Handling 301s: Multiple pages to a single page (consolidation)
-
Been scouring the interwebs and haven't found much information on redirecting two serparate pages to a single new page. Here is what it boils down to:
Let's say a website has two pages, both with good page authority of products that are becoming fazed out. The products, Widget A and Widget B, are still popular search terms, but they are being combined into ONE product, Widget C. While Widget A and Widget B STILL have plenty to do with Widget C, Widget C is now the new page, the main focus page, and the page you want everyone to see and Google to recognize.
Now, do I 301 Widget A and Widget B pages to Widget C, ALTHOUGH Widgets A and B previously had nothing to do with one another? (Remember, we want to try and keep some of that authority the two page have had.)
OR
do we keep Widget A and Widget B pages "alive", take them off the main navigation, and then put a "disclaimer" on the pages announcing they are now part of Widget C and link to Widget C?
OR
Should Widgets A and B page be canonicalized to Widget C?
Again, keep in mind, widgets A and B previously were not similar, but NOW they are and result in Widget C.
(If you are confused, we can provide a REAL work example of what we are talkinga about, but decided to not be specific to our industry for this.)
Appreciate any and all thoughts on this.
-
Woops lol. Had no idea. Was always under the impression using a canonicalization tag was only used to prevent duplicate content issues. Thank you.
-
Hi JU1985 - Yes, page C would get the link juice if you canonicalize pages A and B to page C. You should also make it very clear to your users that they should be using widget C.
The other option is to 301 redirect pages A and B to page C and implement a dynamically-generated message via cookie to let users know why they are being redirected. This would also enhance user experience.
-
Are you sure that canonicalization does not pass on link juice? My understanding has been that it does and our SEO vendor does as well. Reading from here and a few other places it appears it does (link below).
Just want to be sure my knowledge is current, any source you can provide would be helpful.
http://www.seomoz.org/blog/an-seos-guide-to-http-status-codes
-
Hi JU1985,
Good call from Donnie!
I would be keeping both pages live and adding a unique explanation to each page that lets them know that the product they searched for has been superseded by Widget C.
When deciding on the right solution for any issue like this, the first thing to consider is the effect your solution will have on the user. Ask yourself "If I search for Widget A and land on a page that offers Widget C, what will I think?".
The answer for me is that I will most likely assume the result is incorrect and return to the search engine looking for a better result. That is not the best user experience possible and therefore unlikely to provide the best conversion rate possible.
So for me, any solution that simply delivers the client to a different product without an explanation (301 or rel=canonical) is least preferred.
The key to good business is good customer service - essentially being as helpful to your potential customer as possible. If a customer arrived at your offline store and said "I'm looking for Widget A", would you push them quickly across the store and say "here's Widget C"? Or would you explain that "Widget A has now been superseded by Widget C" and provide Widget C for them to look at?
The more you can emulate the offline store experience in your online store, the better the chance that the customer will feel comfortable buying from you.
Incidentally, I would make sure that the Widget C description added to the pages includes a Buy button and sufficient information that the customer can proceed to purchase without having to go to the Widget C page.
Hope that helps,
Sha
-
Canonicalization does not pass any link juice, only 301 redirect will let Google know to pass any of your external linking sites to your new URL. This is why I would stay away from Canonicalization in this case.
-
If we keep pages A and B alive, and canonicalize BOTH to page C - in addition to linking to page C from A and B, would this be the right thing to do?
Would page C then get the link juice?
I'm trying to please the user first, while still keeping best SEO practices in mind.
-
Good Question,
I would keep them live, if its not broken dont fix it. You can keep them live and add widget C to both pages.
Or
If you really want everything on page C. 301 both A & B to C and be sure to include the keywords your ranking for in your: title, H1, and body. If you do not do a 301 all the link juice will stay on the pages A and B.
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
How to Handle Website Merge?
