Migration Strategy

[jayoliverwright]

Hi guys,

Just want to check on this site migration strategy. Basically we have an Australian based ecommerce site which is going to launch globally.

The company has two site. One is (http://www.domainUS.com – for US market) and one is Australian based (http://www.domain.com.au).

Basically the plan is to have one single global .com site (like ASOS.com) on a new domain which would be domain.com and put both the current http://www.domainUS.com (US VERSION) and http://www.domain.com.au  (AUSTRALIAN VERSION) on the new domain: domain.com (global)

To make it even more complicated the new global domain (domain.com) is in the process of being purchased (someone else has the domain) and won’t be available till January 2016. But the company wants to execute the new global setup in November 2015 temporary on the .com.au version

The current migration plan is to create two different sub-folders one for US e.g. http:www.domain.com.au/us and one for AUD http://www.domain.com/au on the current domain Australian domain.com.au for the global launch in November 2015. Then once domain.com is ready in January 2016, then migrate to domain.com with the countries as sub-folder (as shown below in stage 3).

I was wondering if you guys think this would be an ideal migration strategy given the circumstances.

Link to screenshot of current migration strategy:

http://c714091.r91.cf2.rackcdn.com/4c2aae21dcbd548f27d96840227b81bc6b8b00c592.png

Any advice would be very much appreciated!

Cheers, Chris

[MattAntonino]

Do the two current sites (domainUS.com and domain.com.au) have a lot of authority?

The final location for these, in 2 subfolders, is ideal. I like where you're going with this. But the plan to jump to the .com.au/us and /au is ... well, sub-optimal. It's not ideal to have two sets of redirects essentially to solve a 2 month problem.

If the current sites aren't very authoritative, you'll probably be ok. If they have a decent amount of ranking power & current traffic, I would try to skip the middle step or at least use 302 instead of 301 redirects. Using the 302s mean the .com.au/us and .com.au/au sites won't get the value of the current sites for Nov/Dec/Jan but it does mean you're not going to chain 301s once January comes.  You'll just remove the 302s and create 301s to the new domain.com/us and domain.com/au websites.

Those 301s will then pick up the majority of the current ranking power and give you the best possible boost.

If you can't hold off until the company owns the .com, that's what I would do at least.

[MoosaHemani]

This is pretty much complicated so let me summarize what you are up to and then will move towards my suggestion.

You have 2 domains at the moment, one targets US and the other target AU market. Now you are planning a global launch on a third domain where most probably you are going to redirect your existing pages.

The global domain is not with you so you want to go with a temporary strategy and that is to create a sub folder. US sub folder on AU website and AU sub-folder on a US website.

--

WOW, saying that this strategy is ideal for one or not will be difficult as there are lot of things missing which includes brand reputation, market share, audience trust on the brand and more.

I mean if you can wait for few months than going for a new domain is a better idea than going for a temporary strategy as this will be a very quick change for audience, first in November and another change in January.

Try to give the amount of time to audience in which they can adjust. Again, if the audience’s trust level with the brand is good and they can accept this kind of quick change then I don’t see a problem.

I am assuming that on sub folders you will link to another website instead of creating a new content on a sub folder. I believe create separate content on a sub folder is not a good idea as SEO issues and ranking will take months and within few months you have to move to another strategy.

I don’t see a problem with moving to a new domain but you have to keep in mind that when shifting two different website to a 3^rd domain you will see lot of ranking fluctuation so if you have a good migration plan but no back up plan then you should consider having one right now or else you will see a big loss from the organic traffic.

Again, there are lot of points that can be discussed but this is what I think it is having the limited knowledge about the domains and business.

Hope this helps!

[jayoliverwright]

Hi Matt,

Thanks for your answer!

Good tip on the 302s. Yeah definitely isn't ideal.

Currently the Australian site is the one with most of the domain authority and organic traffic. I'm also thinking at this possibly:

http://c714091.r91.cf2.rackcdn.com/4c2aae21dc8c159b81caae827029d8a1bbf57c90ed.png

So just leave the Australian site for now, the developers will have to simply deal with this on there end.

And the US site do the temporary 302 then change to 301 once the global site is ready.

What do you think of this instead?

[MattAntonino]

You definitely won't lose as much value with this strategy. It's a good stop-gap in a difficult situation.

[McTaggart]

This temporary set-up idea makes little sense to me... migrations are tough enough anyway, and the temporary middle stage is increasing both risk and complexity.