“Investigated a number of 404s recorded on a client website.
And a significant amount were generated by an AI service, which appears to have just made up articles, and URLs, in citations. It isn’t even using the right URL structure 🤦♂️
Debating the value of redirects and any potential impact.”
Thornton adds:
“On one hand, mistakes by more obscure AI bots might not seem worth correcting for the sake of adding more redirects. On the other, if it’s a relatively small client with a high value for conversions, even a couple of lost sales due to the damage to the brand will be noticeable.”
Google’s Perspective
Predicting an increase in hallucinated links, Google Search Advocate John Mueller offers guidance that can help navigate this issue.
First, he recommends having a good 404 page in place, stating:
“A good 404 page could help explain the value of the site, and where to go for more information. You could also use the URL as a site-search query & show the results on the 404 page, to get people closer.”
Before investing in solutions, he recommends collecting data.
Mueller states:
“I wonder if this is going to be a more common thing? It’s tempting to extrapolate from one off [incidents], but perhaps it makes sense to collect some more data before spending too much on it.”
In a follow-up comment, Mueller predicted:
“My tea leaves say that for the next 6-12 months we’ll see a slight uptick of these hallucinated links being clicked, and then they’ll disappear as the consumer services adjust to better grounding on actual URLs.”
Don’t Hope For Accidental Clicks
Mueller provided a broader perspective, advising SEO professionals to avoid focusing on minor metrics.
“I know some SEOs like to over-focus on tiny metrics, but I think sites will be better off focusing on a more stable state, rather than hoping for accidental by-clicks. Build more things that bring real value to the web, that attract & keep users coming back on their own.”
What This Means
As AI adoption grows, publishers may need to develop new strategies for mitigating hallucinations.
Ammon Johns, recognized as a pioneer in the SEO industry, offers a potential solution to consider.
“I think any new custom 404 page should include a note to anyone that arrived there from an AI prompt to explain hallucinations and how AI makes so many of them you’ve even updated your site to warn people. Always make your market smarter – education is the ultimate branding.”
It’s too early to recommend a specific strategy at this time.
Mueller advises monitoring these errors and their impact before making major changes.
John Mueller, a Google Search Advocate, suggests that SEO professionals should reconsider how their work fits into the modern web stack.
He references a “vibes-based” visualization highlighting how developers’ focus areas have shifted.
Mueller notes a disconnect between what industry pros pay attention to (such as JavaScript frameworks, performance optimizations, or new AI-driven tech) and what online businesses need.
However, he sees this as an opportunity for SEO professionals. He provides advice on staying relevant amid shifting business priorities.
Changing Business Priorities
Laurie Voss, VP of Developer Relations at Llama Index, shared a chart showing the areas of focus of software professionals from 1990 to 2025.
Screenshot from: Seldo.com, March 2025.
In the early days, developers were mainly concerned with hardware and networking. By the mid-2000s, the focus shifted to HTML, CSS, and server technologies. More recently, we’ve seen a move toward client frameworks, responsive design, and AI-powered development.
Although the data is subjective, Mueller highlights its value for SEOs. It shows how quickly areas like server-level work have become less critical for average web developers.
Mueller’s Take
Mueller’s point is straightforward: as web development changes, SEO must change, too. The skills that made you valuable five years ago might not be enough today.
Screenshot from: Seldo.com, March 2025.
Mueller says:
“If you work in SEO, consider where your work currently fits in with a graph like this. It’s not an objective graph based on data, but I think it’s worth thinking about how your work could profit from adding or shifting “tracks.””
He adds:
“What the average web developer thinks about isn’t necessarily what’s relevant for the “online business” (in whichever form you work). Looking at the graph, if your focus was “SEO at server level,” consider that the slice has shrunken quite a bit already.”
This matches Voss’s argument in the article “AI’s effects on programming jobs.”
Voss believes AI won’t kill development jobs but will create a new abstraction layer, changing how work is done. The same likely applies to SEO work.
What Should SEO Pros Focus On?
Reading between the lines of Mueller’s comment and the chart, several areas stand out for SEOs to develop:
Mobile performance skills
Working with AI tools
Understanding responsive design
Knowledge of client-side frameworks and how they affect SEO
Prompt engineering
In other words, step outside server-level optimizations and focus on client-side rendering and user experience elements.
Our Take At Search Engine Journal
Mueller’s advice hits home for us at SEJ. We’ve watched SEO evolve firsthand.
Not long ago, technical SEO mostly meant handling sitemaps, robots.txt files, and basic schema markup. Now, we’re writing about JavaScript rendering, Core Web Vitals, and AI content evaluation.
The most successful industry pros are those who expand their technical knowledge rather than stick to outdated practices. Those who understand traditional optimization and new web technologies will continue to thrive as our industry changes.
Mueller’s reminder to adapt isn’t just sound advice; it’s essential for staying relevant in search.
If you stay organized, leverage tools to scale, and pay attention to details, you will have done everything you can to ensure business continuity in the short, medium, and long term pertaining to organic performance.
Aside from the technical aspects of migration, an enterprise migration, more often than not, comes with the added pressures of:
Strong levels of C-level/VP-level attention and communications.
Multiple project teams and stakeholders making SEO-impacting decisions.
SEO pros needing to be involved in “non-traditional” SEO calls and planning meetings.
In a large site migration, there is also the increased potential for something known as “migration lag.”
What Is Migration Lag?
Migration lag refers to the time period after launching a new website where traffic and rankings drop as search engines discover and index the new site.
For huge enterprise sites with hundreds of thousands of URLs, this lag can last for months.
To minimize migration lag, you must have a solid redirect strategy before the new site launches. This means:
Prioritizing redirects for high-traffic and high-value pages. Focus on redirecting pages that drive the most traffic and revenue first.
