The SEO Guide to Migrate International Websites #IntSSBCN

#internationalmigrations at #IntSSBCN by @aleyda from @orainti
The SEO Guide to Migrate
International Websites

Migrations can be painful

Without proper SEO support Web migrations  
in general can have painful trafﬁc consequences
BEFORE AFTER

With proper SEO support Web migrations in general
can provide trafﬁc growth opportunities…

… but will require what can be considered a painfully
detailed validation through the migration process
Pages Crawlability (HTTP Status, Robots.txt)
Content Indexability (Canonicalization, meta robots)
301-Redirects
SSL CertificatePages Content Relevance
Pages Internal linking
Pages Speed
x.com/old y.com/new
Home Page
Category Page
Sub-Category Page
Product Page
Main Blog Page
Blog Category Page
Blog post
For Each Page
Verify
XML Sitemaps
GSC Configuration

It’s painful no matter what

Migrations will increase in complexity based on the
required level of change depending on their type & goal
Different URLs,
Same Domain
Different Protocol,  
Same Domain
Different Domain Name,
Same Type
Same URL
Redesign or CMS
migration while
keeping URL
structure
HTTPS Swaps
Product rebranding,
area renaming or
structural content
changes
Company
rebranding,
acquisition or Web
consolidation
Internal expansion
or consolidation
Different Domain
Name and Type

International Web migrations are those w/ a higher
complexity due to more areas & factors to be changed
Geolocalization
signals of Web
property
Geolocated  
Link Popularity
Relevance
towards localized
search behavior
Internal expansion
or consolidation
Different Domain
Name and Type

They can end-up with painful trafﬁc consequences  
if these factors are not taken into consideration
ccTLD gTLD

It’s critical to make sure that you’re in an scenario that
requires an international migration to achieve your goal
To start targeting
international audiences
To decrease technical
complexity and management
To consolidate
international versions
1 2 3

Since they’re not trivial to implement, their expected
goal should be aligned and relevant to achieve

Especially if it’s to
expand your
international Web
presence in competitive
markets

It’s then also fundamental to assess and take into
consideration each scenario characteristics & changes
To start targeting
.com/uk/.co.uk
.com/uk/.co.uk
.com/us/
.com/fr/
.com/it/.it
.com/fr/.fr
To consolidate
.com/es/.es
.com/es/.mx
.com/es/.ar
1 2 3

The 1st scenario
happens when
the already
existing market
is targeted with
a ccTLD that
can’t be reused
to launch
another one
Don’t

Option B
.co.uk
.com/us/
.com/fr/
Option A
.co.uk
.com
.fr
Option C
.com/uk/.co.uk
.com/us/
.com/fr/
This scenario has its own speciﬁc alternatives too 
To start targeting international audiences
1

Option A
.co.uk
.com
.fr
Avoiding the migration of the current site while
releasing independent domains for each new market
* Better to not lose current market status by avoid migrating the used ccTLD
* Better for higher geolocation by using ccTLDs for new markets
* Worse to grow overall link popularity faster with independent properties
* Not recommended when starting in competitive markets where having an
established link proﬁle will be a higher advantage than using a ccTLD with no links
1

1
Avoiding the migration of the current site while
enabling a single gTLD w/ subdirectories
* Will also avoid losing any current market status by keeping the existing ccTLD
* Better to grow overall link popularity faster by starting to use a single gTLD with
geolocated subdirectories for additional markets
* Not recommended either when starting in competitive markets where having an
established link proﬁle will be a higher advantage than using a ccTLD with no links
.co.uk
.com/us/
.com/fr/
Option B

1
Or migrating the current site to a gTLD to consolidate
all of the international versions
.com/uk/.co.uk
.com/us/
.com/fr/
Option C
* Will migrate the current ccTLD to a geolocalized subdirectory in a gTLD, so
might lose rankings for the current market in the short term
* Better to grow overall link popularity faster by starting to use a single
gTLD with geolocated subdirectories for all markets
* Recommended when starting in more competitive markets where having an
established link proﬁle will be a higher advantage than using a ccTLD with
no links

Another scenario
happens when
lowering costs
and management
with a single
geolocalized
gTLD instead of
dozens of ccTLDs

Or when you identify
that the value of
targeting different
countries doesn’t
compensate as user
behavior is very similar
and you could instead
just target the
language

To start targeting
.com/uk/.co.uk
.com/uk/.co.uk
.com/us/
.com/fr/
.com/it/.it
.com/fr/.fr
To consolidate
.com/es/.es
.com/es/.mx
.com/es/.ar
1 2 3
Verify then ﬁrst you’re in these or similar scenarios that
could be beneﬁted by an international migration

#internationalmigrations at #IntSSBCN by @aleyda from @orainti#internationalmigrations at #IntSSBCN by @aleyda from @orainti#internationalmigrations at #IntSSBCN by @aleyda from @orainti
Besides the criteria for
each scenario is also key
to take further
international SEO
factors into
consideration…

The pros & cons of the international Web structure to be
replaced and the one to be used in each context
Yes
Country Language
Are your top
competitors
using ccTLDs?
Yes
Yes
USE
CCTLDS
No
No
USE GEOLOCALIZED
SUBDIRECTORIES
YesNo
USE
SUBDIRECTORIES
USE SUB-
DOMAINS
No
WHAT’S YOUR INTERNATIONAL TARGET?
Is the domain
authority of your
competition
higher?
Is the domain
authority of your
competition
higher?
Do you need
a ﬂatter &
differentiated
structure?

