Q & A: Managing legacy content

Every week we take Internet marketing questions from friends, acquaintances and client business partners and unravel them at the end of these enewsletters. Is there something you would like to know about the weirdly wonderful world of websites? Ask us here and we shall answer.

Q: What should we do with all of our old pages when we launch our redesigned website?

Short Answer: Always back it up and map your legacy content to new locations.

Long Answer:

Don't be afraid to change

Generally speaking, don't let concerns about old pages postpone your decision to redesign. Not sure if that was the basis of your question but often we encounter site owners who truly want (or need) to redesign/redevelop but are obviously frightened and hesitant, worried that a sophisticated new web worker will simply toss their old site out, scoffing all the way as "Error 404 Page Not Found" flashes in their night terrors. But as long as you communicate with the designer/developer before work starts, data loss can and should be avoided.

But don't forget to .zip up and map up

On the other hand, some people could care less what happens to their old content. They think a new site is a new site and, "Why sweat copy about old products or goofy stock images?" The problem is other sites could have linked to any number of those old pages, Google's pumping in thousands of visitors to those soon-to-be-defunct URLs and it's quite likely your designer's new file structure won't match up any of the pages some of your oldest fans have bookmarked.

Luckily, the solution is relatively easy. Think of your old pages not as "old" pages and individual files but "legacy content." The odds are, even if your site isn't an SEO gold mine, you're probably going to want to revisit at least a few of those images or staff bios and, of course, you never want to pull the rug out from under Google. All you have to do is, again, backup data first and establish URL redirections before you re-launch the new site.

Server redirects do all the hard work

For permanent redirections, you'll want to use "301 redirects" to point requests for each of your old pages to various new locations. Google and the other search engines recognize 301 redirects as legitimate such that Google should pass "page rank" for the page www.example.com/bigredmonsters.html to www.example.com/big-red-monsters.php just as requests from bookmarks and links from other sites will resolve seamlessly when the user clicks.

URL mapping is generally pretty simple. One can usually create a set of rules that will handle multiple pages by naming scheme. In other situations, however, a big ole cup of coffee and maybe a few peanut butter cookies will be required to cut and paste the day away.

Other redesign concerns? Porting legacy programming to a new platform? Redesign Nightmare #2 -- Domain Name Servers Boogaloo? Contact Congruent Media and we'll consult you on your bright and sunny transition options.