Using wildcards to redirect categories of pages. For example, redirect /product/* to /new-site/all-products/.
Including URL parameters in redirects. Make sure redirects pass on any query parameters, like /product/123?color=red to /new-site/product/123?color=red.
Breaking redirect chains. If a page has been redirected multiple times, point the final redirect to the new destination URL.
Redirecting backlinks. Find all links pointing to the old site and set up redirects so they point to the proper new pages. This preserves the link equity you’ve built up.
Accounting for recent redirects. If you’ve done any redirects in the past six months, set up new redirects to point those pages to the proper new URLs.
With technical SEO savvy and patience, you can navigate an enterprise website migration with minimal traffic and rankings loss.
Stay on top of your redirects and keep optimizing and reacting to your data and Google’s ever-changing search engine results pages (SERPs), and search traffic will return to normal.
Soft-Launch Pre-Migration
In June 2023, John Mueller floated the idea of launching a new domain “early” before the official migration switchover.
This was interesting, as the general best practice narrative has been to not let the new domain be open to crawling before the migration switchover date.
As with any new recommendation, this is something I’ve tested since on personal project sites and with client moves.
Testing has shown that indexing has happened faster for the new domain, especially when compared to the domains in my “How Long Should A Migration Take” study.
In the Google Search Console screenshot below, I migrated a domain on January 28, but I put the new domain live and crawlable/indexable from January 21.
By February 1, the new domain was 100% indexed, and Google had even crawled and processed all the /feed URLs that were set to nodindex.
Screenshot from Google Search Console, February 2025
While this was a small website (1,300 URLs), the data was similar to other domain migrations and subdomain to subfolder migrations I’ve taken this approach with.
The most common pushback I’ve had to this approach has been the wider business desire to “make a splash” with PR around the launch and the chance of an existing customer finding the new site early. If they share the new site, the potential problems this could cause can diminish any benefits gained.
The second most common pushback, which is valid, is if there have been substantial changes to content, product, or brand that need to remain under embargo until the scheduled launch date.
Defining The Migration Strategy
Once you’ve audited your existing site and redirects, it’s time to map out how you want to handle the migration.
The strategy you develop now will determine how seamless this transition is for both your users and search engines.
Define Goals
What do you want to achieve with this migration? Are you aiming to consolidate domains, move to a new content management system (CMS), restructure content, or combine?
Be very clear on your objectives so you can develop the best approach.
Prioritize Redirects
With hundreds of thousands of URLs, you’ll need to determine which redirects are most critical to implement first. Focus initially on:
Your most important pages (homepage, product pages, etc.).
Pages that generate a substantial amount of website leads/revenue, either directly or indirectly.
Pages that generate the most organic traffic for the website.
Pages with strong backlink profiles. Those that are crawled frequently by Google/other search engines should be prioritized above those with bigger backlink clusters – but this is an objective measure you will need to determine.
Once the high-priority redirects are handled, work your way down from there. Don’t worry about redirecting every single URL right away.
As long as you have the majority of important pages and traffic accounted for, the remaining redirects can be added over time.
A great way to prioritize redirects, is to create a dashboard of all relevant data you wish to consider and prioritize by (such as the examples I’ve given above) and creating a matrix with RANK.EQ in Google Sheets, and then a prioritization categorizer.
The example below is a very simplified version of this. First, you want to collate all your data at the URL level:
Image by author, February 2025
You then want to rank these values against their individual metric data sets. To do this, you use =RANK.EQ(VALUE,VALUE RANGE).
This lets you see which URLs are in the higher percentile and which ones are in the lower percentile:
Image by author, February 2025
You then want to automate batch assignment, and this requires three steps.
First, a “reverse RANK.EQ”, which would be:
=COUNT(A:A) - RANK.EQ(A1, A:A) + 1
Which will tell you which URLs are “the best” based on all four metric ranks combined:
Image by author, February 2025
From here, you can either convert the Overall EQ to percentages in another column, and then run a rule against them that if they are =< or => certain thresholds, they fall into different batches.
You can also split the rows up by volume ordered by the Overall EQ if you have redirect limits (like when moving to Salesforce Commerce Cloud or SAP Hybris; read more below).
Map Content And URL Structure
Determine how you want to reorganize or restructure your content on the new site.
Map out which existing URLs will redirect to which new destinations. Group related content and consolidate where possible.
In some cases, temporary 302 redirects may make sense, especially if the page content is still being migrated.
Be very careful when using wildcards, and always do spot checks to ensure there are no 404 errors. Redirect parameters whenever possible to avoid duplicate content issues.
Backlinks
Make a list of any pages with strong backlink profiles and ensure they are redirected properly. Reach out to webmasters linking to those pages and let them know the new URL to see if they will update the link on their page.
This helps to preserve the SEO value built up over time.
With careful planning and strategic prioritizing, you can migrate an enterprise website and put the necessary redirects in place without (too much) chaos. But go slowly; this is not a task to rush!
Think through each step and check your work along the way.
Establishing The Migration Project Timelines
When managing a large website migration, establishing realistic timelines is crucial.
Trying to redirect hundreds of thousands of URLs in a short timeframe is a recipe for disaster.
You need to plan ahead and be strategic in how you phase the work.
It’s also very important that migration timelines are a collaborative effort involving all stakeholders.
Far too often, the business determines an arbitrary deadline without taking into account the feasibility of all teams to complete all necessary actions comfortably in time.
Avoid Phased/Partial Migrations
Avoiding phased or partial migrations is crucial when managing redirects for an enterprise website. Piecemealing your migration will only create more work and headaches down the road.
