Website migrations are a critical time for any business. When done correctly, they can lead to improved site performance, user experience, and search engine rankings.
However, migrations can also be a risky undertaking, with the potential for significant disruptions to your online presence if not handled carefully. One common challenge during a website migration is the “code freeze” period.
What is a Code Freeze?
A code freeze is a period of time when no changes can be made to the website’s code. This is done to stabilize the codebase and minimize the risk of introducing new bugs or issues, especially before a major release or milestone. During this time, developers focus on testing and debugging existing code to ensure stability and quality.
Code freezes are also used in preparation for high-traffic periods, such as the holiday season for e-commerce websites. By freezing the code, developers can prevent the introduction of new bugs that could disrupt the user experience and potentially lead to lost conversions and revenue.
These ‘freeze’ periods can limit the ability to implement backend technical and on-page SEO improvements.
But, that doesn’t mean SEO work needs to stop. There are still many valuable SEO activities that can be performed during a code freeze to ensure a smooth transition and maintain your website’s search engine visibility.
Off-Page Optimization
During a code freeze, when on-page changes are restricted, focusing on off-page optimization can be particularly beneficial. Here are some off-page SEO activities you can engage in during a website migration code freeze:
1. Link Building
Link building is the process of acquiring backlinks from other websites to your own. Backlinks are considered a vote of confidence from other websites, and they can significantly impact your website’s search engine rankings.
During a code freeze, you can focus on building high-quality backlinks to your website through various methods, such as:
- Guest posting: Reach out to relevant websites and blogs in your industry and offer to write guest posts with links back to your website. Focus on websites with high domain authority and relevance to your niche to maximize the impact of these backlinks.
- Broken link building: Identify broken links on other websites and offer your content as a replacement. This is a highly effective way to acquire backlinks from authoritative websites, as they are often eager to fix broken links and improve their user experience.
- Content promotion: Promote your existing content on social media and other online platforms to attract backlinks. Create engaging social media posts, share your content in relevant online communities and forums, and participate in industry discussions to increase visibility and attract potential link opportunities.
- Plan for the Migration (if applicable): Audit the existing backlink profile. Prioritize high-value backlinks from authoritative websites that are relevant to your industry. Reach out to the author or site owner of these websites and politely request that they update any existing links to your old domain/url with the new domain/url once the migration is complete.
2. Social Media Promotion
Social media platforms can be valuable tools for promoting your website and building brand awareness. During a code freeze, you can leverage social media to:
- Share your existing content: Share blog posts, articles, and other valuable content from your website on social media platforms to drive traffic and engagement. Use compelling visuals and engaging captions to attract attention and encourage social sharing.
- Engage with your audience: Respond to comments and questions, participate in relevant discussions, and build relationships with your followers. Active engagement on social media can help maintain your brand’s visibility and keep your audience interested during the migration period.
- Run social media contests and giveaways: Organize contests and giveaways to generate excitement and attract new followers. This can be a fun and effective way to keep your audience engaged and compensate for any potential traffic loss during the migration.
- Use social media advertising: Utilize paid social media advertising to reach a wider audience and promote your website. Targeted social media ads can help drive traffic to your website and maintain brand awareness during the code freeze.
3. Brand Building
Building a strong brand reputation is essential for long-term SEO success. During a code freeze, you can focus on activities that enhance your brand’s online presence, such as:
- Public relations: Reach out to journalists and media outlets to secure positive media coverage for your brand. Positive media coverage can boost your brand’s credibility and authority, which can indirectly benefit your SEO efforts.
- Community building: Participate in online forums and communities related to your industry to establish your brand as a thought leader. By actively engaging in relevant online communities, you can build relationships with potential customers and influencers, and increase brand awareness.
- Influencer marketing: Collaborate with influencers in your niche to promote your brand and reach a wider audience. Influencer marketing can be a powerful way to generate buzz around your brand and attract new customers, especially during a code freeze when on-page SEO activities are limited.
Content Planning and Creation
While you may not be able to make changes to your existing website content during a code freeze, you can still utilize this time for content planning and creation. This will allow you to have a backlog of fresh, optimized content ready to be published once the migration is complete.
