SEO Award: Topdog and Fass named finalists at the European Search Awards

Topdog reaches the final of the European Search Awards after an advanced migration of Fass.se

Topdog has reached the final of the European Search Awards for its work on the migration of Fass.se – one of Sweden’s most complex SEO projects. See all the finalists here:

The site migration, carried out in December 2025, covered one of the country’s most critical websites for medicines information. Fass holds data that matters to society at large, where the requirements for accuracy and accessibility are exceptionally high – in practice, there was no tolerance for error.

“This kind of migration is different from most others. It’s not just about traffic or rankings, but about information that people and healthcare professionals rely on every day. The precision required was exceptional as a result,” says Eugene Melnykov, Head of SEO at Topdog.

The project involved migrating very large volumes of data, complex URL structures, and a technical environment built on legacy systems. At the same time, search visibility had to be maintained, since a large share of Fass’s users find the site via Google and other platforms.

An added layer of complexity was that the content isn’t only consumed on Fass.se. The information is distributed and reused in search results and AI services, meaning that any errors risked spreading far beyond the site itself.

“Fass is a service that matters to society, and the quality requirements are very high. Throughout our collaboration with Topdog, we’ve kept a strong focus on making sure both the content and the accessibility stayed at the highest level all the way through the migration,” says Anna Wessling, Head of Digital and Data-Driven Services at Fass.

“A decisive factor was the close collaboration between the teams, both at a strategic and an operational level. This kind of project requires SEO, development and the business to work tightly together throughout the whole process,” says Christian Rudolf, CEO of Topdog.

The result was a stable migration in which Fass.se retained its visibility, quality and functionality throughout the transition.

Topdog is now a finalist in two categories at the European Search Awards:

• Best Use of Search – Health (Small Agency)
• Best Use of Search – Third Sector / Not-for-Profit (Small Agency)

The winners will be announced on 20 May in London.

Christian’s personal reflections on the project

This summer, we at Topdog found out that we’d made the final of the European Search Awards with a project we’ve worked on for a long time – Fass.se.

We don’t normally enter competitions like this. I usually say that Google itself is the real competition. But the work on Fass has been something out of the ordinary.

I’d go so far as to say that, if you’re lucky as an SEO professional, you get to work on a migration like this once in your career. That’s why I want to share the experience with those of you who work in SEO professionally, or who are simply curious about the profession.

Let me start with the context.

What makes Fass unique is that this really is a matter of life and death information. Medical professionals make difficult decisions based on the content on Fass.se. If the information is incorrect or unavailable, the consequences can be serious – both for patients and for healthcare staff.

I understood this intellectually at the start. But experiencing it in practice is an entirely different thing.

It runs through the whole of Fass as an organisation – technically, operationally and culturally. Fass takes its mission extremely seriously. For me personally, it was quite something to see values that so fully reflect an organisation’s purpose. As a citizen, that gave me real satisfaction.

At the same time, there were major technical challenges.

The infrastructure was old – the site, for example, wasn’t mobile-friendly. Everything had to be rebuilt: the technology, the UX, the integrations. The one thing that absolutely couldn’t be affected was the content. Not a single 404 was acceptable. That sounds complicated, and it is – but the organisation also made sure the resources were there for the job. Normally, you’re working within tight budget constraints set by the client.

On top of that, around 15 million URLs had to become roughly 150,000.

My colleague Eugene has led the operational work, and I can’t think of anyone better suited to the task – not just for his technical skill, but for his ability to work within complex organisations and actually make things happen, rather than letting them sit in Jira.

The launch itself was also something special.

We sat together in Fass’s offices, around 20 people in the room, while teams in other countries joined remotely. Watching the launch unfold in real time felt almost like watching a rocket launch. It’s not an experience you’d want to have missed.

My hope is that everyone who works in SEO gets to experience something like this at least once.