Migration Best Practices - SMX West 2019

1. @basgr from @peakaceag#SMX Bastian Grimm, Peak Ace AG | @basgr Everything you need to know to execute a successful migration Migration Best Practices

2. #SMX @basgr from @peakaceag #1 Never change a running system!

3. @basgr from @peakaceag#SMX Every (big) change brings (lots of) opportunities! But always keep in mind: the price tag for failure is immense! Risk Reward User acceptance “Once in a lifetime” opportunity Project complexity Greenfield project: question everything Resilience/freeze Best chance to really “get shit done” Interruption Opportunity to eliminate “legacy problems” Politics Usually more agile vs. regular, daily business Performance Rethink RWD/dynamic serving, HTTPS, URL design, etc.

4. @basgr from @peakaceag#SMX What are your goals for migration? The right mindset is really, really important! I want to lose as little as possible!” – isn’t really a good migration objective!

5. #SMX @basgr from @peakaceag Thorough documentation, in-depth definitions of requirements and ongoing testing are essential! Be crazy about the details

6. #SMX @basgr from @peakaceag …from someone who has successfully done this type of work before. Ask for help…

7. #SMX @basgr from @peakaceag #2 A lot of preparation

8. #SMX @basgr from @peakaceag What should go, what can stay? Complete vs. partial site move? Define your migration strategy

9. @basgr from @peakaceag#SMX Pre-migration: site health check & clean up A properly optimised domain migrates easier and more efficiently. Getting your house in order before the move minimises the risk of losing beneficial rankings. ▪ Google Search Console: manual actions, server errors (DNS, 4xx and 5xx response codes), mark-up validation errors (AMP, schema.org, rich cards), robots.txt ▪ Web crawl: internal redirects as well as redirect chains, broken URLs, and internal links ▪ Log files: broken URLs, suspicious status codes, crawler traps ▪ Further: perform a thorough audit, it’ll save you a lot of time with regards to the post-migration workload

10. @basgr from @peakaceag#SMX You will need an arsenal of tools! A lot depends on personal taste, but you’ll need at least one tool each for crawling and log file analysis as well as search intelligence – and yes, this costs money! Google Big Query

11. @basgr from @peakaceag#SMX At a minimum: fix broken pages & broken internal links

12. #SMX @basgr from @peakaceag Figure out well in advance how to gain access to all relevant server access logs, e.g. via native access or by using a SaaS solution. Gain access to server logs

13. @basgr from @peakaceag#SMX Gather all URLs including static assets #1 Must haves: log files, XML sitemaps as well as a full website crawl. Extras: analytics (top ranking URLs and/or URLs generating the most traffic). small domains large domains

14. @basgr from @peakaceag#SMX Gather all URLs including static assets #2 Additionally: collect the URLs that are strongly linked, bring a lot of traffic and/or have been shared the most, etc.

15. @basgr from @peakaceag#SMX Switch to monitor your keyword rankings, daily Check critical keywords daily to ensure you are only working with the most recent data.

16. @basgr from @peakaceag#SMX Establish a status quo performance benchmark Lighthouse (via Chrome DevTools) or webpagetest.org provide relevant metrics. Important: also benchmark category/product pages, not just the homepage.

17. #SMX @basgr from @peakaceag As a rule of thumb: 1-to-1 redirects from old to new! Prepare for URL redirect mapping

18. @basgr from @peakaceag#SMX Provide staging/test server Make sure the server is locked-down properly to ensure your content doesn’t get indexed in advance (i.a. duplicate content problems). Methodology Pros Cons noindex (meta tag/header) ▪ External tools can access without separate access rules ▪ URLs are definitely not indexed ▪ Indexing rules cannot fully be tested (all noindex) ▪ Waste of crawl budget robots.txt ▪ External tools can access without separate access rules ▪ No crawl budget is wasted ▪ Indexing rules cannot fully be tested (only with robots.txt override) ▪ If linked, test URLs may appear in the index (without title/metas). password secured (.htaccess) ▪ No crawl budget is wasted ▪ URLs are definitely not indexed ▪ Everything can be tested properly ▪ External tools must be able to handle password authentication. IP-based access ▪ No crawl budget is wasted ▪ URLs are definitely not indexed ▪ Everything can be tested properly ▪ External tools must be able to handle IP-based authentication. VPN ▪ Absolutely safe! ▪ So safe, only a few tools can handle it!