I worked on a migration in the past two years that was consolidating multiple domains (products) under a new umbrella domain, and the original plan was to do one after the other in a phased approach.
More than a year later, the second domino still hasn’t fallen. Google has started to rank the umbrella domain for products in the group it isn’t optimized for – causing internal domain cannibalization and performance issues as the brand entity is “fractured” across multiple domains.
Prior to this, I’d never witnessed a phased or partial migration mitigate the risks to the performance that the cautious decision-makers felt it would.
Do It All At Once
The best approach is to redirect all URLs at the same time. This ensures:
No pages are left orphaned without a redirect in place.
There are no redirect chains created that need to be cleaned up later. Redirect chains can negatively impact SEO and user experience.
All backlinks point to the proper new destination page. If done in phases, old pages may accumulate new backlinks that then need to be redirected.
Setting Up 301 Redirects At Scale
At an enterprise level, setting up 301 redirects for tens or hundreds of thousands of URLs requires some strategic planning.
Here are some tips for tackling this at scale:
Using Wildcards And Handling Parameter URLs
When managing redirects for an enterprise website, wildcards and parameters become your best friends. With so many URLs, creating individual redirects for each would be an endless task.
Wildcards allow you to redirect groups of pages at once.
Say you have product pages like /product/abc123, /product/def456, /product/ghi789. You can set up a wildcard redirect like /product/* to point to the new /products page.
This single redirect will capture all product pages and send visitors to the right place.
Parameters, like IDs, SKUs, or dates, often change when site content gets updated or reorganized.
Rather than tracking down each instance of an old parameter to redirect it, use a redirect that includes the parameter.
For example, if you have a URL like /blog/post?id=123 that is now /news/story/123, set up the redirect /blog/post?id= to point to /news/story/.
This will catch any page with that parameter pattern and send visitors to the new structure.
When used properly at an enterprise scale, wildcards and parameters can:
Save countless hours of manual redirect creation and maintenance.
Ensure no page is left behind during a migration or site architecture change.
Continue to capture new pages that match the pattern as the site grows and evolves.
Be very careful when using wildcards and parameters in your redirects. Test them thoroughly to ensure no unintended pages are caught in the net.
Monitor them regularly, even after launch, to catch any issues early. Used responsibly, though, they are indispensable tools for managing redirects at an enterprise level.
Breaking Redirect Chains
Redirect chains can easily form when you have a high volume of redirects on an enterprise website.
A redirect chain occurs when a URL redirects to another URL that also redirects, creating a chain of multiple redirects to reach the final destination page.
To avoid redirect chains, you’ll need to trace back through your recent redirect history to find the original source URL. Once you identify the initial URL that started the chain, redirect it directly to the final destination page.
This will cut out all the middle redirects in the chain and provide a much better user experience.
Check your server log files to view URL redirect histories from the past three to six months. Look for any patterns of the same URL redirecting multiple times.
Use a redirect crawler tool to automatically detect redirect chains on your site. These tools will crawl your site and log any series of multiple redirects for the same URL.
For recent redirects less than 180 days old, double-check that the original URL is now redirecting properly to the correct final destination. Newer redirects have a higher chance of issues, so verifying them will help avoid future problems.
If you discover broken redirect chains, fix them by redirecting the initial source URL directly to the last destination URL in the chain. Remove any middle redirects that are no longer needed.
Test all fixes to ensure the redirect chain is fully broken and the user experience is improved. Check that SEO rankings and traffic have stabilized for the URLs involved.
By diligently detecting and breaking redirect chains, you’ll provide a much better overall experience for your users and site visitors.
Your enterprise website will function more efficiently, and you’ll avoid potential drops in search rankings and traffic.
Historic Redirects
When migrating an enterprise website, it’s easy to forget about redirects that were already in place. These historic redirects, especially those under six months old, still need to be accounted for to avoid traffic loss.
As you audit your site’s current redirects, make a list of any that point to pages that will be changing or removed in the migration.
These redirects will need to be updated to point to the new destination URLs. Some things to look for include:
Temporary event pages that now redirect to a general section.
Product pages that now redirect to an updated model.
Blog posts that redirect to a category archive.
Double-check that any historic redirects over six months old still need to be in place. Some may be sending signals to search engines that are no longer needed.
Removing unnecessary historic redirects will also help to simplify your site’s redirect structure and make it easier to manage going forward.
When setting up your migration’s redirect plan, be sure to factor in updating any historic redirects to their new destination URLs.
Leaving these behind could result in lost traffic and rankings for important pages on your site.
Staying on top of your enterprise website’s historic and new redirects during migration is key to a successful transition with minimal SEO impact.
Overcoming Redirect Limits
If you have an enterprise website with hundreds of thousands of pages, you may run into issues with redirect limits from your CMS or ecommerce platform.
Many systems like SAP Hybris and Salesforce Commerce Cloud cap the number of redirects you can have at 50,000 to 100,000. For a major website migration (especially enterprise ecommerce websites), this likely won’t cut it.
To get around these constraints, you’ll need to get creative. A few options to consider:
Use wildcard redirects to capture categories of pages. For example, redirect /products/* to /shop/*. This single redirect will capture all pages that start with /products.
Exclude parameters from redirects when possible. If you have pages like /product-name?color=red and /product-name?size=large, redirect only /product-name to the new URL. The parameters are often not indexed or linked to, so you can leave them out of the redirect.
Break up redirect chains. If you have a series of three+ redirects for a single page, break up the chain and create direct redirects from the initial URLs to the final destination. Historically, chained redirects were thought to pass along link juice, but this has been proven false. Keep redirects as direct as possible.
