How can changing my website URL affect my Siteimprove data?

The purpose of this article is to outline how changing your website and/or site URL can affect your account setup and the data shown in the Siteimprove Intelligence Platform (SIP).

Most features in the platform will continue to work as usual. However, areas in the platform where a URL match has been made should be reviewed and edited where necessary.

Below, you will find a summary of aspects that need to be reviewed when changing your URL.

What implications does the URL change have on the Siteimprove Content Suite?

Change to the new site URL

Currently, it’s not possible for end users to edit the index URL of a site that's already being checked by Siteimprove. Please contact Siteimprove technical support and we’ll be happy to change the URL for you, given that you are an Account owner.

Group and Policy matches

Normally the Content Suite will behave as it did before the URL change. However, we suggest that you check Group and Policy matches that contain URLs and edit them if necessary.

When creating a Group, you might choose a Group/Policy match that contains the URL, such as, 

http://www.examplesite.com/mygroup/ 

If so, this URL match will need to be updated, e.g 

http://www.newexamplesite.com/mygroup/

However, if you have only made a match containing the group name, e.g. /mygroup/, and the site URL has been indexed correctly to include the new version of the site, you will not have to edit the group.

If your website structure has changed completely you will need to recreate group and policy matches accordingly.

CMS Deeplinking

CMS Deeplinking is linking directly into your Content Management System’s editing environment. It saves time during the process of finding and fixing, errors on your website.

If your website changes then the CMS editing URL may also require an update. We recommend you test the CMS Deeplinking feature from a page report. If it's not working as expected then refer to the information outlined in this "Enabling CMS Deeplinking" article in order to have the CMS editing URL updated.

Exclusions and Aliases

Exclusions and aliases are used to configure the Siteimprove crawler to determine which links/pages should be either excluded, considered an internal page, or considered an external page. URL matches are used when configuring Exclusions and Aliases so we recommend that you check these settings after a redesign or Domain name change. For further information on this see "Site Content Settings".

What implications does the site and/or URL change have on Analytics? 

You'll need to make sure that you add the Analytics code to your new website design.

If the URL or domain changes then you should contact Siteimprove and let them know the new domain name so it can be added to your analytics account.

Any complete URL matches used within Analytics settings should be reviewed and updated if necessary.

Exact URL matches may have been used in the following areas:

• Groups - Review the group matches and edit if necessary.
• Filters - Review matches on filters that include the Page visits element.
• Behavior Maps - It is necessary to add Behavior Map page URLs again.
• Funnels - Funnels that include a complete URL will need to be edited/replicated to reflect the new URL structure.
• User Journeys - User Journeys matches should be added with the new URL.
• Key Metrics - Key Metrics that include a complete URL will need to be edited/replicated.
• Event tracking – Event tracking will not normally be affected by a URL change. If events are limited to a specific page then the event tracking code should be reviewed. Siteimprove support can help with this if they have set up the event tracking.

Why might I need to replicate some areas in Analytics instead of just editing the URL match settings?

With analytics, we collect historical data on user behavior. For example, we could have visitor data for both

https://www.examplesite.com/mypage

from prior to a URL update and

https://www.newexamplesite.com/mypage

from after the update.

So, if you wish to analyze Behavior Map data on a page from before the change, you would use the previously added Behavior Map. To analyze Behavior Map data after the update, you will need to add the new version of the URL.

How can I change the site URL shown in Siteimprove to match my new website URL?

Please see the article "How do I edit the URL for a site being checked by Siteimprove?"