19. #SMX @basgr from @peakaceag #3 Implement necessary changes

20. @basgr from @peakaceag#SMX Migration types and their potential impact on SEO Often these types overlap – or multiple things are done simultaneously. Inspired by @jonoalderson: http://pa.ag/2xUCMnJ Type Example Hosting migrations You’re changing hosting or CDN provider(s). You’re changing, adding, or removing server locations. You’re changing your tech stack/caching/lbs. Software migrations You’re changing CMS (or its version/plugins, etc.). You’re changing the language used to render the website. You’re merging platforms; e.g. a blog which operated on a separate domain. Domain migrations You’re changing the main domain of your website. You’re buying/adding new domains/subdomains to your ecosystem. You’re moving a website, or part of a website, between domains. Template migrations You’re changing the layout/structure/navigation of important pages. You’re adding or removing template components. You’re changing elements in your code, like title, canonical, or hreflang tags.

21. @basgr from @peakaceag#SMX Make it a granular, multi-step approach Doing everything at once will make debugging & rolling back an almost impossible task! Source: http://pa.ag/2yJqT1N

22. @basgr from @peakaceag#SMX Build your very own migration QA check-list Depending on what type of changes you’re undergoing, this needs to be adapted. Use Aleyda’s template for more inspiration: https://pa.ag/2H6bOLH Canonical tags & other rel-alternate annotations Remember to annotate your dedicated mobile site and to adapt your RSS feeds Stage: pre-migration Who? Bastian When? 30/01/19 Multilingual setup: customise hreflang target URLs Keep in mind: various locations can be affected (e.g. head section, server headers, xml sitemaps) Stage: pre-migration Who? Bastian When? 30/01/19 Update pel=next/prev pagination annotations Are you using Google´s recommendation for pagination? Stage: pre-migration Who? Bastian When? 30/01/19 Update XML sitemaps Sitemap index file also needs to be changed if you reference it in the robots.txt Stage: pre-migration Who? Bastian When? 30/01/19 Structured data update (schema.org) Update your schema.org mark-up references. Short annotations like “//schema.org“ don’t validate! Stage: pre-migration Who? Bastian When? 30/01/19 Update CDN settings and resource hints Update requests for assets to CDNs & any resource hints (preconnect, dns-prefetch) Stage: pre-migration Who? Bastian When? 30/01/19 Update HTTP header & customise cookie settings If applicable, customise X-Robots header tags. Use Chrome DevTools! Stage: pre-migration Who? Bastian When? 30/01/19

23. @basgr from @peakaceag#SMX Update internal links Simply relying on redirects isn’t a migration strategy. Links to other internal URLs Links to internal video filesLinks to internal JavaScript files JS HTML source code Links to internal image files Links to internal CSS files Links to internal web fonts

24. @basgr from @peakaceag#SMX Update internal links within JavaScript files Simply relying on redirects isn’t a migration strategy. JAVASCRIPT files Links to other internal URLs Links to internal image files Links to internal CSS files

25. @basgr from @peakaceag#SMX Update internal links within CSS files Simply relying on redirects isn’t a migration strategy. CSS files Links to internal web fontsLinks to internal image files Links to other internal URLs

26. @basgr from @peakaceag#SMX Be careful with internal redirects! Avoid redirect chains: old URLs should lead directly to the new corresponding URLs. Source: Redirect Chain Report via DeepCrawl

27. @basgr from @peakaceag#SMX Tricky: don‘t miss “invisible“ HTTP headers! If in use: update X-Robots header tags accordingly. Use Chrome Dev. Tools to visualise! X-Robots rel-canonical using Apaches‘ .htaccess <Files study.pdf> Header add Link "<https://domain.com/html-landing/>; rel="canonical"" </Files> Other HTTP header variants (for SEO): ▪ Link: <https://www.example.com/de/>; rel="alternate"; hreflang="de" ▪ Link: <https://www.example.com/someurl>; rel="canonical" ▪ Link: <https://cdn.example.com>; rel="dns-prefetch"

28. @basgr from @peakaceag#SMX Everything updated? Side-by-side comparison crawl! Better safe than sorry: let’s test-crawl the staging server and run a comparison to make sure all contents are available 1:1.

29. #SMX @basgr from @peakaceag #4 Work your search console

30. @basgr from @peakaceag#SMX Create new properties & eventually merge them into a set For example, properties for HTTP and HTTPS with and without www = four domains. If you use separate mobile domains, there are six properties to set up in total!

31. @basgr from @peakaceag#SMX Transfer the disavow links file in time Especially for domains with a “questionable” link profile: GSC setup and disavow file transfer should be done approximately 48 hours before going live!