Prioritize mission-critical pages. When you start to reach the redirect limit, focus on redirecting pages that drive significant traffic and revenue. You can leave less important pages unredirected or with a 404 error temporarily.
Ask your CMS vendor about increasing limits. Many systems will increase redirect limits on an enterprise website if you ask and explain your needs. Be prepared to pay additional fees for this add-on.
With creative thinking and persistence, you can overcome most redirect limits and complete an enterprise website migration without losing a big chunk of your organic traffic.
The key is having a well-thought-out redirect strategy and implementing it well before you hit your CMS’s limits.
Once the redirects have been implemented, it’s time to see how your organic traffic and rankings have been impacted.
Benchmarking Your Progress
This will help determine if any further optimization is needed. Here are a few key metrics to monitor:
Organic search traffic. Compare traffic from major search engines like Google before and after the migration. Expect some initial drop in traffic, but it should start recovering within one to two months. If traffic is still significantly lower after three months, revisit your redirect implementation.
Keyword rankings.Track the rankings of your most important keywords to see if their positions have changed. Drops in ranking are common after a migration, but rankings should start improving again over time as search engines recrawl your new site. Major drops that don’t improve could signal redirect or content issues that need to be addressed.
Indexation. Use a tool like Google Search Console to check how much of your new site has been indexed. A large, complex site can take three to six months for Google to fully recrawl and re-index. Look for steady increases in indexation over time. If indexation stalls or drops, there may be technical issues preventing Google from accessing parts of your site.
404 errors. Monitor your 404 errors to ensure any broken links are redirecting properly. High numbers of 404s, especially old URLs, indicate redirects that need to be created or fixed.
Backlinks. Do a backlink audit to verify that any links pointing to your old site now redirect to the proper new URLs. Failure to redirect backlinks is a common cause of traffic and ranking loss after a website migration.
Regularly benchmarking these key metrics will give you valuable insight into how well your enterprise website migration and redirect implementation is going.
Make adjustments as needed to get your new site’s organic performance back on track.
Communicating Migration Performance To The C-Level
Communicating migration performance to leadership is crucial for continued support and investment in your enterprise website.
Even if the migration itself goes smoothly, problems can arise after launch if the C-suite isn’t on board.
Not all metrics need to matter directly to SEO, but giving the C-level more data and clarity can help prevent knee-jerk reactions and bad decisions from being imposed on the migrations team.
Be transparent that there may be an initial dip in metrics as the new site establishes itself. Having targets will help determine if the migration is meeting business needs after things settle in.
Share Detailed Reports
In the months following the migration, provide regular reports on how the new site performs compared to the old site and the established KPIs.
Compare these same metrics from the old site to give context on progress. Be open about any issues, and have solutions and next steps ready to propose.
It often helps to create a Looker Studio report so the C-level has instant access to data and feels as though they have some control over the situation.
Finally, Don’t Forget To Highlight Wins
While reporting on challenges is important, it is also important to showcase successes from the migration.
Promoting wins, big and small, demonstrates the value of the investment in the migration and builds confidence in your team.
Keeping leadership regularly informed about how the new enterprise website is performing is essential.
With open communication and a mix of progress reports and wins, executives will remain supportive and engaged in optimizing the site to achieve the best results.
Google has released a new episode in its “SEO Office Hours Shorts” video series, in which Developer Advocate Martin Splitt addresses a question many website owners face: Should all 404 error pages be redirected to the homepage?
The Clear Answer: Don’t Do It
In the latest installment of the condensed Q&A format, Splitt responds to a question from a user named Chris about whether “redirecting all 404 pages to the homepage with 301 redirects can have a negative impact on rankings or overall website performance in search.”
Splitt’s response was unambiguous: “Yes, and also it annoys me as a user.”
Why 404s Serve A Purpose
404 error pages signal to users and search engine crawlers that a URL is broken or nonexistent. This transparency helps people understand what they’re dealing with rather than being unexpectedly redirected to an unrelated page.
Splitt explained:
“A 404 is a very clear signal this link is wrong and broken or this URL no longer exists because maybe the product doesn’t exist or something has changed.”
Impact on Search Crawlers
Splitt says blanket redirects to the homepage can disrupt search engine crawlers’ efficiency.
When crawlers encounter a legitimate 404, they recognize that the content no longer exists and can move on to other URLs. However, redirecting them to the homepage creates a confusing loop.
Splitt noted:
“For a crawler, they go like homepage and then click through or basically crawl through your website, finding content, and eventually they might run into a URL that doesn’t exist.
But if you redirect, they’re kind of like being redirected, and then it all starts over again.”
Best Practices for Handling Missing Content
Splitt offered clear guidance on proper redirects:
If content has moved to a new location, use a redirect to that specific new URL
If content is truly gone, maintain the 404 status code
Don’t redirect to the homepage or what you think is the “closest” match
Splitt emphasized:
“If it moved somewhere else, use a redirect. If it’s gone, don’t redirect me to the homepage.”
This latest guidance aligns with Google’s longstanding recommendation to maintain accurate HTTP status codes to help users and search engines understand your site structure.
New Format
The SEO Office Hours Shorts format is a new approach from Google’s Search Relations team.
The original format was a live show where anyone could call in and get their questions answered in real time.
This format then transitioned to recorded sessions where Google personnel responded to a selection of pre-approved questions.
Now, SEO Office Hours is presented as short videos. If you prefer one of the previous formats, Splitt encourages feedback in the comments section of the video below:
Featured Image: Screenshot from YouTube.com/GoogleSearchCentral, March 2025.
Google has updated its Search Central documentation to include details about AI Mode in its robots meta tag specifications.
This update coincides with the rollout of AI Mode via Google Labs.
