A few weeks back, we used Officeworks’ as an example of what not to do when it came to launching a new website. Their clear lack of a migration plan led to a poor user experience (visitors who found an old listing in Google were shown a really poor 404 page) and unfortunately lost investment for the business (as thousands of previously optimised pages in Google were soon dumped from the index only to be replaced by inferior pages from the new website).
Of course, we’ve been keeping a close on Officeworks since they first launched their new website in late April 2009 to see how it all unfolds. From our hands on experience helping clients like Webjet, Carsguide and Truelocal we know that you cannot ignore the history of the old website. Doing so, especially for a large ecommerce business that already has strong existing placement in search engines can lead to hundreds of thousands of lost visitors, sales and millions of dollars in lost revenue over months and years if it is not corrected.
While we have noticed some improvements since our initial post (Officeworks is now using a 301 redirect to direct visitors to the new product pages), we are now seeing some other troubling issues, likely due to the implementation of the new SAP ecommerce system and lack of QA testing prior to launch. These issues, if left as is will likely cause unforeseen headaches for Officeworks in the search engines for some time to come.
So what did we find?
- Duplicate content - multiple instances of the same pages in the index as a result of session IDs
- Inferior content – automated pages created by the search engine crawlers
Duplicate Content
Shortly after launch we discovered that Google was indexing multiple versions of the home page due to the session ID used in the URL. A session ID is the most common method used by websites to collect data about a particular visitor as they use the website. Most websites only store a session ID using a cookie, so crawlers will ignore them. Officeworks however has decided to place the session ID in the URL when cookies are not accepted. Unfortunately, this is notoriously bad for search engines, often resulting in duplicate content issues.
For large sites, several spiders from the same search engine may visit at once. As a result each will be given their own session ID. While the content may be identical, the URLs are different each time, leading the crawlers to interpret the content as duplicate and thereby suppressing the content in the index.
In other words, Google is seeing the home page as a separate page each time it visits the website. This issue can be seen clearly in the following example:
Here we can see three versions of the home page that Google has crawled and indexed, each with a different session ID appended to the URL. Even though it’s clear that Officeworks is not up to any dirty tricks, Google will still suppress the value of the home page in this case. We also found examples of multiple listings for many other category and product pages in the index. As we know from the previous post, duplicate content will make it more difficult for Officeworks to achieve top placement in the search engines, especially when it comes to some of the more generic terms around office gear.
The quick fix is to only use cookies to track session IDs. First party cookies (the ’safe’ cookie used for tracking session IDs) are a requirement for using most websites today so Officeworks customers will experience no loss in usability. In addition, Officeworks should add the canonical link to all of the pages to ensure the search engines apply the value from the duplicate pages to a single source.
Note: To view these pages in person type in site:www.officeworks.com.au into Google and click through to some of the deeper pages (i.e. go past page 500 to see some of the more interesting findings).
Inferior Content
A further handicap from the use of session IDs is that Google is now indexing a high proportion of inferior pages that have little or no resemblance to the actual category or product pages represented on the site.
By following the links (with the session IDs appended) throughout the website Google is able to effectively add products to the shopping cart or wish list in effect creating additional and irrelevant pages of content for the index. We can see this result more clearly in the following example:
Here we can see that Google’s crawler is able to add products to the Officeworks’ wish list thereby creating new pages. If you happen to click the third listing in the results shown (you need to turn cookies off in your browser) you’ll find the products below added to the wish list:
Example of Wishlist page in Google Index
While most people will never see these pages (unless they specifically search for My Wish List) they are still problematic, especially when it comes to achieving strong search rankings. Unfortunately, as these types of pages are created and indexed they began to compete with other more valuable content on the website. The end result is that Officeworks will end up with thousands of pages with little or no actual content in the search indexes that pulls down the rankings for higher quality pages.
Since the launch of the website, Officeworks’ pages indexed in Google have increased from approximately 7200 pages to over 9500. While this increase would be beneficial if each of the pages indexed provided unique content, in this case, the inferior content will only complicate matters for Officeworks.
Conclusion
While I’m certain there’s been plenty of learning within Officeworks (especially as we’re beginning to see some of these issues like session IDs cleaned up), there are a few key points for the rest of us to learn from to avoid the same pain.
