Welcome to the Q&A Forum

Hi seoelevated,

Thanks for your response. I have been considering a 302 approach, but I am concerned about how long I can leave 302s in place. If from start to finish, the roll out takes 12 - 18 months, will that cause any problems?

Thanks!

Hi Ross.

Everything will have a 301.

For example:

• When I launch the new homepage on the temporary subdomain, I will add a 301 redirect from www.domain.com to www2.domain.com.
• When I launch a new section page, I will add a new 301 redirect from www.domain.com/section1 to www2.domain.com/section1.
• When I launch a new product page, I will add a new 301 redirect from www.domain.com/product1 to www2.domain.com/product1.

And then, eventually, when everything is moved back to the www domain, I will setup the following 301 redirects:

• Homepage - From www2.domain.com to www.domain.com
• Section page - From www2.domain.com/section1 to www.domain.com/section1
• Product page - From www2.domain.com/product1 to www.domain.com/product1

Does this make sense? So, everything will have a 301 redirect.

I'm just concerned about the fact I'm basically having to 301 redirect a whole site away from it's original domain to a temporary subdomain, and then back again. Should I be concerned about this?

Hi Ross.

Thanks again for the response.

There will only ever be one version of a page, and each time an old page is replaced with a new version, I will 301 redirect from the www version to the www2 version.

My concern is, at the end of the web build all pages on www will have been 301 redirected to www2, and then I’ll need to 301 redirect them all back again to www when the new site is moved off the temporary subdomain. Do you see any problems with this approach?

Thanks for the response.

But is it okay to 301 redirect, for example, the homepage to a temporary www2 subdomain, and then back again once the whole site is ready to move back to the www domain?

I’m working for a company who is looking to gradually replace an existing website with a new website.

They will replace the homepage, then a section, then another section, and so on, until the new site is complete.

All new pages will sit on a temporary subdomain.

So, for example, the URL for the homepage at the moment is www.domain.com, but as soon as the new homepage is ready, that will be launched on a temporary URL / subdomain - www2.domain.com - replacing the old homepage.

The new pages will then gradually increase on www2.domain.com (so journeys will inevitably move across domains) until the whole of the new website is ready on www2.domain.com - at which point it will move on to www.domain.com.

I know this isn’t a good way of doing things - I would much prefer the new site is completely built and then it just replaces the old site with the necessary 301 redirects in place - but the company wants to see the gradual roll out of new page designs.

So, my question is, what’s the best way to manage this without negatively impacting rankings for the existing domain (www.domain.com)?

Excellent, thank you Chris.

I would prefer to keep the URL path the same, but to be honest the original URL path is a bit of a mess, so I'm taking this opportunity to clean it up.

Really appreciate your help on this!

Hi Chris,

Thanks for getting back to me. That's sound advice, and it makes perfect sense. So, I will do the following:

302 redirect
from www.mydomain.com/old-version-of-page
to www2.mydomain.com/new-version-of-page

Then, once we are ready to publish the new content on to the main www domain, I will do the following because the new URL string will be slightly different from the original:

301 redirect
from www.mydomain.com/old-version-of-page to www.mydomain.com/new-version-of-page

Does that make sense?

Just a couple of other questions, if that's okay:

1. How long do you think the 302 redirects can stay in place? It may have to be there for 12 - 18 months, while we're developing the rest of the new site.
2. I came across this article at the weekend, which suggests the following for the www2 temporary version of pages: (1) pointing a rel=canonical tag from the temporary pages to the main pages, and (2) using the meta robots content="noindex" tag to tell search engines not to index the temporary pages. Would you agree with this approach?

Thanks again!

Hi Chris,

Thanks for replying, I really appreciate it.

In answer to your first question...  we will be incrementally adding new content on the www2 subdomain, 301 redirecting from existing content on the www subdomain. This will be done gradually, over around 24 months, until all of the www content can be 301 redirected to www2 - and a full site is in place on the www2 subdomain. At this point, once everything is on the www2 subdomain, we will then do one final migration to move all new content on www2 back to the www domain, as we don't want our primary domain to be the www2 subdomain long-term.

The content will be similar, but more engaging and richer on the www2 subdomain. But, because 301s will be implemented incrementaly when the new content is launched on www2, there will no duplicate content across the subdomains.

The TLD will remain the same throughout this process.

I hope that answers your questions - let me know if you need any more clarity.

Thanks again!

Hi,

I work for a large company and we're planning to phase in a new website. The idea is to develop key journeys on the new site and serve them on a www2 domain, removing them from the old website which is served on the www domain.

The reason for this is because the old website is over 2,000 pages, and the management want to see new, improved journeys sooner rather than later. So, rather than launching all new pages and journeys at the same time, which will take a long time to design and develop, key journeys will move across to the new site / design sooner and made available to visitors.

Whilst the overall journey might be a bit disjointed in parts (i.e. sending people from old to new site, and vice versa) I can't see a better way of doing it...

Once all new content is complete, 301s will be implemented from old content on www. to new content www2.

Once the phasing is complete, and all new content is in place on www2, 301s will be implemented to point everything back to www.

Does anybody see any problems with this approach? Or any ideas on how to better handle this situation?

Thanks Mozzers!

My site links in Bing search results are pulling through the footer text instead of the meta description (see image). Is there any way of controlling this?

2L2VusT

I’m working for a company who is looking to gradually replace an existing website with a new website.

They will replace the homepage, then a section, then another section, and so on, until the new site is complete.

All new pages will sit on a temporary subdomain.

So, for example, the URL for the homepage at the moment is www.domain.com, but as soon as the new homepage is ready, that will be launched on a temporary URL / subdomain - www2.domain.com - replacing the old homepage.

The new pages will then gradually increase on www2.domain.com (so journeys will inevitably move across domains) until the whole of the new website is ready on www2.domain.com - at which point it will move on to www.domain.com.

I know this isn’t a good way of doing things - I would much prefer the new site is completely built and then it just replaces the old site with the necessary 301 redirects in place - but the company wants to see the gradual roll out of new page designs.

So, my question is, what’s the best way to manage this without negatively impacting rankings for the existing domain (www.domain.com)?