Document Updates For AI Mode
The updated document now specifies that you can control the appearance of your content in Google’s AI-powered features, including AI Overviews and the new AI Mode.
Key additions to the document include:
Nosnippet rule expansion The nosnippet directive “applies to all forms of search results (at Google: web search, Google Images, Discover, AI Overviews, AI Mode) and will also prevent the content from being used as a direct input for AI Overviews and AI Mode.”
Max-snippet controls The max-snippet rule specifies that limitations apply to “all forms of search results (such as Google web search, Google Images, Discover, Assistant, AI Overviews, AI Mode) and will also limit how much of the content may be used as a direct input for AI Overviews and AI Mode.”
What Is AI Mode?
AI Mode is an experimental feature initially available to Google One AI Premium subscribers. It leverages a custom version of Gemini 2.0 to deliver a search experience fully powered by AI.
The feature employs a “query fan-out” technique that issues multiple related searches across subtopics and data sources before synthesizing a comprehensive response.
Google highlights the following advantages of AI Mode over standard AI Overviews:
Handles complex, multi-part questions that might otherwise require multiple searches
Supports follow-up questions for continued conversations
Synthesizes information from multiple data sources simultaneously
Provides multimodal interaction capabilities through voice, text, or images
What This Means For Your Website
Publishers rely on website traffic to generate revenue through ads, subscriptions, or conversions. However, people may be less inclined to visit the original site when AI features summarize the content.
To counter this, you can use the “nosnippet” tag to block content from AI responses or use “max-snippet:[number]” to limit the amount of text displayed, motivating searchers to visit the site for complete information.
Looking Ahead
The robots meta tag controls offer ways to manage content in traditional search results and AI experiences.
Google’s cautious rollout of AI Mode shows that the company is aware of publishers’ concerns about content use in generative AI applications.
This update reflects Google’s effort to balance new features with publishers’ control over their content.
In 2025, the extent to which you adapt to emerging technologies, changing user expectations, and evolving search engine algorithms will determine if you’ll thrive or struggle to stay relevant.
Staying ahead of emerging trends is essential for maintaining a fast, secure, and user-friendly website.
Optimizing performance, strengthening security measures, and enhancing user experience will be key factors in staying competitive.
Artificial intelligence has transformed how websites interact with visitors, making online experiences more personalized, engaging, and efficient.
Use AI For Higher Conversion Rates
AI-driven personalization allows websites to deliver tailored content and product recommendations based on user behavior, preferences, and past interactions to create an intuitive experience.
The result? Visitors remain engaged, increasing conversions.
Chatbots and AI-powered customer support are also becoming essential for websites looking to provide instant, 24/7 assistance.
These tools answer common questions, guide users through a website, and even process transactions, reducing the need for human intervention while improving response times.
And they’re gaining in popularity.
71% of businesses in a recent survey either already have a chatbot integrated into their sites and customer service processes or plan to get one in the near future.
And they’re reaping the benefits of this technology; 24% of businesses with a chatbot already installed report excellent ROI.
Use AI For Speeding Up Website Implementation
AI is also revolutionizing content creation and website design.
Based on user data, automated tools can generate blog posts, optimize layouts, and suggest design improvements.
This streamlines website management, making it easier for you to maintain a professional and visually appealing online presence.
For example, many hosting providers now include AI-powered website builders, offering tools that assist with design and customization. These features, such as responsive templates and automated suggestions, can make building and optimizing a website more efficient.
2. Voice Search & Conversational Interfaces
Voice search is becoming a major factor in how users interact with the web, with more people relying on smart speakers, mobile assistants, and voice-activated search to find information.
To put this into perspective, ChatGPT from OpenAI reportedly holds 60% of the generative AI market, performing more than one billion searches daily. If just 1% of those are via its voice search, that equates to 10 million voice searches every day on ChatGPT alone.
Reports estimate 20.5% of people globally use voice search daily. And these numbers are increasing.
You need to adapt by optimizing for conversational SEO and natural language queries, which tend to be longer and more specific, making long-tail keywords and question-based content more important than ever.
To stay ahead, websites should structure content in a way that mimics natural conversation:
Google continues to refine its ranking algorithms, with Core Web Vitals playing a critical role in determining search visibility.
Implement Core Web Vital Data & Monitor Website Speed
These performance metrics, Largest Contentful Paint (LCP), First Input Delay (FID), and Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS), measure how quickly a page loads, how responsive it is, and how stable its layout appears to users.
Websites that meet these benchmarks not only rank higher in search results but also provide a better overall user experience.
One study found that pages ranking in the top spots in the SERPs were 10% more likely to pass CWV scores than URLs in position 9.
Ensure Your Website Is Faster Than Your Competitors To Rank Higher
As part of the prioritization of performance, mobile-first approach remains essential; Google prioritizes sites that are fast and responsive on smartphones and tablets.
Ensuring faster load times through optimized images, efficient coding, and proper caching techniques can make a significant impact on search rankings.
Leverage Structured Data To Tell Google What Your Website Is About
Structured data, on the other hand, helps search engines better understand a website’s content, improving the chances of appearing in rich snippets and voice search results.
4. Mobile-First & Adaptive Design
With mobile devices accounting for the majority of web traffic, mobile optimization remains a top priority in 2025.
Google’s mobile-first indexing means that search engines primarily evaluate the mobile version of a site when determining rankings.
A website that isn’t optimized for mobile results in overall poor performance, lower search rankings, and a frustrating user experience.
To keep up, many websites are adopting:
Adaptive design – Ensures that websites adjust dynamically to different screen sizes, providing an optimal layout on any device.
Progressive Web Apps (PWAs) – Combine the best features of websites and mobile apps, offering faster load times, offline capabilities, and app-like functionality without requiring a download.
