Bulk redirect or only a few pages at a time

[footsteps]

Dear all,

I would very much like to have your advise about whether or not to implement bulk 301 redirects.

We have 3 retail websites with the same technical architecture, namely:

• Netherlands-example.nl
• Belgium-example.be
• France-example.fr

These three websites are all bilingual, namely:

• Netherlands-example.nl/nl
• Netherlands-example.nl/fr
• Belgium-example.be/nl
• Belgium-example.be/fr
• France-example.fr/nl
• France-example.fr/fr

We’re going to do a CMS update and therefore we have to change a bulk of 301 redirects:

Part 1: For France (France-example.fr) URL’s in the Dutch language (France-example.fr/nl) will be redirected to Belgium (Belgium-example.be/nl). It’s a matter of about 8.000 redirects.

Part 2: For the Netherlands (Netherlands-example.nl) URL’s in the French language (Netherlands-example.nl/fr ) will be redirected to Belgium (Belgium-example.be/fr). It’s also a matter of about 8.000 redirects.

Question:
What will be the best way to implement these redirects? Fully implement part 1 first (8.000 redirects) and then a couple of weeks/months later a full implement of part 2?

Or will it be better to implement small batches like 200-500 per 2 weeks?

I’d like to hear your opinion. Thanks in advance.

Kind regards,

Gerwin

[Andy.Drinkwater]

Hi Gerwin,

No problem with doing this in bulk. If you can tell Google about a big change all in one go, then this is better than still having incorrect pages lingering around while you do them in small batches.

As long as the pages match well (which it sounds like they do), then there is no problem with doing this on a large scale.

-Andy

[PatrickDelehanty]

Hi there

I would do this in bulk, especially if you plan on moving everything over to begin with.

I highly suggest reading this migration resource, as well as Google's Moving a site documentation, as it will help you make this less painless. But make sure you read through everything - don't read a portion and think you got it.

As long as you are prepared, doing this in bulk shouldn't be too bad at all - just make sure you are coordinated with your web development team.

Also, make sure your international SEO is on point and that your sites are properly targeted (for both Google and Bing), and that you are taking advantage of language tags (again, for both Google and Bing).

Hope this helps! Good luck!

[footsteps]

Hello Patrick,

Thank you for the great resource! This part was what we where looking for;

Move all URLs at once**.** We advise you move all URLs on your site simultaneously instead of moving one section at a time. This helps users interact with the site better in its new form, and helps our algorithms detect the site move and update our index faster.

Source:
https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/6033080?hl=en&ref_topic=6033084

It supports Andy's answer with some background from Google so great work and thanks again!

Regards,

Gerwin