Seamless Domain and CMS Migration for Kilkenny Design

Kilkenny Design is a leading Irish retailer, celebrated for its carefully curated collection of gifts, homeware, and fashion. With a strong heritage and a loyal customer base, the company’s online platform plays a vital role in driving sales and reinforcing brand recognition across key markets in Ireland, the UK, and the US. To align with their growth ambitions and evolving customer needs, Kilkenny Design embarked on a significant digital transformation project involving a domain rebranding and CMS migration.

The project posed two significant challenges that required precision and expertise to overcome. First, Kilkenny Design needed to rebrand their domain, moving from kilkennyshop.com to kilkennydesign.com, while transitioning their international markets from subfolders to subdomains. This structural shift demanded careful execution to avoid disruption to rankings and organic traffic. The stakes were high, with the site receiving over 80,000 monthly organic sessions and maintaining over 600 top-3 keyword rankings on Google.ie.

Second, the limitations of their existing Magento platform prompted a move to BigCommerce, a more scalable and user-friendly CMS. This migration required adapting to a new site structure and implementing thousands of URL redirects to preserve rankings and ensure a seamless user experience. Both migrations needed to be handled with precision to protect Kilkenny Design’s hard-earned search engine visibility and prevent traffic loss.

The primary objective of the project was to execute a seamless domain migration and CMS transition while safeguarding Kilkenny Design’s existing organic traffic and search engine rankings. Achieving this required meticulous planning and flawless implementation to maintain user trust, search visibility, and conversion rates during and after the migration. 

The migration was approached in two carefully planned phases: domain migration and CMS migration. Both phases demanded close collaboration between Kilkenny Design, our agency, and third-party developers. A comprehensive roadmap was created to outline every step, with a particular focus on mitigating risks associated with traffic and ranking losses.

The domain migration was the first priority. This involved conducting an in-depth audit of the existing website, ensuring that all metadata, content, and internal links were accounted for. The team created over 10,000 URL redirects to map old URLs to their new counterparts on the updated domain. Redirects were essential not only to guide users but also to signal search engines about the changes, maintaining the authority and relevance of existing pages. Weekly calls and shared project trackers ensured that all stakeholders remained aligned and that the migration proceeded without oversight. 

The CMS migration presented additional challenges, including adapting to BigCommerce’s site structure and addressing technical issues with third-party apps. One critical task involved ensuring that metadata from the legacy site was accurately migrated to the new platform. Using tools like Screaming Frog and Google Sheets, the team meticulously compared old and new metadata to prevent discrepancies that could harm rankings. 

Another significant challenge was resolving an issue with a third-party search personalisation app that initially made category page content invisible to search engines. Multiple rounds of troubleshooting with the app’s developers ensured that all content became crawlable by Google before the site went live, safeguarding the site’s rankings. 

Website migrations, when not executed properly, can lead to catastrophic drops in traffic and rankings. For Kilkenny Design, safeguarding their organic performance during this transition was paramount. The success of this project hinged on the detailed planning and execution of thousands of URL redirects. These redirects were essential for preserving the authority of existing pages and ensuring that users and search engines were seamlessly guided to their new destinations. By addressing every detail with precision, the migration avoided the pitfalls that often plague large-scale transitions.

The dual migration was executed flawlessly, delivering outstanding results. In the first 30 days after the domain migration, organic sessions increased by 9%, while overall website sessions saw a 15% uplift. Conversion rates also improved significantly, rising by 28%. Most importantly, Kilkenny Design’s 600+ top-3 keyword rankings on Google.ie were preserved, and the site’s organic market share grew by 7%. 

The success of the CMS migration further enhanced Kilkenny Design’s digital capabilities, providing a robust platform for ongoing optimisation and growth. By maintaining organic traffic and rankings, the migrations positioned Kilkenny Design for continued success in highly competitive markets. 

The seamless domain and CMS migration for Kilkenny Design underscores the critical importance of careful planning and execution in such projects. Through meticulous preparation, rigorous testing, and the implementation of thousands of URL redirects, the project avoided the typical pitfalls of website migrations.

For businesses considering a migration, this case study demonstrates that a strategic, detail-oriented approach is essential to protecting and enhancing digital performance during periods of transformation. Kilkenny Design not only maintained their strong online presence but also achieved measurable growth, highlighting the value of a well-executed migration strategy.

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