Best practices for a seamless mobile experience include responsive design, fast-loading pages, and touch-friendly navigation.
Optimizing images, minimizing pop-ups, and using mobile-friendly fonts and buttons can also greatly enhance usability.
5. Enhanced Website Security & Data Privacy
Cyber threats are becoming more sophisticated.
You must take proactive measures to protect your websites from attacks, data breaches, and unauthorized access.
Implementing strong security protocols not only safeguards sensitive information but also builds trust with visitors.
Key security measures include:
SSL certificates – Encrypt data transmitted between users and a website, ensuring secure connections—something that search engines and users now expect as a standard feature.
Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA) – Adds an extra layer of security by requiring multiple verification steps before granting access, reducing the risk of compromised credentials.
Zero-trust security models – Ensures that all access requests, even from within a network, are continuously verified, minimizing potential security gaps.
Beyond technical defenses, compliance with evolving privacy laws such as GDPR and CCPA is essential.
You must be transparent about how they collect, store, and process user data, providing clear consent options and maintaining privacy policies that align with current regulations.
6. Sustainability & Green Web Hosting
Every website, server, and data center requires energy to function, contributing to global carbon emissions.
Optimizing websites through lighter code, efficient caching, and reduced server load also plays a role in minimizing environmental impact.
Choosing a hosting provider that values sustainability is an important step toward a greener web.
AI tools can assist in creating blog posts, product descriptions, and videos with minimal manual input, helping businesses maintain a steady content flow efficiently.
Beyond static content, interactive features like quizzes, calculators, and AR are becoming key for user engagement.
These elements encourage participation, increasing time on site and improving conversions.
To integrate interactive features smoothly, a hosting provider that supports interactive plugins and flexible tools can help keep websites engaging and competitive.
8. The Role of Blockchain in Web Security
Blockchain is emerging as a tool for web hosting and cybersecurity, enhancing data security, decentralization, and content authenticity.
Unlike traditional hosting, decentralized networks distribute website data across multiple nodes, reducing risks like downtime, censorship, and cyberattacks. Blockchain-powered domains also add security by making ownership harder to manipulate.
Beyond hosting, blockchain improves data verification by storing information in a tamper-proof ledger, benefiting ecommerce, digital identity verification, and intellectual property protection.
9. The Importance of Reliable Web Hosting
No matter how advanced a website is, it’s only as strong as the hosting infrastructure behind it. In 2025, website performance and uptime will remain critical factors for success, impacting everything from user experience to search engine rankings and business revenue.
Scalable hosting solutions play a crucial role in handling traffic spikes, ensuring that websites remain accessible during high-demand periods.
Whether it’s an ecommerce store experiencing a surge in holiday traffic or a viral blog post drawing in thousands of visitors, having a hosting plan that adapts to these changes is essential.
Reliable hosting providers help mitigate these challenges by offering scalable infrastructure, 100% SLA uptime guarantees, and built-in performance optimizations to keep websites running smoothly.
Features like VPS and dedicated hosting provide additional resources for growing businesses, ensuring that increased traffic doesn’t compromise speed or stability. Investing in a hosting solution that prioritizes reliability and scalability helps safeguard a website’s long-term success.
Future-Proof Your Website Today
The digital landscape is changing fast, and staying ahead is essential to staying competitive.
From AI-driven personalization to enhanced security and sustainable hosting, adapting to new trends ensures your site remains fast, secure, and engaging. Investing in performance and user experience isn’t optional, it’s the key to long-term success.
Whether launching a new site or optimizing an existing one, the right hosting provider makes all the difference.
Bluehost offers reliable, high-performance hosting with built-in security, scalability, and guaranteed uptime, so your website is ready for the future.
Get started today and build a website designed to thrive.
Conversion rates are 2.5 times higher for B2C websites that load in one second or less.
In other words, speed is no longer a luxury.
Speed is a necessity.
A fast-loading website enhances user experience, boosts SEO rankings, and drives higher conversions.
And with search engines and consumer expectations continuing to evolve, businesses must prioritize performance to stay ahead of the competition.
Implementing the right strategies ensures that websites remain fast, competitive, and ready for the demands of 2025.
A trusted partner like Bluehost provides the robust infrastructure, advanced caching mechanisms, and built-in performance enhancements needed to help websites reach peak efficiency.
A website’s performance starts with selecting the right hosting plan. The plan should align with the site’s current and future needs to effectively accommodate growth and traffic fluctuations.
Assess Your Website’s Needs
Before settling on a hosting plan, it’s crucial to evaluate key factors like traffic expectations, content types, and scalability.
For example, websites with heavy multimedia content require more resources than text-based sites, and anticipated visitor numbers influence server capacity needs.
Additionally, selecting a plan that supports future growth ensures smooth scaling without performance bottlenecks.
Match Your Website’s Needs To What The Host Provides
Different hosting solutions cater to different website requirements, ranging from budget-friendly shared hosting to more robust, performance-driven plans. Bluehost offers multiple hosting options tailored to various business needs.
Shared Hosting can work well for smaller websites with moderate traffic, offering a cost-effective way to get started.
Bluehost’s VPS hosting offers more power and flexibility by providing dedicated resources, making it an excellent choice for growing websites that need additional performance.
For large-scale websites demanding maximum speed and control, our dedicated hosting plans deliver exclusive server access with top-tier performance for optimal speed and scalability.
2. Implement Caching Mechanisms
Caching is an essential tool for optimizing website speed by reducing the need to load the same data repeatedly. By storing frequently accessed files, caching decreases server load, enhances response times, and ensures visitors experience faster page loads.