Here are some content-related activities you can focus on:
4. Keyword Research and Analysis
Keyword research is the foundation of any successful SEO strategy.
During a code freeze, you can conduct in-depth keyword research to identify relevant keywords with high search volume and low competition. This research will inform your content creation strategy and ensure that your new content is optimized for the right keywords.
5. Content Audits and Updates
Even though you cannot update your website content during the code freeze, you can still perform content audits to identify areas for improvement.
Analyze your existing content for relevance, accuracy, and SEO optimization. Create a list of pages that need to be updated, rewritten, or consolidated. This will help you prioritize your content updates once the code freeze is lifted.
6. Content Creation
Use the code freeze period to create new content that aligns with your keyword research and content audit findings.
This could include;
- articles
- blog posta
- website copy
- product descriptions
- any other type of content that is relevant to your target audience.
By creating a backlog of content, you can ensure a consistent flow of fresh, optimized content after the migration is complete.
7. Content Migration Planning
Content migration can be a complex process, and careful planning is essential to avoid issues and ensure a smooth transition. Before the code freeze, perform a content inventory to identify all the content that needs to be migrated. This inventory should include all types of content, such as text, images, videos, and downloadable files.
- During the inventory, assess the quality of the content and identify any outdated or irrelevant content that can be removed or updated.
- Clarify content ownership and roles during the migration process. Determine who is responsible for each piece of content and establish clear procedures for content approval and publishing.
- Create a URL mapping plan that matches old URLs to their corresponding new URLs. This mapping will help preserve SEO value and ensure that users and search engines are redirected to the correct pages after the migration. Document any changes in content structure or URLs to maintain consistency and avoid broken links.
- Consider using a bug tracking tool to efficiently track and resolve any issues that arise during content migration. Designate a point of contact for mission-critical issues to ensure prompt resolution of urgent matters. After the migration, thoroughly validate the results to ensure accuracy and completeness. Pay close attention to hyperlinks and update them to ensure functionality after the migration.
During a migration project, take snapshots of the website HTML using Screaming Frog at the start of each new phase to stay current with the production copy. This will help ensure that you are migrating the latest version of the content and minimize the risk of data loss or inconsistencies.
This will also be invaluable when diagnosing traffic changes for a particular page or section of the site post-code freeze.
Technical SEO Audits
Technical SEO refers to the optimization of your website’s technical infrastructure to improve its crawlability and indexability by search engines. During a code freeze, you can conduct technical SEO audits to identify and address any potential issues that could affect your website’s search engine visibility.
Here are some technical SEO activities you can perform for a site migration:
8. Check for Broken Links and Crawl Errors
Broken links and crawl errors can significantly harm your website’s SEO. Use tools like Google Search Console, Screaming Frog, or other website crawlers to identify any broken links or crawl errors on your website. Create a list of these errors and prioritize them based on their severity and potential impact on your website’s SEO.
When checking for broken links, use a broken link checker tool to automatically scan your website and identify any broken internal or external links. These tools can save you time and effort compared to manually checking each link.
9. Analyze Website Architecture
Review your website’s architecture to ensure it is well-organized and easy for search engines to crawl. This includes analyzing your website’s URL structure, internal linking, and sitemaps. Identify any areas for improvement and document them for future implementation.
When reviewing internal linking, pay attention to the following:
- Logical site structure: Ensure that your website has a clear and logical hierarchy, with categories and subcategories organized in a way that makes sense to users and search engines.
- Crawl depth: Check for pages with high crawl depths, as this can indicate internal linking issues and make it difficult for search engines to find and index those pages.
- Content clusters: Utilize content clusters to group related content together and improve organic rankings by distributing link equity and establishing topical authority.
10. Check Page Speed
Page speed is an important ranking factor for search engines. Use tools like Google PageSpeed Insights or GTmetrix to analyze your website’s page speed and identify any areas for improvement.
This could include:
- optimizing images
- minimizing code
- leveraging browser caching
11. Crawl Errors
Crawl errors occur when search engines encounter problems accessing or indexing pages on your website. These errors can have a negative impact on your website’s SEO performance. During a code freeze, you can use Google Search Console and other tools to identify and address crawl errors.