The role of the Web structure geolocation and local link
popularity in target markets to be competitive
serpchecker.com

The country and language source and destination of your
existing links vs. your competitors in each target market
Cognitiveseo

The content to be kept & changed based on relevance  
& localization for the old vs. new audience behavior

The different
geolocation signals
used by Google
that you should
also include and/or
modify
https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/182192?hl=en&ref_topic=2370587

#internationalmigrations at #IntSSBCN by @aleyda from @oraintihttps://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/182192?hl=en&ref_topic=2370587
The conﬁgurations
Google doesn’t
ofﬁcially use and
you should also be
aware of

… and how Google
crawls
internationally, to
avoid unnecessary
blockage, redirects
or unsupported
conﬁgurations
https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/6144055?hl=en&ref_topic=2370587

All this will drive and prioritize the conﬁguration and
validation in the international Web migration process
301-Redirects
SSL Certificate
Pages Content Relevance
Pages Speed
x.co.uk/ y.com/uk/
Home Page
Category Page
Sub-Category Page
Product Page
Main Blog Page
Blog Category Page
Blog post
For Each Page
Verify
XML Sitemaps
GSC Configuration
Old vs. New Geolocation (GSC, hreflang)
Old vs. New content localization
Old vs. New link popularity for target market

Without forgetting to identify any SEO aspects to both
keep and improve when doing the migration
Old New
Thin, Duplicate Content
Slow Speed
Hierarchical Navigation
Relevant Titles
Page specific, expanded Content
Fast Speed
Hierarchical Navigation
Relevant Titles
To Keep
To Improve
301-Redirects

How to do this easily?

Crawl all the affected URLs and  
gather their SEO metrics to analyze
Deepcrawl

Identify orphaned pages, to avoid missing any  
important URLs that you need to migrate
Deepcrawl

Obtain the trafﬁc and ranked queries for  
which these pages are ranking
URLProﬁler

So you can easily consolidate all the information of the
top pages to be prioritised in the Web migration
Top Pages Technical Configuration Relevance Popularity Traffic Ranked Queries

To assess well if they should be kept or not, and where
they should be 301-redirected in the new location

Establishing what to keep or to improve in the technical,
content and geolocation status of the old vs new URLs
Old Pages Titles, Descriptions & H1s New Pages Titles, Descriptions & H1s

As well as deﬁning pages that might need to be created
to keep certain rankings based on the scenario
Old Pages
New Pages
Legacy Pages
Old Localized
Queries
Transactional
Queries and
New Localized
Queries
Transactional
Queries and
Old Localized
Queries

Once the changes are deﬁned, release them  
to validate in a closed test environment
Deepcrawl, Sitbulb, Screaming Frog, Ryte, Botify, OnCrawl

Validate the changes by manually comparing ﬁrst the  
top old vs. new types of pages in the test environment
301-Redirects
SSL Certificate
Pages Speed
test.x.co.uk/ test.y.com/uk/
Home Page
Category Page
Sub-Category Page
Product Page
Main Blog Page
Blog Category Page
Blog post
For Each Page
Verify
XML Sitemaps
GSC Configuration

List crawl the old URLs to check if the 301-redirects have
been set as speciﬁed & go to the relevant new locations

Do a full audit of the new Web destination in test to
check if the pages are completely optimised as expected

Pay specific attention here to the canonicalization and
hreflang annotations configuration

Remember to set analytics & search console for the new
international properties before releasing too

Once that is all set you’re ready to launch  
and test again on the live sites

Prioritise to ﬁx high-trafﬁc pages w/ 301-redirects going
to wrong or non-indexable pages and redirects chains

Crawl the new web location and make sure is not only
accessible but optimised as recommended

Look for pages that are blocked, no-indexed, linking,
canonicalising or referring in hreﬂang tags to old URLs

Once ﬁxed, you
can submit your
new URLs  
& XML sitemaps
to be re-crawled

For domains level migrations, submit it too through  
the Google’s change of address option

Use a Web monitoring service to send alerts if there are
changes in the new pages SEO related conﬁgurations
Little Warden, ContentKing

Use the new Search Console “Index Coverage” to
monitor the new vs. old indexing URLs evolution

Monitor & compare the new vs. old locations main
ranked queries & pages, as well as SERP features
Little Warden, ContentKing
Last 28 Days
15 Days Before and After the Migration
new website locationold website location

Check the trend of your top queries for the target
markets, organising them in groups to facilitate analysis
SEOmonitor

Track your old & new sites vs. your competitors to check
your visibility share before and after the migration
SEOmonitor

If for some reason the evolution is not the expected one,
identify the non-performing pages to audit them again
SEOmonitor
New site has not completely regained top 3 rankings
Searchmetrics

It’s about aligning SEO through the international
migration while focusing to achieve the expected goal
301-Redirects
SSL Certificate
Pages Speed
x.co.uk/ y.com/uk/
Home Page
Category Page
Sub-Category Page
Product Page
Main Blog Page
Blog Category Page
Blog post
For Each Page
Verify
XML Sitemaps
GSC Configuration

It’s a lot. Yeah…

But by following these steps you can effectively migrate
your international Websites towards growth
ccTLD gTLD

*SEO Consultant & Founder at Orainti
*SEO Speaker at +100 Events in +20 countries
*Author “SEO. Las Claves Esenciales.”
*Blogger in Search Engine Land & Search Engine Journal
*Featured in Forbes, Entrepreneur, Hufﬁngton Post
*European Search Personality of the Year in 2018
Thanks 

The SEO Guide to Migrate International Websites #IntSSBCN

Recommandé

Recommandé

Contenu connexe

Plus de Aleyda Solís

Plus de Aleyda Solís (20)

Dernier

Dernier (20)

The SEO Guide to Migrate International Websites #IntSSBCN