Websites that effectively utilize caching experience better performance, lower bounce rates, and improved search rankings.
Use Built-In Caching Features
For instance, Bluehost provides multiple caching mechanisms to enhance website performance, such as PHP APC (Alternative PHP Cache). A powerful opcode caching system, PHP APC improves database query speed and optimizes PHP script execution, ensuring that frequently accessed data is retrieved faster.
On the other hand, edge caching minimizes latency by delivering content from servers closest to the user, reducing server response times and improving load speeds.
Bluehost makes it easy to use caching to enhance website speed. Caching can be enabled directly through the Bluehost control panel, ensuring seamless implementation.
Additionally, Bluehost is powered by Dell rack-mount servers, which use AMD EPYC chips, DDR5 RAM, and ultrafast NVMe storage. With caching plugins like W3 Total Cache or WP Rocket, your web pages will load faster, improving the user experience, SEO, traffic, and conversion rates.
Another way to speed up websites is to examine how content is delivered to users. A Content Delivery Network (CDN) enhances website performance by distributing content across multiple servers worldwide. This reduces latency and ensures visitors load pages faster, regardless of location.
CDNs minimize the physical distance between the server and the user by caching static assets like images, stylesheets, and scripts at various data centers worldwide. This results in load times and reduced bandwidth usage.
Beyond speed improvements, CDNs also enhance website security by protecting against DDoS attacks, traffic spikes, and malicious bots. Some CDNs offer additional features, such as image optimization, automated compression, and firewall rules, that further improve performance and security.
CDNs & Bluehost
Bluehost offers built-in CDN solutions, including Cloudflare integration, to help websites achieve optimal performance and security.
Activating a CDN through Bluehost’s dashboard is straightforward, and configuring settings that best suit a website’s needs significantly improves speed and reliability.
4. Optimize Images & Media
Impact of Media Files on Load Times
Large images and unoptimized videos can significantly slow down a website. Why? High-resolution media files require more bandwidth and processing power, leading to slower page loads and a poorer user experience.
This is particularly problematic for mobile users and those with slower internet connections since heavy media files can take significantly longer to load, frustrating visitors and increasing bounce rates.
Additionally, media files that are not optimized can consume excessive server resources, potentially affecting overall website performance. If too many large files are loaded simultaneously, the hosting environment can strain, causing slowdowns for all users.
Image- and media-based slowdowns are widespread on websites that rely heavily on visual content, such as e-commerce platforms, portfolios, and media-heavy blogs.
Reducing file sizes, choosing appropriate formats, and leveraging compression techniques can greatly enhance website speed while maintaining visual quality.
How To Size Images The Right Way
First, while it may be common and easy to do, avoid using the width and height attributes in HTML to resize images since this forces the browser to scale the image, increasing load times and decreasing performance.
Instead, resize images before uploading them using graphic editing tools such as Photoshop, GIMP, or online compression services. Scaling images improperly can lead to pixelation and a stretched appearance, negatively impacting user experience.
By resizing images to their intended display size before uploading, websites can significantly reduce the amount of data a browser needs to process, resulting in faster page loads and a more visually appealing layout.
Appropriately resized images will also have a higher visual quality because they are sized for the right display dimensions.
How To Compress Images For Better Website Performance
Compressing images using tools like Squoosh, TinyPNG, or plugins like Smush helps reduce file sizes without sacrificing quality.
Implementing lazy loading ensures that off-screen images and videos only load when needed, reducing initial load times and enhancing overall site performance.
5. Minimize Plugins & External Scripts
How To Discover Your Plugins’ Usage
Overloading a website with excessive plugins and external scripts can severely impact performance. Therefore, it’s essential to regularly assess installed plugins and remove outdated, redundant, or unnecessary ones.
Limiting the number of external scripts running on a page can also help reduce loading times and improve efficiency.
How To Choose Efficient Plugins
Selecting the right plugins is crucial for maintaining website performance. First, look for lightweight, well-coded plugins that prioritize speed and efficiency.
Then, regularly auditing your plugins and removing outdated or redundant ones can prevent conflicts and minimize resource usage.
Bluehost provides hosting environments tailored for WordPress users, ensuring compatibility with essential caching, security, and SEO plugins.
By hosting your website on a reliable platform like Bluehost, you can benefit from a stable infrastructure that complements the best WordPress plugins. This will help you enhance functionality without compromising speed.
6. Tips For Compression, Minification & Technical Tweaks
Additional technical optimizations, in addition to caching and CDNs, can further improve site speed and performance. Compression and minification techniques help reduce file sizes, while other backend optimizations ensure web pages load efficiently.
Implementing these strategies can significantly improve desktop and mobile user experiences.
Benefits Of Compression
Reducing the size of HTML, CSS, and JavaScript files significantly improves page speed. Compressed files require less bandwidth and load faster, creating a smoother user experience.
Effortless Compression & Technical Optimization With Bluehost
Bluehost makes compression easy. GZIP compression can be enabled via Bluehost’s control panel or by modifying the .htaccess file.
Plugins like Autoptimize help minify code by removing unnecessary characters, ensuring that files remain lightweight and optimized for performance.
Utilizing ETags & Expires Headers
Another important aspect of page speed optimization involves using ETags and expired headers, which help streamline browser requests and improve overall efficiency.
These settings instruct a visitor’s browser on how to handle cached content, preventing unnecessary reloads and reducing the number of requests made to the server.
ETags (Entity Tags) are used by browsers to determine whether cached resources have been modified since the last visit. If the content remains unchanged, the browser loads the local copy instead of downloading it again, minimizing bandwidth usage and speeding up load times.
On the other hand, expired headers specify a timeframe for when specific resources should be refreshed.
