New Site Content Replaces Old Site Content Using Same Url Options

[Terrykm]

I need some advice on best way to launch a new site using an existing url. The url is our brand name so we can't change it. Many of the pages are identical between the old and the new site, but there is about 20% new material and significant new functionality. And the urls are all different - the old site uses Cold Fusion, the new one PHP. We use Google for our local search function. The new site has been developed and tested - and hidden from spiders.

Current production site (old active site):
www.oursite.org
Over 600 pages show in Google search
Has been set to noarchive for 2 months
Uses Google for local search engine

Development site (new site)
www.oursite.info
Hidden from spiders until goes live
Add Google sitemap.xml file when goes live

My thought:

1. point the old brand-name url at the new ip - and the new at the old. In other words, just swap them.

2. use rewrite rules to map old site pages to new site pages. Initially, local searches will produce links to old site only as Google doesn't know about the new site yet. When the rewrite rule doesn't find a page on the new site, we'll use a special 404 error page to give the visitor some idea of how to find what they're looking for. Not sure about using 301 redirects as part of the rewrite rules.

Does this seem like the best plan?

Thanks!

Terry

[Jill]

Terry, a question for you...

Do you want/need to change the domain from the old domain to the new one? If so, why?

If you are still planning on using the old domain (which you should unless you have a good business reason not to), then simply switch the dns of the old domain to point the new server.

Create 301 redirects for all the old cold fusion URLS within old site that point to their new PHP counterparts within the new site. (You do this all within the .htaccess of the new site. You don't even need to keep the old site once the new one is up and running and being spidered.)

That's basically it.

If you have to switch domains, it's a different ballgame. But there's no technical reason why you need to switch domains just because you currently have the test version on that domain. So if you don't have a business reason for switching, again, I'd highly suggest not to do it. Surely you have built up some brand equity with your old domain, not to mention it has links and an overall aged profile with the search engines.

[Terrykm]

Hi Jill,

No, we don't need to change the domain - so we'll just switch the dns to the new server.

Other questions:

How long will it take before urls from the new site start showing up in Google?

How long before the old urls will disappear from Google?

What, exactly, does the 301 redirect do? That is, the rewrite rule in .htaccess will point the visitor to the correct new page so the 301 is not needed for that . . .

Thanks again,

Terry

Terry, a question for you...

Do you want/need to change the domain from the old domain to the new one? If so, why?

If you are still planning on using the old domain (which you should unless you have a good business reason not to), then simply switch the dns of the old domain to point the new server.

Create 301 redirects for all the old cold fusion URLS within old site that point to their new PHP counterparts within the new site. (You do this all within the .htaccess of the new site. You don't even need to keep the old site once the new one is up and running and being spidered.)

That's basically it.

If you have to switch domains, it's a different ballgame. But there's no technical reason why you need to switch domains just because you currently have the test version on that domain. So if you don't have a business reason for switching, again, I'd highly suggest not to do it. Surely you have built up some brand equity with your old domain, not to mention it has links and an overall aged profile with the search engines.

[Randy]

How long will it take before urls from the new site start showing up in Google?

It depends. If your site is fairly authoritative and has built up enough trust over the years to get spidered often, you can start to see the new pages showing up in the index within a matter of days in Google. The It Depends answer depends upon when they spider a certain page. Until they spider it they won't see the change and the 301.

How long before the old urls will disappear from Google?

This goes hand-in-hand with question #1. When the spiders see the old page delivering a 301 they'll send that info back to the mothership, which will schedule a spider run to the new page. Typically after they've spidered both the old page and the new page you'll see the new page starting to rank. The old page may technically stay in their index for weeks or even months, but will also typically show an old Cache date because they know it's been replaced.

So with well establilshed sites there usually isn't much loss. One page simply replaces the other if you've got all of your ducks in a row.

What, exactly, does the 301 redirect do? That is, the rewrite rule in .htaccess will point the visitor to the correct new page so the 301 is not needed for that . . .

In a nutshell a 301 --which technically delivers a 301 Moved Permanently status response-- tells the search engines exactly that: That PageX has been permanently replaced by PageY.

Setting up 301's for as many current pages as possible is really your best bet. It'll limit damage significantly during the transition because you'll be sending the search engines a very clear message of the changes that have taken place.

[Jill]

How long will it take before urls from the new site start showing up in Google?

How long before the old urls will disappear from Google?

There's a few threads around here discussing our own recent server move which was complete with site redesign and URL changes, with 301's in place.

The new site/server went live right before Christmas. The old URLs still showed up for a few week (and some even still now) but with redirects in place it's fine because they just go where they need to go.

The new URLs are mostly showing up now, but not in every case. I've also been lax in that some of our content is actually missing until I upload the rest of it. For those, Google still seems to show the old URLs, but I imagine it won't be much longer until they drop them completely.

I'm actually hoping to put the rest of the old stuff online tonight while watching the Pat's game! (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif) I better fire up the laptop in fact, as I think it's starting right now!

[Dictina]

Hi

I would add a sitemap (apart from the XML Google sitemap) to the site, in order to tell the spiders which are the main entry points, I think it will help the recrawling. Also, check that any important part of your old site is well linked in the new one.

Jill, nice redisign of the site!

Dictina/Nengorama

[Jill]

I would add a sitemap (apart from the XML Google sitemap) to the site, in order to tell the spiders which are the main entry points, I think it will help the recrawling.

For what it's worth, we don't have a site map, either XML or otherwise, and everything seems to get spidered often and consistently.

Personally, I don't see why/how a sitemap would help with spidering. It's not like the crawlers can't just keep going deeper and deeper into a site by going from link to link. That's what they are programmed to do, and they generally do a good job of it!

Jill, nice redisign of the site!

Thanks!

[jgd1955]

Apologies - I'm pretty much a newbie, but have been lurking here for a while and subscribe to the excellent newsletter.

We have a similar scenario in that we have the opportunity to redevelop a well ranked ASP site, but we work exclusively in PHP.

We were going to use mod_rewrite to map the php pages to the asp, but reading this thread I'm not sure we need to do this.

Is everyone saying that doing a 301 redirect will retain the existing rankings of the site even though the new pages will have a different name from the old?

[Randy]

Welcome jgd ! (IMG:style_emoticons/default/hi.gif)

Is everyone saying that doing a 301 redirect will retain the existing rankings of the site even though the new pages will have a different name from the old?

Eventually, yes. It's not necessarily an immediate transfer for the search engines however, so there may be a reasonably short lag time between 301 implementation and what you see in the search engines.

One thing to note here... mod_rewrite is an Apache thing, so you would need to be on a Unix/Linux server running Apache to use it. You may want to check on this since most ASP sites are on MS/IIS server platforms.

The 301's can still be accomplished on IIS servers, but it's not mod_rewrite that's utilized.

[BBCoach]

For what it's worth, we don't have a site map, either XML or otherwise, and everything seems to get spidered often and consistently.

Personally, I don't see why/how a sitemap would help with spidering. It's not like the crawlers can't just keep going deeper and deeper into a site by going from link to link. That's what they are programmed to do, and they generally do a good job of it!

I agree with Jill. My primary site went brand new last March and we 301 redirected all of the 30,000+ pages. Within 3-4 weeks all of the new pages were happily indexed and ranking in G and Y without a sitemap.

[jgd1955]

Thanks all for the quick replies and the warm welcome!

Our potential client isn't happy with his ASP developers so was looking to move to us. We don't like working in ASP much (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

We're a PHP development team and do Linux hosting so the Apache config is under our control and we were going to use mod_rewrite to direct Google requests for anypage.asp to anypage.php, but I guess that's what 301s do.