How to Handle a Website Redesign with Cludo

16 May, 2025 Best Practice, Configuration, How To, Implementation

Redesigning your website is a big step, and ensuring your Cludo search implementation stays aligned during the transition is crucial. Whether you’re an existing client or just getting started, Cludo provides flexible options to support your redesign, especially if you need to crawl a staging site behind a login.

For Existing Clients

When redesigning your site, it’s important to test Cludo’s search functionality before the new version goes live. Setting up a staging environment ensures that everything works as intended without affecting your live search experience.

1. Add a New Crawler for the Staging URL

Within your MyCludo dashboard:

  • Go to Configuration > Crawlers.
  • Click Add New Crawler and enter the full staging site URL (e.g., https://staging.yourdomain.com).

If your staging site is behind a firewall, VPN, or requires login credentials, you’ll need to ensure Cludo’s crawler can access it. This can involve:

  • Whitelisting Cludo’s crawler IP address on your web server or hosting provider. You can read more about whitelisting our crawlers in this article.
  • If the staging environment requires authentication, configure crawler access by providing login credentials to a Cludo employee by contacting your account manager or Cludo Support.

This crawler will fetch content from your staging site to build a preview of your redesigned search experience.

2. Assign the Staging Crawler to a Temporary Engine

To avoid interfering with your live engine, create a temporary engine and assign the new staging crawler to it. This engine will index only your staging site content, allowing you to preview search results and test relevance tuning.

  1. Create a Temporary Engine
    • Go to Configuration > Engines in MyCludo.
    • Click Add Engine, name it (e.g., “Staging Test”), select language, and save.
  2. Assign the Crawler to the Temporary Engine
    • Edit your temporary engine under Configuration > Engines.
    • Select your new staging crawler and save the engine.

Note: Temporary engines used solely for pre-launch testing does not come with any additional costs—as long as they are deactivated once the live site is launched.

3. Swap Engines When the New Site Goes Live

When you’re ready to launch the redesigned site:

  • Update the crawler’s target URL from the staging domain to the live domain. Alternatively, assign your live crawler to crawl the new site and initiate a full crawl.
  • Replace the Engine ID in your staging site’s implementation with the production Engine ID (if using a different engine).
  • Validate the search results and search performance on the live site.

For New Clients or New Sites

If you’re a new client or launching a brand-new site:

  • Set up a staging engine and crawler as described above.
  • After testing is complete and your site is live, you can either create a new production engine to ensure clean analytics (excluding any test data), or update your existing engine’s crawler to point to the live domain. Then, perform a full crawl to index the new site content.
  • Work with Cludo support if you need help configuring engines or managing the transition.

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