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Tag: CMS

  • Locale Adaptive Web-pages now Get Support from Google

    Google recently introduced the Googlebot Crawl configurations for local-aware pages and provided insights on how locale adaptive web pages are crawled and indexed.

    What are Locale-Adaptive pages?

    Web-pages which dynamically change content depending on the user’s origin country or language settings are called locale-adaptive pages.

    Barry Schwartz says Google will now be able to handle such content by sending Googlebot from different IPs across the world, as well as let it set language settings.

    Google will use two methods of crawling and indexing:

    1. Geo-distributed crawling: When Googlebot uses IP addresses coming from outside the USA in addition to the current IP addresses Googlebot uses that appear to be from the USA.
    2. Language-dependent crawling: When Googlebot starts to crawl with an Accept-Language HTTP header in the request.

    It is important to understand how Googlebot currently recognizes whether a website has locale-specific content and  uses different crawl settings.

    There are 3 approaches:

    1. Serving different content on the same URL—based on the user’s perceived country (geolocation)
    2. Serving different content on the same URL—based on the Accept-Language field set by the user’s browser in the HTTP request header
    3. Completely blocking access to requests from specific countries

    This update from Google solves the problem that Google crawlers have understanding sites that have utilized locale-adaptive techniques. On Webmaster support Google said that “new crawling configurations are enabled automatically for pages we detect to be locale-adaptive, you may notice changes in how we crawl and show your site in Google search results without you altering your CMS or server settings”.

    What does this mean to Webmasters?

    • Usage of different URLs or TLDs is important for sites having content specific for different countries or languages.
    • Usage of ‘rel=”alternate” hreflang’ annotations with separate URLs needs to be continued
    • Verification of Googlebot geo-distributed crawls can be done using reverse DNS lookup
    • Robot exclusion protocol needs to be consistent across the site; robots meta-tags and the robots.txt file should specify the same directives in each locale.

    Conclusion

    With the latest announcement by Google on support to locale-specific pages, it now becomes easier to get these dynamically changing content pages indexed on Search.

    Be ready to witness changes in crawl rates and appearances of web-pages on SERP’s over the next few weeks. Contact Position² to deploy locale-adaptive techniques for your website now!

  • Website Migration Blueprint – A 4 Step Checklist

    A Content Management System (CMS) makes life easier for organizations that have repetitive or standardized content. Nothing is constant. So, there will be a time when you realize that your CMS is not doing as much as you want it to or is not as flexible as you want it to be. Many companies begin looking for a smarter CMS than what they had started out with. Another important reason these days is the need for CMS that publishes both to web and mobile simultaneously.

    But migrating your website from one CMS to another isn’t an easy task…it requires organized planning and execution.

    Also, every CMS has its own unique features. Though they may share some common ones, each CMS will have exclusive features. For instance, you have chosen CMS ‘A’ based on a set of specific criteria. So, when you are migrating to CMS ‘B’, you need to check if all your criteria are being met and also look out for common and unique features.

    Blueprint

    You need to make sure the following tasks are completed in the process of your website’s migration:

    Step I – Content Audit

    A website’s content makes it what it is. The content audit phase is a great opportunity to take a good, hard look at the content on display. Excellent website navigation and structure should be coupled with relevant and captivating content. List out all your current pages and number them. This will give you an idea about probable website size and help in site mapping. Also, list out your URL structure and map the old URLs to the new URL structure.

    Content removal is also an integral part of a content audit. Without a second thought, unnecessary content will have to go. Bigger is not better.

    Here are some perspectives on how to examine your content:

    • Identify what has changed in your company – some product lines may have been stopped, some people may have left the organization, etc.
    • All related content can be removed.
    • There often is some content that becomes repetitive/ irrelevant with the passage of time – eliminate it.
    • Some of your content may not have garnered you any traction, whether in terms of social reach or sales – see how you can make it more engaging and effective.
    • Some websites are like mansions – there will be areas that get overlooked. Pay attention to those website areas.
    • Some content may now be deviating from your company policy/tone of voice. Use this opportunity to remove or rewrite such content

    Another reason to remove content is change in your website structure. If you decide to not have certain tabs/pages in your new website, you will not need the content on those tabs/pages.

    Step II – Customize the new CMS

    The second step would be to tailor the new CMS to fit your current requirements. Customization involves installing the plug-ins you would need and adding the content you have left from the content audit.

    Step III – Re-direct URLs

    Once your content is added, you need to add 301 re-directs from your old URLs to the new ones. 301 redirect is a HTTP response status code that mentions that the page has moved permanently. Your old URLs will then be cached.

    You need to transfer all your properties from old URLs to the new ones. While structuring your new URLs, you need to be certain that they are identical to the old ones. Your aim should be to avoid those dreaded ‘Page not found’ 401 errors.

    Proper URL re-direction also helps search engines in associating authority signals to the new URLs. The new URLs will then rank well for the same keywords as the old URLs. If you don’t re-direct URLs right, the new URLs will be treated as new pages. You will need to start trying to rank the new URLs for keywords from scratch.

    Step IV – Build theme

    The fourth step would be to build the theme for the new website design. Pick your theme design based on aspects like:

    • Your industry
    • Brand colors, fonts and visual messaging
    • Visual appeal and practicality
    • Complexity and maintenance effort required

    This checklist offers only an overview of the steps that you need to follow for successful and error free website migration. The detailed framework you need to follow is much more elaborate…

    Have you migrated your website from one CMS to another? How has your experience been?

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