routing external links have a negative impact on my website’s rankings?
No. More often than not, the 301 and 302-page redirections have a similar impact as clicking on them directly.
Affordable Web Designers in Toronto
Address - Suite 2201, 250 Yonge Street
Toronto, Ontario
M5B 2L7
Canada
Phone - (647) 689-6131
Email - info@intrangowebdesign.com
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