When do I change out my meta tags after a full website revamp?

[SFMoz]

We're creating a new version of our entire website - look and feel is completely different, though core functionality and results are the same.  Just cleaner, faster.. etc.  We're doing a temp redirect to the temporary url for testing and to slow roll the release to some of our users for a more friendly approach.  Eventually, the new look and feel will be under the original url.

I've researched best practices for the site transfer, including "make sure the meta tags for title and description are exactly the same".

The concern I have is that Moz Analytics is detecting a lot of errors in the existing meta tags.  They're too long, have changed and become inconsistent after being passed through different hands, & some have some keyword stuffing in there.

I have plans to change them out and really clean them up... I'm just wondering, when is the best time to do that?

Since the tags are bad, should I just do it now but make sure that the old and new are matching?  Or should I wait (and for how long?) after the new site is switched over and everything is on the original URL?

[BenjaminMorel]

Working agency-side I've gone through a few of these exercises, and I'd advise doing them as soon as you have the copywriting started. META data takes a surprising length of time to create - a 65 character title tag sounds like it shouldn't take much to write, but precisely because you're so constrained it takes some thought. So when you have your sitemap and know the gist of each page, put together the META data for it.

If you're now onto deployment and its too late for that, I'd say leave it until after the roll out. You got where you are with the titles and descriptions you have - and you have plenty to worry about without adding META data!

[KeriMorgret]

I'm not sure where you're seeing that the title tag and description should be exactly the same. They serve different purposes, and don't need to be the same. We have more information at http://moz.com/beginners-guide-to-seo/basics-of-search-engine-friendly-design-and-development that can help you out.

[BenjaminMorel]

I was answering on the assumption that "exactly the same" meant "exactly the same as on my old site". Hope I got that assumption correct!

[RuthBurrReedy]

Ben is correct in assuming that our advice around keeping meta and title tags the same means "from the old site to the new site" and not "as each other."

In general it's a best practice to leave as many things the same as you can when revamping your site. Since you're already changing a lot of stuff it is probably best to leave the meta tag changes until after the relaunch (although Ben's suggestion of beginning to write them now is a good one - that way you'll have the new tags ready to go when you are ready to switch them over).

Once the new site is launched I would wait until it is fully indexed and until you see the new pages from the site ranking instead of the old ones for their target keywords. Then, you might consider a gradual roll-out of the new tags so it's less disruptive while your site is still recovering from the relaunch. Start with pages that either don't rank well, or lost rankings when you switched - this might be a good little boost for those. Wait for those new tags to get cached, then target your high-ranking pages (being sure to retain keyword targeting in the tags even as you fix the errors). If all goes well you should see a positive impact from these changes. Hope that helps!

[SFMoz]

Thanks so much, everyone!  Very helpful.

Yes-- @Ben, you were correct in your assumption.  Keep them the same as the old site.

I started revamping the tags for the new site already, as you suggested, so I'll have those ready to go after everything is set and done and being indexed on the new site.

Thank you again!

[KeriMorgret]

I totally misread that one. Need to lobby for better coffee in the Moz offices!