site-move-url-changes.md

Site Move (With URL Changes)

Useful guide - How to 301 to a new domain

• Delete .htaccess from new host in /public (removes redirect from viperinnovations to vipersubsea)
• Deploy to new host (on DeployHQ)
• Import database (details on Cipher, already added creds to db.php)
• Check/test viperinnovations
• Add 301 redirects to vipersubsea .htaccess
• Update search console/analytics (see below)

Best practices

• Use 301 redirects
• Keep 301 redirects for as long as possible & consider keeping indefinitely
• Enable SSL on destination
• Use site verification (old & new domains)
• Update incoming links (from external sites/social media profiles/ad campaigns)
• Provide errors for deleted or merged content

Prep

• Generate 301 redirects
• Get sitemap file of new URL
• Get sitemap file of old URLs
• Confirm new domain management access (?)
• Confirm Search Console access (?)
• Confirm Google Analytics access (?)

Steps

• Point DNS of new domain

• Follow Overview: Site moves with URL changes - Search Console Help

• Verify both old and destination domains in Search Console (Verify your site ownership - Search Console Help)

• Update robots.txt

  • On source site - remove all robots.txt directives
  • On destination site - allow all crawling

• Add 301 redirects to source site .htaccess

• Ensure site verification and analytics tags are present on new site

• Submit a Change of Address ( Use the change of address tool - Search Console Help) in Search Console for the old site

• On destination site submit the two sitemaps prepared previously (old and new URLs)

• Change domain in Google Analytics (Changing a Domain in Google Analytics | Zanzi Digital)

• Monitor the traffic ( 4. Monitor the traffic - Search Console Help)

  • Use Search Console/Analytics to monitor traffic, index status and any crawl errors.

The time it takes Googlebot and our systems to discover and process all URLs in the site move depends on how fast your servers are and how many URLs are involved. As a general rule, a medium-sized website can take a few weeks for most pages to move, and larger sites take longer. The speed at which Googlebot and our systems discover and process moved URLs depends the number of URLs and the server speed.