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I know the absolute obvious answer to this, but for a website relaunch & migration to a new eCommerce platform, the owner and a third party are ADAMENT about running the new website and the old website simultaneously, live online, for customers to use either site. Please confirm this is dumb.
I was in charge of the website rebuild & relaunch. We’re migrating platforms for an eCommerce business to a much more modern platform. I’ve been doing SEO 10+ years, know how to rank, know the best practices, know how to do all the redirects and all that tech shit to make sure we retain as much of our current rankings as possible. I know what needs to be done to make the migration + relaunch work.
Owner wasn’t pleased how long it was taking to get the website launched. Apparently 6 months for a complete redesign and relaunch with all products being rebuilt by hand is too much time for a website that will clear $6 million this year.
Brings in third party who knows enough to make it seems like he knows what he’s talking, but is obviously just bullshitting.
His suggestion is to run both websites, the new website and the old website, simultaneously. At the same time. Two domains. For at least a year.
I know how absolutely stupid this is. I know the issues with domain age, duplicate content, no 301s from old site to new site, split analytics, having to market two different website URLs to our customer base.
But they don’t.
Can y’all please confirm how absolutely stupid this is?
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12 Replies
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This is stupid.
So, I’ll give you a real world story that happened to me personally.
The B2B company I word for bought another company that fits it perfectly and expands the product line and capabilities. This company they bought also had a B2C side to it. So that’s 3 sites.
I was brought in to market both companies separately, update and maintain 3 sites, perform digital and traditional marketing to both b2b and b2c, social media, marketing planning and execution, ad buying and spending…the whole nine yards. (btw, I need to get a raise).
So, one thing I was told to do was to integrate all the information of the 3 sites across ALL 3 sites. So in theory, all three sites having duplicate content “in case someone goes to one of the sites looking for something on another site”.
What happened is this, all the sites cannibalized each other and ratings tanked. This was within 6 months.
So since now everything was shit, I designed one new website, and pointed all of our URL’s to that site with a 301. After a year, I dropped all the URL’s except the brand URL.
What happened? All of my pages are on the first 3 google results pages, my branded terms are all first page.
But let’s talk repercussions outside of the website and digital realm. On e of the biggest issues was that everyone in the company had a different email address. It was either @/yyy.com or at @/zzz.com or @/rrrr.com. This confused clients as they went and made an order a xyz and gets a response from an email that’s [abc.com](https://abc.com). We lost sales due to that. Google didn’t know what to do with that.
Making it as simple as possible and a straight line to get from a-z is what won for us. Not only in Google’s eyes but also in the client’s. After our mistakes, it took well over a year to get in the black again and regain what we lost. It all could have been avoided.
Your plan is sound and is the correct path. Finish the site, fire the third party guy because he’s scamming the company out of money, and get on to the next project.
Bosses are bosses, but they need to know their place and trust their employees. They need to be able to admit to themselves they know jack shit about this (and even less by hiring a 3rd party). If they can’t trust you, then go to another company that does value you.
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Beyond stupid…..definitely in the self sabotage realm. And whoever suggested it will screw up a ton more if they are that ignorant.
Takes years to build an online presence. Takes one moron to make it all disappear.
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You know this, so I don’t need to spell it out for you. I will just give you my two cents:
This is stupid.
This is dumb.
The client’s SEO will be negatively affected and they will confuse and piss off their users.
I do migrations all the time. If someone came in and told the client that what I’d said was wrong and to run both sites at the same time, the guy would end up on his ass. What’s this guy’s credentials? Why is he involved in the project?
6 months is NOTHING for a site redesign (as I’m sure you well know.)
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Wow is that stupid
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Very.
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Worst. Decision. Ever.
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Everyone one is saying stupid idea but no one is giving you a reason why so here it is:
Chances are pretty good that Google will figure out that the sites are related, especially consider the content is probably mostly identical. Therefore Google will likely pick and choose pages from both sites to use in index while ignoring others that are obviously the same. The thing is, you won’t know, or have any say in which pages G chooses to index.
So what will happen for SEARCHERS is that they will see 1 or the other site when they search. It will depend on what page Google considers most relevant to the searcher.
So imagine this from the searcher POV. Brand new customer, never shopped with you before.
Let’s say they search, find a page from the new site, click and convert.
Now let’s say same customer comes back a week later, searches, finds a page from OLD site, clicks through.
They are confused – it looks right – looks like the same company from last week but this site looks old and dated. Now they’re very confused. Do they trust the second site? Maybe the screwed up and the first site was the wrong site?
That’s the way I see it. It’ll be really confusing for site users ultimately ending in lower conversions.
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Confirming this is dumb.
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Fuckin Dumb
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It’s completely **not** stupid, but for business reasons, not SEO reasons.
They don’t trust that the site you built won’t turn into a giant steaming pile of brown stuff at some unexpected moment, and want to have an easy fallback.
Also, while this is nothing personal and I don’t know you or the business or the site you’re talking about, new roll-outs have a terrible track record and it’s entirely possible there will be big problems.
A year is too long, but a month or two is completely reasonable.
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I don’t know why everyone is sugar coating it, the guy who made that suggestion is a hack and a fucking moron.
This Is bad on so many levels it’s ridiculous. It’s bad for seo, bad for the user experience, and google is going to hate it.
I would not hold back telling the boss how stupid this is. If they go through with it it’s going to cost the company hundreds of thousands of dollars minimum.
I would also show the boss the answers you’re getting on this post.
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Yep. Dumb.
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