How to Fight 100 Horse-Sized Ducks: Technical SEO Strategies for Multiple Large Sites

Building a technical SEO strategy for a large website can be tricky. Building a technical SEO strategy for several large websites can be REALLY tricky. Between overlapping and contradictory technologies, internationalisation and staying in the good books of several development teams, forging a path to SEO health can be a huge struggle. In this talk Chris will not only break this gargantuan task into manageable chunks, he will also explain what he is well aware is a very strange name for a talk.

Transcript

1. How to Fight 100
   Horse-Sized Ducks: Technical
   SEO Strategies for Multiple
   Large Sites
   Chris Spann
   Technical SEO, Lumar
   @lumarhq
   

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2. How to Fight 100
   Horse-Sized Ducks:
   Technical SEO
   Strategies for
   Multiple Large Sites
   CHRIS SPANN:
   

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4. Chris Spann
   Senior Technical SEO
   REALLY BIG PROBLEMS,
   really small problems,
   really weird problems
   

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5. QUESTION
   Which would you rather
   fight: one horse-sized duck,
   or 100 duck-sized horses?
   

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6. QUESTION
   Which would you rather
   fight: one horse-sized duck,
   or 100 duck-sized horses?
   

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7. QUESTION
   Which would you rather
   fight: one horse-sized duck,
   or 100 duck-sized horses?
   

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8. ANOTHER QUESTION
   But what if there were a
   hundred ducks, and they
   were all horse sized?
   

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9. ANOTHER QUESTION
   …and the ducks were websites?
   

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10. ANOTHER QUESTION
    Sorry.
    

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11. PRESENTATION TITLE (please edit on master slide)
    

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12. 1
    Why do you
    have multiple
    websites?
    

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13. 1
    Why do you
    have multiple
    websites?
    Separate TLDs for different markets
    International
    

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14. 1
    Why do you
    have multiple
    websites?
    Separate TLDs for different markets
    B2C v B2B, Separate Brands
    International
    Products/Brands
    

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15. 1
    Why do you
    have multiple
    websites?
    Separate TLDs for different markets
    B2C v B2B, Separate Brands
    Buying competitors/partners
    International
    Products/Brands
    Expansion
    

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16. 1
    Why do you
    have multiple
    websites?
    Hreflang tags, geotargeting, geoblocking
    Differentiating between
    markets/intents, cannibalisation
    Different tech, different/
    out-of-house teams, legacy issues
    International
    Products/Brands
    Expansion
    

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17. 2
    Get to know
    your stack(s)
    

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18. 2
    Get to know
    your stack(s)
    Site Site Site
    Cloudflare
    CDN
    DB DB DB
    Onetrust
    Brightcove
    Wordpress
    React
    Site
    Akamai
    Sanity
    CDN
    AWS
    Azure
    

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19. 2
    Get to know
    your stack(s)
    If you don’t have a friendly dev to walk
    you through all this, Wappalyzer is a
    great tool for finding the info you need
    

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20. 2
    Get to know
    your stack(s)
    Export CSVs from the plugin
    and use them to build a filterable
    database of what sites use what
    

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21. 3
    Prioritise
    your estate
    

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22. 3
    Prioritise
    your estate
    Difficulty to work on
    Commercial Priority
    

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23. 3
    Prioritise
    your estate
    Difficulty to work on
    Commercial Priority
    x
    x
    x
    x
    x
    x
    x
    x
    x
    x
    x
    x
    x
    x
    x
    x
    x
    x
    x
    

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24. 3
    Prioritise
    your estate
    Difficulty to work on
    Commercial Priority
    x
    x
    x
    x
    x
    x
    x
    x
    x
    x
    x
    x
    x
    x
    x
    x
    x
    x
    x
    

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25. 3
    Prioritise
    your estate
    Difficulty to work on
    Commercial Priority
    x
    x
    x
    x
    x
    x
    x
    x
    x
    x
    x
    x
    x
    x
    x
    x
    x
    x
    x
    

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26. Once you have all this
    information, use it to inform
    your crawling strategy
    

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27. 4
    Build a crawl
    strategy
    

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28. 4
    Build a crawl
    strategy
    URL Budget: 10000000
    Urls/Crawl Crawls/Mo Total Urls Used
    Tier 1 Site 1000000 4 4000000
    Tier 2 Site 1000000 2 2000000
    Tier 2 Site 1000000 2 2000000
    Tier 3 Site 666000 1 666000
    Tier 3 Site 666000 1 666000
    Tier 3 Site 666000 1 666000
    Total Remaining: 2000
    Split sites into tiers - although don’t get too granular
    

