The journey of Gap 360 and its sister website Real Travelling began with a vision to redefine the travel experience for gap year adventurers and global explorers. Gap 360 carved a niche in offering unique, life-changing travel experiences for gap year students. Meanwhile, Real Travelling was launched to cater to a broader audience, offering authentic travel experiences that transcended typical tourist trails.
From initial contact and through the investigation phase our dedicated Reddico account team guided us at each step.
James Jeremy, Technical Director, Gap 360
The brief
For Gap 360, despite its established presence, there was a pressing need to enhance its visibility and capture a larger share of organic search traffic related to gap year travels. The brand was also looking to tap into new, trending travel queries that could drive additional relevant traffic to their sites.
Real Travelling, on the other hand, struggled with lower visibility and the challenge of building a robust digital presence from the ground up. The site also needed to leverage the SEO value from a second underutilised domain, RealGap, to boost its standings in highly competitive travel-related searches.
The pivotal moment came with the decision to undertake a double migration – merging RealGap with both Real Travelling and Gap 360. This strategic move was aimed at consolidating their market presence, optimising their SEO potential, and expanding their reach to a global audience.
The migration posed significant risks including the potential loss of search equity and the challenge of maintaining user experience during the transition. Given our extensive experience in site migration SEO, Gap 360 asked the Reddico team to help.
What we did
Navigating the site migration without disrupting user engagement was paramount. We knew the potential SEO benefits were massive, but the risks of getting it wrong were equally high.
These challenges set the stage for a carefully orchestrated migration strategy that aimed not only to preserve the existing SEO value but to multiply it by leveraging the combined strengths of the domains. The approach was holistic, involving meticulous planning, execution, and post-migration optimisation to ensure that the merged sites not only survived the transition but thrived.
Here's how the strategy was implemented:
Planning
Benchmark current performance. We began with an extensive analysis of all three domains, focusing on their rankings, SEO performance, and current traffic levels across the top 100-1,000 keywords. This established a solid foundation for measuring post-migration success.
Gather URL data and content review. Each page on RealGap was meticulously analysed for clicks, impressions, backlinks, and keyword rankings. This deep dive helped us understand the value of existing content and potential future impact.
Redirection mapping. Perhaps the most crucial part of the migration was creating a strategic URL redirection map. We didn't just redirect pages, we analysed every single Real Gap page to determine the most relevant target page on either Gap360 or Real Travelling. This ensured a like-for-like match where Gap-related keywords were directed to Gap360 and non-Gap keywords to Real Travelling, helping maintain the unique service offerings of each site.
Execution
Testing redirects. Before going live, each redirect was thoroughly tested to ensure a 301 redirect to the correct destination, maintaining SEO equity and user experience.
Deploy new redirects. After confirming the effectiveness of our planned redirects, we deployed them across the sites, carefully monitoring for any issues such as conflicts with canonical tags or other technical SEO aspects.
Monitoring and communication
Review and adjustment. Post-launch, the team kept a close eye on keyword rankings and site performance to quickly make necessary adjustments. This ongoing evaluation phase was crucial to adapt to any changes in search engine algorithms or user behaviour.
Client collaboration. Throughout every phase of the project, open and clear communication with the client was maintained. Regular updates, discussions, and collaborative reviews ensured that the client was not just observing but participating in the migration process. This transparency built trust and aligned both teams towards a common goal – success.
Through this detailed and thoughtful approach, the migration not only preserved the existing search equity but also enhanced the overall SEO performance of Gap360 and Real Travelling.
The results
Gap 360
A significant improvement in online visibility and search performance underscores Gap360’s enhanced market position. The migration consolidated valuable SEO equity, which was directly reflected in higher organic search rankings and increased traffic.
This has not only solidified the brand’s reputation as a leader in gap year travel experiences but has also expanded its audience reach, paving the way for new partnerships and opportunities in emerging markets
.Visibility Index: increased from 0.4 to 1.6 (+300% increase).
Google Search Console Clicks: increased from 107,000 to 190,000 over the last six months post-migration (+77.6% increase over the last six months post-migration).
Google Search Console Impressions: increased from 6.56 million to 9.2 (+40.2% increase in the same period).
Real Travelling
Real Travelling experienced a substantial increase in visibility pointing to a successful transfer of SEO value from RealGap. The strategic decision to merge and redirect RealGap's SEO assets to Real Travelling not only preserved, but amplified the site’s content authority, particularly in niche travel experiences.
This has dramatically enhanced user engagement, positioning Real Travelling as an authentic and exciting choice for real-world travel adventures.
Visibility Index: jumped from 0.008 to 0.048 (+500% increase).
Google Search Console Clicks: increased from 641 to 2,170 (+238.7% increase over the last six months post-migration).
Google Search Console Impressions: rose from 152,000 to 239,000 (+57.2% increase for the same period).
Having worked with Reddico on a number of successful projects, they were our first port of call when we were considering a consolidation of our brands and websites.
From initial contact and through the investigation phase our dedicated Reddico account team guided us at each step, thoroughly analysing all of our options and pitching a well-thought-out strategy to get the best from the project.
Their knowledge is second to none and just built on our already high confidence in their skills. This focus on collaboration along with faultless task delivery made for a very successful outcome. James Jeremy, Technical Director, Gap 360
