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30 August 2008 14:25pm
I think google see this like spam
online marketing at strategies
03 September 2008 15:44pm
On 09:52:38 11 August 2008 Ashley wrote:
Sometime around the end of September, or early October, E-consultancy.com (this site) is due to relaunch
</snip>
Hi Ashley,
I've just been through this exact process on my site, which sells phone systems for telefonix. These were the lessons.
1) 301 all your strongest pages over using the site:www.e-consultancy.com/* command. Appending the query with /* tells you which pages matter most.
2) Keep an eye on 404s afterwards and 301 them in too. Use regular expressions in .htaccess to deal with bulk sections that don't seem to have a new equivalent.
3) I found it very valuable to add performance improvements on the new site. For example I notice that you have a whopping 12 external js files and 5 external CSS files. By combining the CSS into one and minifying the js you'll zip your site up no end, which will help with the SEO (in a roundabout way)
4) I ultimately found that my site's overall SEO outperformed the old site by a considerable margin. Whilst we saw the SEO gains immediately (traffic jumped threefold overnight once the new site was in dexed), the 404s started dropping off after about a month. So it's a month of keeping on top of log reports on a daily basis and 301'ing stuff in that maybe you'd forgotten about.
5) Good luck, it's a nervous time but you should be fine :)
CEO at Econsultancy
03 September 2008 16:28pm
That's great. Thanks.
SEO Manager at Mediavest
06 September 2008 10:35am
Out of interest Ashley - whats the rationale behind the states hosting???
CEO at Econsultancy
07 September 2008 07:12am
More than 50% of our members, and more of our site traffic, is non UK already, and a lot of those are in the U.S. We are also going to be doing more in the U.S. next year.
So from a strategic point of view we'd see ourselves as an increasingly global business, with more U.S. activities, so it makes sense to host there.
Of course it is also much cheaper there, certainly at current exchange rates, and you can get better levels of expertise in the hosting of Ruby on Rails sites (which is the platform for our new site).
Ashley
Technical Architect at Willis Group Services Ltd
08 September 2008 09:37am
Just a quick comment, have you thought about the implications of storing UK data outside the EU and how this affects your curent subscribers and also the existing data which has already been captured.
Just be careful around this point, its what Amazon started up S3 storage just for the EU as a lot of customers could not store the data in the states.
Write back if you need any more information.
Shane
www.punkyduck.com
CEO at Econsultancy
08 September 2008 09:49am
Hi Shane
Yes, it is something we have looked at and the short answer is that to store/move customer from the UK to the US will require us to get all existing users to explicitly agree to new terms and conditions which state this.
To do this we'll need to get anyone with an account / log-in (i.e. stored personal data) to re-agree before we can let them use the new site. This is a bit of a pain but what we need to do. It might actually help us clean the data at the same time though.
Ashley
Technical Architect at Willis Group Services Ltd
08 September 2008 10:01am
Hi Ashley
Thats good its been thought through, a lot of companies dont always think about these issues.
I agree with the datacleansing concept however I think you still may loose out on traffic through this process.
Are you going to change your T&C's and go through this process well in advance of changing the hosts ? As obviously you cant change hosts and move data before people have agreed.
Also how does this affect your forums and other areas of the site (e.g. Supplier Directory, jobs etc), if people have not agreed to the T&C's, are you going to delete all there posts ? What happened if they started the thread, are you going to delete the entire thread ?
Good luck on the move.
Shane
CEO at Econsultancy
08 September 2008 10:13am
Hi Shane
Our current agreement states "If we are going to use your personally identifiable information in a manner different from that stated at the time of collection we will notify you via email, prior to making such changes".
So I'm assuming we'll a) email people to tell them of the changes and, yes, delete anything/anyone who says 'no thanks' b) make the move c) get people to explicitly re-agree to use the new site.
Ashley
Director at Watson Hall Ltd
08 September 2008 10:26am
Ashley
"a) email people to tell them of the changes and, yes, delete anything/anyone who says 'no thanks'"
will need to be:
"a) email people to tell them of the changes and, yes, delete anything/anyone who says 'no thanks' or from whom we do not receive a reply"
since they agreed to the current terms and conditions, which stated what data you collect, why you collect it and how you will use it. You should ensure you receive suitable legal advice on this.
Colin Watson
Technical Director
Watson Hall Ltd for website security