Here are some common types of crawl errors and how to address them:
- 404 errors: These errors occur when a page is not found on the server. To fix 404 errors, either redirect the URL to a relevant page or update any internal links or sitemap entries that point to the missing page.
- Soft 404 errors: These errors occur when a page returns a 200 status code (OK) but should be returning a 404 error. This usually happens when a page has thin content or when Google mistakenly identifies a page as a duplicate. To fix soft 404 errors, either add more valuable content to the page or redirect it to a relevant page.
- Server errors (5xx errors): These errors occur when the server is unable to fulfill a request. To fix server errors, check your server logs, speak to your developer, and contact your website host to identify and resolve the underlying issue.
- Access denied (403) errors: These errors occur when the server denies access to a page. To fix 403 errors, either block the page from crawling using robots.txt or allow access to Googlebot if the page does not contain secure data.
- Redirect errors: These errors occur when there are issues with redirects, such as redirect chains, redirect loops, or incorrect redirect URLs. To fix redirect errors, analyze the redirect configuration, identify and correct any chains or loops, and ensure that all redirects are set up correctly.
- Duplicate without User-Selected Canonical errors: These errors occur when Google identifies duplicate pages without a user-selected canonical URL. To fix these errors, ensure that all URLs have been properly redirected to the new versions using 301 redirects and that canonical tags are implemented correctly.
To efficiently manage crawl errors, download a report with all your crawl errors and their sources from Google Search Console. This report will help you analyze and prioritize crawl errors for fixing. Keep track of unresolved crawl errors in a “mystery list” for further investigation.
12. Redirects
Redirects are an essential part of website migrations. They ensure that users and search engines are directed to the correct pages after the migration. During a code freeze, you can plan and prepare your redirect strategy.
When setting up redirects, use 301 redirects to indicate that the move is permanent. This helps preserve SEO value and ensures that search engines understand the new URL structure. Test all redirects to ensure they are working correctly and avoid redirect chains or loops, which can harm SEO.
13. Other Technical Considerations
In addition to the activities mentioned above, consider the following technical SEO aspects during a code freeze:
- Use relative URLs for internal links: Relative URLs help maintain website stability and prevent broken links if your domain name changes or if you switch between development, staging, and production environments.
- Create custom 404 pages: Custom 404 pages provide a better user experience and can help retain visitors who encounter broken links by guiding them back to relevant content.
- Monitor crawl stats: Regularly monitor your website’s crawl stats in Google Search Console to identify any potential issues or fluctuations in crawl rate.
- Address unauthorized errors: Fix any pages returning unauthorized errors (401/407) to ensure that search engines can crawl and index your website properly.
Competitor Analysis
Analyzing your competitors’ SEO strategies can provide valuable insights and help you identify opportunities to improve your own website’s search engine rankings. During a code freeze, you can conduct competitor analysis to:
- Identify competitor keywords: Analyze the keywords that your competitors are ranking for and identify any relevant keywords that you are not targeting. This can help you expand your keyword list and improve your content optimization strategy.
- Analyze competitor content: Review the type and quality of content that your competitors are creating and identify any content gaps that you can fill. This can help you create more comprehensive and valuable content that meets the needs of your target audience.
- Analyze competitor backlinks: Analyze your competitors’ backlink profiles to identify potential link building opportunities. This can help you acquire high-quality backlinks from websites that are already linking to your competitors.
Conclusion
A code freeze does not mean SEO efforts must pause. By focusing on off-page activities, content preparation, technical audits, and competitor research, businesses can maintain visibility and be well-positioned for growth once the migration is complete. Leveraging this period effectively can transform potential downtime into a strategic advantage.
After the migration, continue to monitor your website’s traffic and rankings to identify any issues or fluctuations. Use tools like Google Analytics and Google Search Console to track key metrics and analyze your website’s performance.
Verify that all third-party licenses and caching systems have been transferred and are functioning correctly. Test and verify email functionality to ensure that your website can send and receive emails without any problems.
The code freeze period can also be a valuable opportunity for planning and education. Use this time to plan future coding projects in more detail, create workflows, and build and test prototypes. Educate your employees on any changes to the website or new systems that will be implemented after the migration.
While code freezes can be challenging, especially in an Agile environment, they can also provide an opportunity to focus on other important aspects of website development and maintenance.