We are a law firm and have another law firm merging into ours. Our branding will remain the same, but I am trying to figure out how to best handle their website transition. Should we link it to ours (although their PR & page authority are not significant) or should I map each page to ours with similar content with a redirect? MY main concerns are not damaging our website's SEO by doing something search engine's would frown on and also to try to take advantage of any organic traffic or referral traffic. Or maybe some combination - link homepage with added verbage that attorney is now with our firm and a link and redirect the sub-pages? I look forward to thoughts from anyone who might have experience with this type to issue. Thanks in advance! JulieHow t
Technical SEO | | JulieALS0 -
Switchboard Tags - Multiple desktop pages pointing to one mobile page
I have recently started to implement switchboard tags to connect our mobile and desktop pages, and to ensure that our mobile pages show up in rankings for mobile users. Because our desktop site is much deeper in content than our mobile site, there are a number of desktop pages we would like to have point to one mobile page. However, with the switchboard tags, this poses a problem because it requires multiple rel=canonical tags to be placed on the one mobile page. I'm assuming this will either confuse the search engines, or they will choose to ignore the rel=canonical tag altogether. Any ideas on how to approach this situation other than creating an equivalent mobile version of every desktop page or implementing a user agent detection redirect?
Technical SEO | | JBlank0 -
50,000 pages or a page with parameters
I have a site with about 12k pages on a topic... each of these pages could use another several pages to go into deeper detail about the topic. So, I am wondering, for SEO purposes would it be better to have something like 50,000 new pages for each sub topic or have one page that I would pass parameters to and the page would be built on the fly in code behind. The drawback to the one page with parameters is that the URL would be static but the effort to implement would be minimal. I am also not sure how google would index a single page with parameters. The drawback to the 50k pages model is the dev effort and possibly committed some faux pas by unleashing so many links to my internal pages. I might also have to mix aspx with html because my project can't be that large. Anyone here ever have this sort of choice to make? Is there a third way I am not considering?
Technical SEO | | Banknotes0 -
Too Many On-Page Links?
How much would this affect my page ranks performance? There are many Too Many On-Page Links? warning on my campaign. should I address this issue right away to fix it or leave it as it would not matter seriously ? I've looked at some of the pages and think all of them are necessary. Could someone help me? Thanks!
Technical SEO | | LauraHT0 -
Single Keyword Penalty?
Hi guys, I recently taken over SEO for strikebowling.com.au and I'm stumped to what has happened with the keyword 'Bowling' for the home page. Historically they have been ranking 5-6 for the year and they do come up in the local results. Start of September, bang they drop out of the top 100 for Bowling. No other words seem to be effected. However the keyword 'Bowling Alley' did improve around the same time for an internal page. What could have happened? A single keyword penalty? No messages in Webmaster tools No dodgy link building Look forward to some theories. Regards, Corey
Technical SEO | | LoudClear0 -
What is the proper way to deal with multiple product pages?
If an e-commerce site selling backpacks has 200 items and they only show 30 per page, what is the proper way to deal with page 2, page 3, etc? Do you let each page rank separately? even though they are competing on the same keywords? Do you use canonical tags on pages after the first page?
Technical SEO | | youngsgarden1 -
301 Single Page Redirects in IIS7?
Hey all -- I am working with a client, getting ready to make a full domain level change to a brand new domain. The existing domain has solid domain importance and trust, and the home page has a 5/10 GPR, so the transfer of all existing link juice is very important. Of course, I will be utilizing 301's to permanently redirect all existing pages to their new permanent homes. It will be a 1-1 structure, which I know is also best when possible. My question comes in specific to IIS. There is a wealth of information out there on the net regarding implementing permanent 301's using Apache and .htaccess, but nada when it comes to doing it in IIS7, which is what the client is using. For instance, today I am seeking to help them redirect 2 single pages to new destinations within the same domain, just diffferent folders. When you open up the IIS7 Control Panel (yes, with full Admin access), you can navigate to the directory, but the individual pages that I am looking to redirect with 301's do not show in IIS7, so you can't just right click on each page and choose "A redirection to a URL," etc. Any help on exactly how to redirect a single page using a permanent 301 in IIS 7 would be huge! Thanks guys!
Technical SEO | | Bandicoot0 -
Too many on page links for WP blog page
Hello, I have set my WP blog to a page so new posts go to that page making it the blog. On a SEOmoz campaign crawl, it says there are too many links on one page, so does this mean that as I am posting my blog posts to this page, the search engines are seeing the page as one page with links instead of the blog posts? I worry that if I continue to add more posts (which obviously I want to) the links will increase more and more, meaning that they will be discounted due to too many links. What can I do to rectify this? Many thanks in advance
Technical SEO | | mozUser14692366292850