By setting an appropriate expiration date for static files like images, CSS, and JavaScript, web developers can ensure that repeat visitors are not unnecessarily reloading content that has not changed.
For example, a website logo that remains consistent across pages can be cached efficiently so that users do not have to download it every time they navigate the site.
Properly configuring these settings enhances website performance, particularly for sites with recurring visitors. It prevents redundant data transfers and reduces the workload on the browser and server.
Many hosting providers, including Bluehost, offer tools and support to help website owners implement these optimizations effectively. This ensures a faster and more seamless user experience.
7. Regularly Monitor & Execute Maintenance
Practice Continuous Performance Assessment
Technology changes and slows down. Websites are no exception.
Therefore, websites should undergo regular performance assessments to ensure they’re continually optimized for the best user experience.
Routine speed testing helps identify areas where performance can be improved, whether by addressing slow-loading elements, optimizing server response times, or refining backend processes.
Various tools can assist in performance evaluation. Google PageSpeed Insights, for example, provides detailed reports on website speed and offers specific recommendations for improvements.
Lighthouse, a Google open-source tool, analyzes performance, accessibility, and SEO, helping site owners fine-tune their pages.
Beyond automated tools, ongoing monitoring through website analytics platforms, such as Google Analytics, can offer valuable insights into user behavior.
High bounce rates and low engagement metrics may indicate slow performance, guiding further refinements.
Businesses running ecommerce platforms or large applications should consider integrating application performance monitoring (APM) tools to track performance bottlenecks in real time.
Maintenance Tips
Regular updates to website software, regardless of the platform used, are essential for security and performance.
Content management systems (CMS) like WordPress, Joomla, and Drupal require frequent updates to core files, themes, and plugins to prevent compatibility issues and vulnerabilities. Similarly, frameworks and libraries for custom-built sites must be kept up to date to ensure efficiency and security.
Database optimization is another crucial maintenance task. Over time, databases accumulate redundant data, slowing down query execution.
Periodic optimizations, such as removing unused tables, cleaning up post revisions, and properly indexing databases, can enhance efficiency.
Server maintenance is equally important. Websites hosted on dedicated or VPS servers should have automated backups, uptime monitoring, and log analysis configured.
Cloud-based hosting solutions like Bluehost Cloud provide performance-tracking tools that can help identify and mitigate slowdowns at the infrastructure level, a 100% uptime SLA, and more to ensure websites run smoothly.
Lastly, implementing a proactive security strategy ensures ongoing performance stability. Regular malware scans, security patches, and SSL certificate renewals help prevent vulnerabilities that could slow down or compromise a website.
Security plugins and firewalls, such as Cloudflare, add an extra layer of protection while minimizing unwanted traffic that could strain server resources.
That’s what makes Bluehost the superior choice. We offer automated backups, performance monitoring tools, and dedicated 24/7 support professionals who can help keep your website running at peak efficiency.
And with a range of hosting plans tailored to different needs, Bluehost ensures that your website will remain fast, secure, and scalable as it grows.
Building a certified fast website in 2025 requires strategic hosting, caching, content delivery, and ongoing maintenance.
Leveraging Bluehost’s robust hosting plans, integrated CDN, and performance optimization tools ensures your website remains fast, competitive, and ready for the evolving digital landscape.
Bluehost’s hosting solutions provide an easy and reliable way to optimize performance.
Google Chrome has released its latest Chrome User Experience Report (CrUX).
This update zeroes in on individual components of page speed, offering fresh data on largest contentful paint (LCP) image subparts and real-world network conditions (RTT).
For SEO professionals, this means you’ll have a better understanding of what needs improvement.
Barry Pollard, Web Performance Developer Advocate at Google Chrome, made the announcement on Bluesky.
Key Updates to CrUX Report
Speed and user experience are known to impact search visibility, and Google’s latest CrUX update breaks down site performance barriers with greater detail:
Granular LCP Details New “image subparts” let you pinpoint what’s slowing down your largest image element.
With Time to First Byte, Resource Load Delay, Resource Load Duration, and Element Render Delay all in one mix, you can see if your bottleneck is server lag, render delays, or even how late the browser finds your image.
RTT Over ECT Rather than lumping user connections into outdated “3G/4G” bins, Google’s new round trip time (RTT) tri-bins highlight the true speed of your audience’s networks.
Identifying high-latency segments can guide you toward optimizing for users in specific regions or network conditions.
BigQuery & CrUX Vis Updates SEO professionals can access updated BigQuery datasets, which include more granular RTT information and broader coverage for metrics like Interaction to Next Paint (INP).
Additionally, the CrUX Vis tool (cruxvis.withgoogle.com) now shows everything from streamlined LCP subparts to country-level RTT stats, ideal for spotting speed issues at a glance.
Better Data Coverage, More Competitive Edge By retiring the Effective Connection Type (ECT) dimension, Google can report richer data for a broader range of sites.
How To Leverage The New Metrics
Zero In on Server Delays: Pinpoint high Time to First Byte if your hosting setup or backend scripts are slowing that crucial first load.
Check Image Discovery Times: A Resource Load Delay might indicate a late-discovered hero image or JavaScript injection issues, which are common trouble spots in modern frameworks.
Optimize Media Files: Long Resource Load Duration can highlight oversized or unoptimized images that hamper page speed, a frequent cause of poor LCP.
Tailor Solutions for Different Regions: With RTT tri-bins now informing you if certain countries or networks face big delays, you can serve region-specific content faster (e.g., via CDNs or local servers).
Why This Matters
The latest CrUX update provides new data and identifies where your page may fail visitors, potentially harming your rankings. This can help you fix issues quickly, potentially improving site performance and visibility.
