Website Transfer

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  mrecheese · Member · Apr 13, 2019 at 9:08 pm

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  I’m tasked with renovating a website for a painting company. The site builder on the current platform (Homestead) is not very useful and I’m looking to get it moved to WP.

  The site will hopefully look (approx) the same as it looks under current host / platform. How will a hosting transfer effect the current page-rank of the site?

  After the site is transferred to WP I can build the ‘New’ website in a hidden directory and make the ‘swap’ all at once when it looks they way the owner wants. What’s the best way to have the website ‘re-crawled’ by the search engines(?) and is that the most efficient way to handle the swap?

  I would greatly prefer that the page-rank remain where it is during the build of the new pages. I will be setting up the proper SEO in the new site as it’s being built, but after I change the 10 or so pages for the new updated site how long might it take for the ‘updated’ page rank to take effect? I don’t the crawlers or algorithms to think this new website is a shell or spoof of the original.

  Any advice would be great. Im already planning the new pages btu I need help getting the site transferred from Homestead to WP first w/o affecting page-rank.

  Thanks
  Mr.E

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  supernovia · Staff · Apr 15, 2019 at 4:38 pm

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  Hi Mr.E,

  How will a hosting transfer effect the current page-rank of the site?

  I can’t say for sure on that. I can say, though, you’ll want to keep the page names and structure as much like the old site as possible. If you had /about/contact on the old site, make sure you create a page called about, and put contact in as a child page on the new site, for example. If you’ll do that and keep the content the same, and redirect the old site to the new one, I would guess you would do as well if not better.

  After the site is transferred to WP I can build the ‘New’ website in a hidden directory and make the ‘swap’ all at once when it looks they way the owner wants.

  I’m not sure I understand this part — are you hoping to make the site in WordPress, and then create another new version of it in WordPress? Please clarify and we’ll try to help you find the best options.

  What’s the best way to have the website ‘re-crawled’ by the search engines(?)

  You can connect webmaster tools, and those tools will help you get the site crawled.

  and is that the most efficient way to handle the swap?

  Honestly, if I were doing this project, I would move the content over to a plain looking site first (again, keeping the page structure and content as similar as possible) and then work on the design so it looks the way you want it. And then I’d point the domain here after the design is done, rather than trying to duplicate the existing design with WordPress and then remake it.

  after I change the 10 or so pages for the new updated site how long might it take for the ‘updated’ page rank to take effect?

  I really couldn’t say. But you’ll be able to see it in webmaster tools.

  I don’t the crawlers or algorithms to think this new website is a shell or spoof of the original.

  Understood; be sure the old and new site are not being crawled at the same time, and you should be fine.

  Again, my best tip for keeping the existing rank: avoid the temptation to shake up the page structure or strip out a bunch of content — I’ve seen many designers do that to make the new site look cleaner, and it can be pretty rough on SEO. Keep the structure and content as is, let the search engines get used to that, and then if you want to optimize further you can do that after you’ve established the new baseline.

  Does that make sense?