32. @basgr from @peakaceag#SMX Set your preferred domain and crawl rate (if necessary) You don’t need to set the crawl rate, but, if you have done so previously, I would suggest transferring the original settings (for now).

33. @basgr from @peakaceag#SMX Configure geo targeting for gTLDs Synchronise settings for international targeting (i.e. for “.com” gTLDs).

34. @basgr from @peakaceag#SMX URL parameter settings in GSC Don’t forget to synchronise the URL parameter settings if you were utilising them, or if you require them for your site’s functionality.

35. @basgr from @peakaceag#SMX Make sure that fetch & render (in GSC) works properly Perform manual checks at least for your homepage & for each of your templates (e.g. category, product or landing page); don‘t forget to test smartphone vs. desktop as well!

36. @basgr from @peakaceag#SMX Resubmit all your XML sitemaps Keep in mind: the new GSC no longer allows you to test the file before submitting it, so make sure you‘re validating the XML mark-up beforehand.

37. #SMX @basgr from @peakaceag After all this preparation, now you "just" need to redirect all your URLs. 301 redirect all the things!

38. @basgr from @peakaceag#SMX Even if, as some say, all redirects are equal… …all we did for this client was change the (chained) 302/307 to 301 redirects!

39. #SMX @basgr from @peakaceag Note: it only works for domain migrations! Use the GSC “site move” feature

40. #SMX @basgr from @peakaceag e.g. domain.de via GSC to domain.com/de/ won‘t work! The destination can‘t be a gTLD folder!

41. @basgr from @peakaceag#SMX List crawl of old URLs & manual SERP checks Import old URLs, e.g. to ScreamingFrog (list mode) - only 301s should appear here. Perform additional manual check of indexed URLs, e.g. via LinkClump add-on in Chrome. 1 2 3

42. #SMX @basgr from @peakaceag The most common problem with migrations gone awry? Missing or incorrect redirects! Seriously: check your redirects

43. #SMX @basgr from @peakaceag #5 Post-migration to-dos

44. #SMX @basgr from @peakaceag Focus on 4XX and 5XX status codes first, tackle these “live”! Log file, GSC & GA error monitoring

45. @basgr from @peakaceag#SMX

49. @basgr from @peakaceag#SMX Peak Ace log file auditing stack Log files are stored in Google Cloud Storage, processed in Dataprep, exported to BigQuery and visualised in Data Studio via BigQuery Connector. 8 Google Data Studio Data transmission Display dataImport Google Dataprep 6 7 Google BigQuery 1 Log files GSC API v3 GA API v4 GA GSC 2 3 65 Google Apps Script DeepCrawl API 4

50. #SMX @basgr from @peakaceag Re-test: no broken URLs (4/5XXer), tracking in place, correct metadata & other tags, indexing rules, etc. Complete crawl of the new domain

51. @basgr from @peakaceag#SMX Test and apply an “if... then... logic” Based on your previously built QA checklist, make sure to double-check everything! you work internationally, then test hreflang tags/sitemap annotations. PPC ads are shown, then update and test the landing page URLs. Google news listings are available, then test the Google news sitemap. ratings (featured snippets) are available, then test the schema.org mark-up. IF SSL is also used on other subdomains, then test these as well. IF IF IF IF

52. @basgr from @peakaceag#SMX AMP, structured data and rich cards error-monitoring

53. #SMX @basgr from @peakaceag Google needs to recrawl ALL the relations - this takes time! Consider hreflang to be broken

54. #SMX @basgr from @peakaceag Short-term peaks are completely normal, dramatic drops are not! Keep an eye on crawl frequency

55. @basgr from @peakaceag#SMX Compare performance side-by-side HTTPs is usually a little bit slower (handshake etc.): compare your results. Clear goal: never slower than before (always use HTTP/2 when switching to HTTPs). Try it out: https://www.webpagetest.org/

56. @basgr from @peakaceag#SMX Adjusting/revising external links Not every link source needs to be updated; focus on the strongest domains (e.g. via LRT Power*Trust or Majestic Trust Flow). Source: Majestic

57. #SMX @basgr from @peakaceag Recrawling, recalculation & the inheritance of ”trust“ may take a few weeks… First and foremost: be patient!

58. @basgr from @peakaceag#SMX Especially for new domains, two weeks is not enough: Source: http://pa.ag/2htz26D […] it can take two weeks for some sites but for larger sites, it is more like three months, not even close to two weeks.