- A migration plan is essential when you’re redesigning a website, changing domain names or just reworking the information architecture. If you fail to plan, you plan to fail.
- Quality assurance is critical. Some of these issues could have been spotted prior to launch had Officeworks ran specific Q A scripts to test whether the bots are able to effectively crawl the website. At the very least, you need to monitor what the search engines pick up after launch to determine the best course of action.
- Do not trust the technology vendor to deliver a product that is search friendly. Do your homework and ensure the system does what you’re being sold.
Of course, there are no guarantees that you’ll have a smooth transition. But if you take the right steps, you can manage the big issues that cause havoc and react quickly to any surprises that pop up along the way. By doing so, you can avoid becoming the next casualty and lesson.
Hi there
great post. . . I wasn’t aware of the migration issue with regards to SEO. What kind of things do you need to be aware of specifically - i’m a non-techy mind you, but need to know in a general sense so I can keep current and potential clients aware of the potential issues.
Also if you can provide an estimate on the costs involved in providing consultancy for migration of a simple 20 page .net site?
Cheers,
Bill
Tom,
I have been following your thorough summation of the Officeworks website migration with great interest. You make some great points and extract some important learnings for those looking to optimize their search engine placement. For the benefit of your readers however, its important to put a few things in perspective. The first being the disproportionate emphasis you place on SEO in measuring a successful website migration (”Lost Investment?”). Now we know that Google search is important and drives traffic to websites. What we also know is that usability, quality content and design far outweigh funky backend SEO in delivering a great website to customers. That is of course if we place the customer at the forefront of our decision making. In the midst of a challenging economic environment the Officeworks team have delivered a significant website upgrade in both usability and back-end infrastructure. There are always things you can do to optimize your online marketing. I would argue that over and above basic SEO your marketing dollars would be better spent on Social Media (a discussion for another day perhaps). What is certain is that wavering on the delivery of these much needed improvements would be short-changing customers.
The second point is that you have quite rightly pointed out the sad state of affairs in Aussie retail online. What I would say to Australian business is to go ahead and establish their online presence and not be deterred by the expense and perceived importance of SEO, PPC, CPA, SEM and any other three letter acronym. Do plan, Do QA but most importantly, do release.
In the words of Dr. Robert Schuller, “Better to do something imperfectly than to do nothing flawlessly.”
Regards,
Jim
Disclaimer: I am currently employed by Officeworks. This commentary reflects my own views and not those of my employer.
Jim,
With a few sensible engineering decisions early on, you could have delivered a site with all of the attributes you laud AND received the benefit of the extra search engine traffic.
Your rationalisation above only makes sense in retrospect.
You surely aren’t saying that a business decision was made somewhere during the development cycle to deliberately ignore the benefits of search engine traffic???
It seems much more likely that no-one at Officeworks was aware of the SEO implications of the technical decisions that were being made until it was too late.
James
Hi Jim,
I understand my comments may appear to place a disproportionate emphasis on SEO. But it is only because Officeworks already had a strong presence in SEO (I am by no means advocating the approach that was taken). Sadly, though for reasons you mentioned, that investment has still been wasted.
Please don’t take this to mean that I (or Amplify) promote SEO over usability, customer experience, branding, great copy, design or sales. There has to be balance. It all has to work together for the business to ultimately succeed online. If one area dominates, it will likely be to the detriment of something else. And for some businesses an outcome that has a greater emphasis on SEO over some another element may be fine. But for a large player like Officeworks’ it’s a shame that more attention was not paid to the migration process. It is possible to have it all (without the funky backend SEO work that was done previously) and it’s a sad that the business didn’t have the right strategy in place to achieve it.
I’d be willing to bet that with access to the right information (assuming that the business was tracking sales by marketing channel) I could accurately quantify the loss in real revenue and the extra expenses Officeworks will need to spend in SEM, social media and other channels to make up for the drop in sales from natural search referrals.
For businesses that already receive targeted traffic and sales as a result of SEO, the dollars are real. I wish I could show you the real money companies are making from terms like “credit cards,” “flights,” and “car rental.” Once a business achieves success, the impact on sales from any major website change can have a significant impact on the bottom line, especially if optimization is not considered with the new website. I see no reason why Officeworks should be different.
