Hi 

In our project we have focused on new website structures (for schools and units moving to the corporate CMS) that reflect the needs of the end user, and haven't look to maintain any existing URLs or old structures (which in the main have evolved over time without a lot of strategic planning). 

When we implement redirects to catch old URLs and point at new ones generated through our CMS, we put plans in place to gradually wind them down over time so that eventually all pages within a sub domain will get caught and pointed to a single page.

As sites have switched over, we've not noticed significant dips in search engine performance. Indeed as the new sites are indexed I'd say they're probably doing better than the old ones (although as I'm not the business owner for any of them I couldn't say for definite) as the content and the URLs are better structured. Our web writing training also covers a little SEO so more staff editing pages are aware of the value of well written, concise content.

The only other thing we do post launch is submit new site URLs to Google, and ensure that key pages (departments list, prospectus entries, school & college pages) point to the new URLs and don't rely on the redirects.

So for us, this process hasn't been much about technical fixes; more about improving staff skills, honing website content and improving communication between site managers.


N

Neil Allison

University Website Project
The University of Edinburgh
0131 650 9513 

Keep up to date with the Project:
www.ed.ac.uk/website-project




The University of Edinburgh is a charitable body, registered in Scotland, with registration number SC005336.

-----Original Message-----
From: Information Sharing List for Scottish Web Folk [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Robert Morrison
Sent: 07 May 2010 11:47
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Your thoughts on server migration and information architecture?

Hi Scottish Web Folk,

We are planning the migration of our main website from PHP/HTML over to our CMS, and it seems like an opportunity to review the information architecture. Coming from an SEO background I'm worried about maintaining the same URLs, but I'd also like to reorganise the information for maximum usability. With the CMS the web paths can be de-coupled from the navigation - we can easily move a page from section to section but keep the old URL - which might be good for Google, but potentially confusing to the users. Should we just 301 Redirect everything? Aside from the migration issue, what's your experience of /strategy for reorganising large hierarchies of web pages?

Cheers,
Robert Morrison
Web Developer
External Relations
University of Stirling FK9 4LA
T: +44 (0)1786 467764
E: [log in to unmask]
W: www.stir.ac.uk

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