Tale of two refractors
Kathy Brown
Previsible
- Part 1SEO News you might have missed
- Part 2 Tale of two refractors
Show Notes
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01:09Understanding refactors in SEORefactors refer to migrations or changes in the underlying codebase of a website without visible alterations to URLs or content. These changes can significantly impact SEO performance, highlighting the need for attention and monitoring.
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03:18Refactoring and its impact on SEOIn two instances involving refactoring efforts, outcomes varied significantly. One resulted in a 20-30% traffic loss, while the other gained 10%. The latter included SEO enhancements, underscoring the importance of addressing SEO impacts during codebase changes.
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09:30Googles reevaluation of pages after codebase changesAfter a second attempt of the first refactor, with updated content and a rearchitected codebase, traffic loss is only 5%. This indicates that the codebase migration might have triggered a reevaluation process that required positive signals to mitigate traffic loss.
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19:38Seizing opportunities in refactoring for SEO enhancementsRefactoring presents an opportunity to introduce SEO improvements that were previously difficult to get fixed. However, monitor changes to ensure that refactoring doesn't introduce unintended negative consequences for SEO, and the site can maintain its previous functionality.
Quotes
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"If you do a refactor, even if nothing visibly has changed, the underlying code differences can impact SEO, so you need to pay attention.." - Kathy Brown
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"If you're refactoring, introduce fixes to things that may be impacting SEO. That way, when Google crawls the new code, beneficial improvements will be present." - Kathy Brown
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"Google's like a cranky old man. Changes upset him. It takes time for him to adjust. On small sites, traffic can return in a week after migration. On larger ones, it might take four to six weeks." - Kathy Brown
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"Just because nothing visibly changed in a refactor, that doesn't mean you can't have something worse than what you had before. You need to be diligent to make sure that's not happening." - Kathy Brown
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"If someone's doing a refactor, and you've done your outreach, you might be able to get some stuff fixed that was tough to get fixed before." - Kathy Brown
- Part 1SEO News you might have missed
- Part 2 Tale of two refractors
Up Next:
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Part 1SEO News you might have missed
Kathy Brown, Owner and SEO Consultant at WebEnso and Expert in Residence at Previsible.io, delves into SEO news. The past few months have been a whirlwind in SEO, with major algorithm updates like the "helpful content update" and the "product review update" taking center stage. Changes like feature additions and removals within Search Console are of equal importance to the SEO community but have mostly flown under the radar. Today, Kathy discusses SEO news you might have missed.
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Part 2Tale of two refractors
Kathy Brown, Owner and SEO Consultant at WebEnso and Expert in Residence at Previsible.io, delves into refactoring’s impact on SEO. While website migrations often raise SEO concerns due to URL changes and design overhauls, there's another potential SEO hurdle that can be easy to overlook: refactoring. Though only the codebase is altered in this instance, without accompanying SEO enhancements, this can lead to dramatic dips in traffic. Today, Kathy discusses the tale of two refactors.