59. #SMX @basgr from @peakaceag #6 Some tips to make your life easier

60. @basgr from @peakaceag#SMX #1 Bulk test these things: redirects & other headers HTTP status codes (errors, redirects, etc.) at scale, for free: httpstatus.io Check it out: https://httpstatus.io/

61. @basgr from @peakaceag#SMX #2 Bulk test these things: hreflang tags Hreflang tags (in sitemaps) at scale, for free: technicalseo.com Check it out: https://technicalseo.com/seo-tools/hreflang/

62. @basgr from @peakaceag#SMX #3 Simulate Googlebot for smartphones with JS rendering ScreamingFrog can do that at scale, easily; pay close attention to rendered output! Also pretty cool: Extract > Xpath > //head/link[@rel="amphtml"]/@href

63. @basgr from @peakaceag#SMX #4 Don’t forget to redirect your images as well When changing URLs/domains, make sure to implement redirect rules for images. Read the entire post: http://pa.ag/2yJtTLz

64. @basgr from @peakaceag#SMX #5 Move and retest your robots.txt file When changing domains, make sure to transfer (the contents of) the robots.txt!

65. @basgr from @peakaceag#SMX #6 HTTP 503 is your friend Combine with “revisit-after” to throttle crawling; never use “noindex” or 4XX instead! Source: http://pa.ag/2xRiA5T Webmasters should return a 503 HTTP header for all the URLs participating in the blackout […] Googlebot's crawling rate will drop when it sees a spike in 503 […] as Googlebot is currently configured, it will halt all crawling of the site if the site’s robots.txt file returns a 503 status code for robots.txt”

66. @basgr from @peakaceag#SMX #7 GSC’s DNS verification can be pretty helpful No need to worry about missing meta tags; plus you can verify before deploying a site/frontend to a new domain – and it’s faster! More: http://pa.ag/2yJ7xtH

67. @basgr from @peakaceag#SMX #8 Fix those redirect chains, especially on legacy sites… …as multiple requests waste valuable performance and crawl budget!

68. @basgr from @peakaceag#SMX #9 Don’t miss out on some of the non-obvious redirects It’s not only protocol-specific and www vs. non-www redirects, but so many more… Old URL / pattern New destination Please note domain.com/robots.txt newdomain.com/robots.txt domain.com/sitemap.xml newdomain.com/sitemap.xml Redirect Sitemap Index (or *.gz files) respectively. Don’t do this if you want to monitor de-indexation domain.com/wp-content/uploads/*.jpg newdomain.com/images/*.jpg If you’re moving (away) from e.g. WordPress, don’t forget your images - all of them. domain.com/someCRAZYurl.html newdomain.com/somecrazyurl.html Unify to a lower-case URL; more importantly make sure your rules on origin are case insensitive domain.com/styles/old-*.css newdomain.com/styles/new-*.css Depending on crawl volume, also redirect old CSS and JS file URLs Keep in mind that old URLs might come with or without query parameters – again make sure your redirect mapping handles these accordingly.

69. @basgr from @peakaceag#SMX #10 Some final technical advice concerning (301) redirects 301 redirects are cached, so make sure you really know what you're doing! Staged 302>301 redirects during a migration are more complex, but often worth it. Once a 301 redirect has been implemented (and seen by Googlebot), it‘ll be cached – make sure the destination is 100% accurate (and returning a HTTP 200)!

70. @basgr from @peakaceag#SMX #SMXInsights: So, in a nutshell… …whenever you perform a migration, make sure you: 01 Don‘t migrate legacy! Do a thorough health check and clean up first – it‘ll be super hard to analyse errors later on. 02 Collect all the necessary data in advance! Make sure to fully understand your URL portfolio, crawl & GSC data etc. 03 Get access to server log files! As much as I do love the GSC, data comes in with a delay and you need instant feedback on errors, etc. 04 Check your redirects, twice! Make sure to review your redirect mapping multiple times, ideally with another pair of eyes. 05 Be patient and don‘t panic! Don‘t freak out, seriously. Sometimes things can just take a bit longer for Google to fully process (and to pass along signals).

71. twitter.com/peakaceag facebook.com/peakaceag www.pa.ag ALWAYS LOOKING FOR TALENT! CHECK OUT JOBS.PA.AG WINNER @basgr from @peakaceag#SMX Bastian Grimm bg@pa.ag Slides? No problem: https://pa.ag/smxw19 You want our log file setup (for free)? e-mail us > hi@pa.ag