Migrating ecommerce platforms - Should I Change Page Titles?

[kellyC]

I am currently preparing the migration of my online store to another platform (completely new).

Right now I enjoy very good organic traffic despite some of the pages are a bit excessive w/ keyword stuffing.

In addition to cleaning the page titles, I am looking to edit/revise them. So...

My question is should I:

- Migrate site to new platform 1st before making changes to page titles

OR

- Review page titles and edit/revise all at once before migration

OR

- Leave the page titles alone b/c I am currently receive a lot of organic traffic

[tedster]

Will your urls change with the new platform? And if so, are you planning to use 301 redirects from the old urls to the new?

[kellyC]

Hi Tedster,

Yes, my URLs will definitely change with the new platform. I am moving away from a static HTML platform to JSP. I will be using URL rewriting so relevant keywords will still be in the URL.

Also, I am planning to 301 all my existing legacy URLs to the appropriate, most relevant page on the new platform.

[tedster]

Then I'd say you can safely change the titles at the same time as the new urls are launched - it may even be "safer" to do that than to start tweaking many titles after the new urls are indexed.

At least that's the way I've done it when re-developing an existing domain. The biggest challenge in search traffic comes from changing to new urls anyway -- so why not take on all the pain at once, you know?

[kellyC]

Haha, that is exactly my thinking too...

From my own experiences, Google hasn't been too happy when I tweaked Page Titles for pages that are already indexed, so I figured I'll just pull the trigger and one shot get it over with.

On a side note, do you know if there is a maximum number of 301 redirects (not technically, but good for SEO maximum number)? I have more than 15,000 pages indexed by Google and while not all these pages are important to my search traffic, I want to 301 as many as possible.

[Robert Charlton]

I'd only redirect the pages that have external inbounds, as shown by a combination of Yahoo and Google. Redirecting everything, in my experience, creates unnecessary complications.

[tedster]

I agree with Robert, that's what has worked best in my experience. But I also want to note that both Adam Lasnik and Matt Cutts at Google have advised otherwise. I don't really get that, except that they know webmasters of limited skills hang on their every word, so they don't want to confuse anyone.

[kellyC]

I will go ahead and change all page titles right before I actually launch the new platform and 301 redirect pages that have external inbound links.

Thanks for the feedback Robert and Tedster.