My point is simple. Officeworks has missed an opportunity. Whether it was due to a lack of understanding or a particular belief or strategy, it has consequences that affect the bottom line. There is absolutely no reason why a strong brand like Officeworks can’t have a usable website that sells and also ranks incredibly well.
I’ve spoken with the CEOs of large corporation like News Digital Media and have worked with online retailers who understand the value of search (both SEO and SEM) and the impact website changes have on the bottom line (I’d be happy to do the same for Officeworks and the rest of Westfarmer’s management. Please contact me if the business is interested). The importance they place on SEO of course doesn’t mean that they would discount usability over design or SEO. They understand that it’s all part of the mix and it has to work together. There is no reason why any etailer in Australia has to strive for less. Hence, the reason for my posts to bring attention to this critical issue.
Finally as far as social media is concerned, this is not the right forum for an in-depth discussion. But I do have some particular views on where it fits in the marketing mix. In fact, it would be great to see the business using social media tools like Twitter http://twitter.com/officeworks-au (officeworks appears to have US focus). Customers are already talking: http://twitter.com/#search?q=officeworks.
Cheers… Tom
Hi Bill,
Sadly, most people in Australia are not aware of the need for migration (hence the need to share with others). It’s often an after thought, only noticed once traffic and sales fall off.
For small websites, there a few main issues to look out for:
1) Understanding where the existing traffic and links are coming from
2) Using 301 redirects to direct visitors and search engines from the old pages to the new ones when you launch
3) Making sure the new site is optimmised and does not present any technical barriers to the crawlers (i.e. doesn’t use a 302 redirect from http://www.domainname.com.au to http://www.domainname.com.au/Pages/Home.aspx as Microsoft Sharepoint does).
The costs vary depending on the size of the website. Our fees can range from a few thousand dollars to over twenty thoursand dollars for larger sites. But in the later case, we’re analysing data, crunching numbers, providing forecasts and writing specific instructions based on the client’s requirements. For lager websites we also recommend that companies have one of our staff member available to fix any issues that pop up after launch before the cause grief. Like SEO though, there is no cookie cutter approach.
I’d be happy to chat in person to discuss costs in your case.
Great post Tom - It still amazes me the lack of consideration businesses give to the affect of site redesigns and migration from an SEO perspective. I think they get a bit carried away with the process, which results in them throwing out the baby with the bath water.
I don’t believe Jim could possibly be in a senior position at Office works and he certainly doesn’t have access to their analytics because I am sure, in there he would see what the impact has been from this school boy migration effort. If he is, then he should be deducted the lost revenue caused by this oversight or join the dole queue.
And Jim, if you seriously doubt the value of SEO to Office works then frankly you don’t understand what you are judging.
Most companies don’t account for 404 and certainly don’t monitor them as they should – Even if they have a site map on the 404 you’ll most likely not find Analytic tracking on these pages. I suppose out of sight out of mind.
More…
Just in case there is any doubt. SEO is not really a technical issue. It’s about Distribution, Marketing and SALES. I am sure there is someone within Office Work who gets that. Why is SEO about Sales? SEO done well will increase your distribution and reach and if the you have compelling Page titles and Meta descriptions (that match the content for that Page) then you be getting the Marketing message across and that should increase the likelihood of your listing in the search results being clicked on.
So you are now getting in front of more people, with the right message and even if your conversion rate (how your site performs) stays the same you’ll get more sales. So SEO can compensate for a bad site design making it even more important to get right when you are migrating to a new site because you never know how it’s actually going to work out in the real world.
To be fair to Jim, I doubt it was his decision to ignore the old site. As a large business, the decision would have been made higher up or by committee regardless of whether Jim believed it was necessary or not.
I want to thank Jim for taking the time to respond and shed some light on how Officeworks approached the topic which is much appreciated.
The goal of this post was purely to shine some light on a major issue which we believe is more due to lack of awareness over ignorance (although there is still a lot of ignorance out there).
Disclaimer: And yes we were also trying to raise awareness of our expertise and services in this area.