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29. 4
    Build a crawl
    strategy Split sites into tiers - although don’t get too granular
    Sites that don’t often get worked on need crawling less
    often - especially if they’re low commercial priority
    URL Budget: 10000000
    Urls/Crawl Crawls/Mo Total Urls Used
    Tier 1 Site 1000000 4 4000000
    Tier 2 Site 1000000 2 2000000
    Tier 2 Site 1000000 2 2000000
    Tier 3 Site 666000 1 666000
    Tier 3 Site 666000 1 666000
    Tier 3 Site 666000 1 666000
    Total Remaining: 2000
    

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30. 4
    Build a crawl
    strategy Split sites into tiers - although don’t get too granular
    Sites that don’t often get worked on need crawling less
    often - especially if they’re low commercial priority
    If your sites are too big, consider crawling the top X% of
    urls in a web crawl, or using GSC/Analytics data to
    identify a priority list
    URL Budget: 10000000
    Urls/Crawl Crawls/Mo Total Urls Used
    Tier 1 Site 1000000 4 4000000
    Tier 2 Site 1000000 2 2000000
    Tier 2 Site 1000000 2 2000000
    Tier 3 Site 666000 1 666000
    Tier 3 Site 666000 1 666000
    Tier 3 Site 666000 1 666000
    Total Remaining: 2000
    

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31. 4
    Build a crawl
    strategy Split sites into tiers - although don’t get too granular
    Sites that don’t often get worked on need crawling less
    often - especially if they’re low commercial priority
    If your sites are too big, consider crawling the top X% of
    urls in a web crawl, or using GSC/Analytics data to
    identify a priority list
    If your sites use multiple CMSes (ie a Shopify site with a
    WP blog), consider creating segments
    URL Budget: 10000000
    Urls/Crawl Crawls/Mo Total Urls Used
    Tier 1 Site 1000000 4 4000000
    Tier 2 Site 1000000 2 2000000
    Tier 2 Site 1000000 2 2000000
    Tier 3 Site 666000 1 666000
    Tier 3 Site 666000 1 666000
    Tier 3 Site 666000 1 666000
    Total Remaining: 2000
    

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32. 5
    Monitor your
    sites in groups
    

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33. 5
    Monitor your
    sites in groups
    

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34. 5
    Monitor your
    sites in groups
    What those groups are is up to you - by now you
    should have an understanding of the commonalities
    and differences
    

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35. What you want to achieve is the ability to tell at a
    glance what technology is the likely culprit for any
    large changes
    5
    Monitor your
    sites in groups
    

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36. 5
    Monitor your
    sites in groups
    Per group, focus on an overview of issues, common
    problems and areas you are currently working on
    

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37. 6
    Be smart
    

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38. 6
    Be smart
    - probably too
    much to keep on
    top of yourself
    You have a
    lot of data
    

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39. 6
    Be smart
    - probably too
    much to keep on
    top of yourself
    You have a
    lot of data
    Use your
    groups
    to check what is
    important and
    compartmentalise
    - no point worrying
    about B-Tier sites
    if they’re exactly
    the same as last
    week and you have
    no tickets in!
    

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40. 6
    Be smart
    - probably too
    much to keep on
    top of yourself
    You have a
    lot of data
    Use your
    groups
    Set up alerts
    to check what is
    important and
    compartmentalise
    - no point worrying
    about B-Tier sites
    if they’re exactly
    the same as last
    week and you have
    no tickets in!
    If possible set up
    alerts for certain
    key metrics -
    you’re too busy to
    worry about the
    stuff that has just
    stayed the same
    

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41. TO SUM UP
    1: Why do you have multiple websites?
    2: Get to Know Your Stack(s)
    3: Prioritise your Estate
    4: Build a Crawl Strategy
    5: Monitor your sites in Groups
    6: Be Smart
    

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42. TO SUM UP
    1: Why do you have multiple websites?
    2: Get to Know Your Stack(s)
    3: Prioritise your Estate
    4: Build a Crawl Strategy
    5: Monitor your sites in Groups
    6: Be Smart
    And finally, remember…
    

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43. TO SUM UP
    

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44. Thanks.
    

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45. And sorry again
    about the ducks.
    

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46. Keep in
    touch
    Useful resources available here
    LAST BUT NOT LEAST
    https://www.lumar.io/collection/lumar-brightonseo-2023/
    

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