Hello,

I'm stuck with a design issue and need some direction.....

We are designing a new website for our business using WordPress. My old site is a bespoke design from a web design company.

What is the best way to be able to still use the little amount of SEO we have performed on the old site, and transfer it to the new site? The current site has about 50 or so web pages. Should I take each page and 301 it to the new web site?

I planned on using the same domain name (which is keyword rich for our market), but the more I think about it, the more I am realising my limited understanding of how this works.

What is the best way to handle this?

Thanks for the input!

-Dave

Forget about the "keyword rich" aspect and focus on the fact that it does already exist and has therefore built up some natural "trust/authority".
Permanent redirects do help to transfer some of that over BUT it takes several months for the "transfer" and it is not entirely a "lossless" transfer either.
Use the same domain name and apply redirects for individual pages where an equivalent exists in the new structure.
That way you do not lose the more important aspect of direct traffic.

Hey CC,

Thanks for the advice. The reason we are doing this is two-fold really. The first reason is that our old site was static and boring. The second is that our current webhost and designers are a bunch of knob heads.

With that being said....I am concerned that when I yank my domain from them and host my site elsewhere, will they play nice? How do I go about telling them I am leaving and what I am doing? Their customer service has been horrible.....that is what spurred this along.

Does the process of releasing my domain from one provider to another take a long time? We can't really afford to have the website down for an extended period of time.....I don't know how that works from their end!

Cheers,

Dave

Does the process of releasing my domain from one provider to another take a long time?

It takes us about 30 seconds to transfer in or out, but the whole process from retag request to release should take no more than a couple of hours

But it may take 96 hours for the DNS to propogate during which time the pages (ideally) need to be available on both server (though not essential) and there are ways of reducing the propogation time depending on how much control you have over the DNS for your site.

How do you leave them?
That depends!

Is the domain name registered to you rather than them and do you have the registrar logins?

Is the hosting in your name or theirs?

Hey CC,

The domains are registered in our name, but purchased through them. We do not have the registrar log ins. We have our hosting through them.

Which direction does that send us?

Thanks for taking the time to assist! I really appreciate it...

Cheers,

Dave

First things are to arrange new hosting and decide on who you are going to use as a registrar, it doesn't need to be the same company of course and it doesn't matter too much if it is.
Just as long as you are in control and not the designers.

How you plan to roll out your new site and design may have a bearing on the process order.
But the first step would be to change registrars, for this you need to ensure the domain is unlocked and you have the authorisation code (I'm assuming this is not a Nominet registration (.uk) as the process is slightly different.
Then your new registrar has to request a transfer (retag), this would be done automatically when you set up your account with them.
Leave the nameservers as they are so the hosting stays up. The domain administrative contact named in the 'Whois' should then get an email to authorise the release and retag. This is where the Auth Code is needed as you will get a URI of a form where you enter the email address and authorise code, once that is done the transfer will happen, usually it takes a few minutes but it could take a hour.

At this point if you can change the the DNS, set the TTL at 600 seconds (10min), the refresh at 3600s (1h) and expire at 432000s (12h)

Next step is to setup the new hosting with the new design of the site and any redirects that you need. When you are happy with this, change the nameservers at the registrar to the hew hosting nameservers.

Now you can cancel the original hosting, if you set the expire to twelve hours this can be done 25 hours after changing nameservers otherwise wait five days.

In an ideal world this process would be planned and staged over five - seven days to avoid any (apparent) downtime at all.

Hey CC,

Easy to read.....hard to understand, but I grasp the concept. This will be the first time I do this, so I am on edge.

My current designed seems like he knows what's up though. He is a former work mate, so I feel confident.

The URL is a .co.uk though...how much does that change the process?

Cheers,

Dave

Make it a little easier actually.

Nominet adopted a "push" policy of retagging AND you should be able to change registrars with no fuss at all.

The adminstrative email address on the domain should be able to login at https://secure.nominet.org.uk and manage the domain(s) on that account.

The process is done via releasing the domain and then "retagging" to the new registrar.

Tags are all in UPPERCASE, for example 1and1 are SCHLUND and we are REVITALISE (sneak a quick advert in there )

The advantage of dealing with Nominet directly is, provided you are the legal owner and named as such in the registration it's very difficult, if not impossible for dodgy hosting companies or unscrupulous developers to hold you to ransom over the domain name.

Originally Posted by chrishirst

The advantage of dealing with Nominet directly is, provided you are the legal owner and named as such in the registration it's very difficult, if not impossible for dodgy hosting companies or unscrupulous developers to hold you to ransom over the domain name.

That's what I am/was worried about. I wouldn't put it past these knob heads to drag their heals. If I can circumvent this, it helps a lot!

Thanks for he help!

-Dave

Is your site currently on Apache server? If so, make sure to 301 redirect to your new site in .htaccess

Once you've done Chris' recommendation, you need to notify Google of the address change http://www.google.com/support/webmas...y?answer=83106
Important: You must add your new site to your Webmaster Tools account and verify that you are the owner of both old and new sites in order to use the Change of Address tool

check for broken links (internal and external) - u can use Xenu

set preferred domain

submit a sitemap for new

Hey Shey,

Thanks for the advice....that's all new info to me. It's all been new!

Cheers,

Dave

Originally Posted by Shey

Is your site currently on Apache server? If so, make sure to 301 redirect to your new site in .htaccess

Once you've done Chris' recommendation, you need to notify Google of the address change http://www.google.com/support/webmas...y?answer=83106
Important: You must add your new site to your Webmaster Tools account and verify that you are the owner of both old and new sites in order to use the Change of Address tool

check for broken links (internal and external) - u can use Xenu

set preferred domain

submit a sitemap for new

Which is ok IF the domain name is changing, which is not the case here.