Installing new copy of WP and then "flipping the switch" – will this affect SEO?

  • Hello!

    I have a WP site that I want to keep accessible to visitors while I install a fresh WP installation in a subfolder (https://mysite.com/newsite) and work on a new design. I will be recreating all the same pages that I have on my current site on my new site, with the same permalinks and everything…so the page on the current site with URL https://mysite.com/about-us will be recreated (with a new design) at https://mysite.com/newsite/about-us.

    I will then be following the instructions under the “Using a pre-existing subdirectory install” heading at
    https://codex.www.ads-software.com/Giving_WordPress_Its_Own_Directory to “flip the switch” so that anyone going to https://mysite.com will start seeing the new and improved site at https://mysite.com/newsite (but without the “newsite” in the URLs). My understanding is that once I’ve done this, anyone going to https://mysite.com/about-us will automatically be taken to the NEW “about us” page that actually resides within the new WP installation, in the subfolder – but that the URL displaying at the top of the browser will be https://mysite.com/about-us.

    My question, then, is this: will doing all this have any effect on my SEO for my posts and pages? Or, in other words, if my old “about us” page ranked well in Google for my desired keywords, will the new “about us” page have the exact same rankings and SEO juice, despite the fact that it now “lives” within a different WordPress installation (albeit on the same domain)?

    Thanks so much!

Viewing 5 replies - 1 through 5 (of 5 total)

  • If your WordPress website is staying in a directory then you must perform 301 redirects and it shouldn’t effect your rankings or SEO juice.

    Whilst you are developing the new site with the existing one you will have to set your Privacy settings on the new website to block search engines or otherwise it will be considered duplicate content and that will harm your rankings.

    Once your site is live, update your sitemap and resubmit it and at the same time allow search engines to index your new site.

    Thread Starter amanda81

    (@amanda81)

    Thanks for the quick response!

    Just so I’m sure I understand, are you saying that I will need to set up 301 redirects from the old pages (e.g. mysite.com/about-us) to the new pages (mysite.com/newsite/about-us)?

    Would you recommend that I use the Redirection plugin to do that?

    Thanks again!

    I have just done similar and have used that same plugin and it’s easy to use. You only need to do it when your site has gone live so that people are redirected to your new web pages if they have bookmarked them.

    Amanda I have got the first bit wrong you won’t have to perform redirects as everything will be the same when you apply ‘flip the switch’. That will take care of the sub directory.

    When you Flip the switch then mysite.com/newsite/about-us will become mysite.com/about-us anyway so really nothing will change.

    When you are ready to go live with the New site, you would probably have to remove the old WordPress files from the root. You are going to replace two of them anyway when you ‘Flip the Switch’.

    Whilst developing the new site you would still need to block search engines from indexing it by using robots.txt or using the Privacy settings to block them.

    I hope this makes sense…

    Thread Starter amanda81

    (@amanda81)

    It does! Thank you!

    So just to confirm, the entire process that I have just described should not affect SEO negatively, because the URLs for the pages will remain the same, even after I flip the switch so that the new pages are what display when someone goes to the old URLs?

    But I should consider deleting the old WP files so that there is no duplicate content floating around out there once both versions of the site are effectively “live”?

Viewing 5 replies - 1 through 5 (of 5 total)
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