Renaming web pages vs new web site
-
I am struggling with renaming a lot of my web pages because I used short form acronyms vs long form keyword page names and now my pages aren't ranking where they should be and used to be. I am weighing a whole new web site or just a massive update with new page names. I also have an old domain that 301's to the new url but the old one outranks the new one. If you search google for cheap tubes the first domain you see is www.cheaptubesinc.com (the 301'd version) when the real url is www.cheaptubes.com. I know I am getting a duplicate content penalty and when moz crawls my site they see 2X the page that I really have. I tried fixing this with canonical tags but it only helped 5 pages according the moz crawls since doing them. Since last July 4th my business has been declining and I know there was an SEO algorithm update last July 4th. I think either method of renaming the web pages with better SEO for instance cheaptubes.com/single-wall-carbon-nanotubes.htm vs cheaptubes.com/swnts.htm as it is currently. In either case, it is still an HTML 2 website done on frontpage and the question I keep asking myself is if I should just scrap the whole site and start over with a more modern format. Should I try to get a new site together with good SEO and publish it quickly vs rename and 301 a bunch of pages? What about the old site? Do I need to track the old page names and 301 them to the new ones? Any help is appreciates
Mike
-
thx William
-
Thanks for posting the follow up. I'm really glad I could help.
I hear bluehost is okay. I've tried a lot of hosting companies over the years, and the majority have that arrogant attitude. Charging $60 per 301 is insane though. If you decide to move your site, I recommend having a professional do it, or it could go very wrong.
Happy to see your ranks recover
-
Thanks for your help William. I got the old url cheaptubesinc.com 301'd to cheaptubes.com this week. Of course network solutions left off the / after .com and before the page name so that only the home page would 301 and they could try to sell me more 301s, it cost $60 for 1 and I have 48 pages on my site. I called and emailed them all week and they kept saying they had done it right and and they couldn't force google to change the links. I then realized if I typed www.cheaptubesinc/graphene.htm that it didn't work because it 301'd to www.cheaptubes.comgraphene.htm. They were argumentative with me even though I was polite with them (though I didn't want to be). I finally got a tech on the phone who said he would add the slash and ask his boss for forgiveness. However given the history of having the domain parked and pointed before and that not working over time & now this, I think my best bet is to transfer my domains to someone else. I heard bluehost is good. My concern is if they were that unethical in our dealings and the boss was argumentative in emails than they could go in an remove the slash at any time.
I also found a ton of code errors right at the top of my pages. I now know it was from putting up temporary messages but not checking to make sure the code was clean. The woman I bought my them from (6.5 years ago I paid her $60 and she still helps me for free, what difference between her & NS) notice open H1's & P elements at the top of the pages. I was still ranking well for acronyms but missing out on the long keywords since last july which caused my sales to drop off. I figure I lost at least 150K in sales because I neglected my website and didn't clean up the code on my pages a painful lesson I won't soon forget. On tuesday, when I searched single walled carbon nanotubes I had to go 8 pages back in google to find my page. By week's end I was #8 on page 1 and ahead of sigma aldrich a major materials supplier.
Thank you so much for your help William, it is sincerely appreciated
Mike
-
It sounds like it's time to get aggressive with your hosting company. Tell them they botched it. Tell them it's effecting your business. Also ask them how they attempted it in the first place. If you don't know what they did, you can't fix it efficiently. Discovering what they did without their help could possibly take a lot of digging and technical knowledge, but it's possible.
-
Thx William- The only way I could do it was to have the hosting co (network solutions) do it for me. The only way I can make changes to the site is with frontpage which can't do php. I called the hosting co and they did it for me. I am unsure of how to do it given my situation.
-
Hello,
There is some good news and bad news here:
The bad news news? That old site, cheaptubesinc.com is not 301'd. Notice how to URL doesn't direct to the new one when you type it in. You have two identical sites going on due to a botched 301. In order to help with that, more information on how you attempted the redirect is needed..
The good news? It is probably an relatively simple fix. Once you fix that 301, things may settle in.
Hope this helps.
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
-
Blogging , do I create a huge blog which links to all my sites
Blogging , do I create a huge blog which links to all my sites or do i create a blog on each site, or do i guest blog to each site from other peoples blogs 😞 which is best ?
Content Development | | SocialAssist1 -
Using different sections from all over your site to compile a blog post, bad idea or ok to do?
I have a large site that sells various products, I have been on a kick creating new content relating to the many aspects of upkeep with these products after purchase, I wanted to create a blog post combining all the info for the group of products, but will be reusing some of the FAQs and even tips, since I'm more or less relocating the info. Since this blog post is using many different sources on our site, using a rel=canonical isn't possible. Is there anything I should watch out for, Will rewording / phrasing here and there be enough or should I steer clear of this as a whole?
Content Development | | Deacyde0 -
B2b services site, deep long tail services or flat and broad
Hi all, i have a small internet agency with services in several area's.
Content Development | | mdkay
Currently i structud my services in 2 different area's.
General services and specialized products with services underneath. like so:
domain.com/services
domain.com/services/service1
domain.com/services/service2
and so on. domain.com/product
domain.com/product/service1
domain.com/product/service2 domain.com/product2
domain.com/product2/service1
domain.com/product2/service2 But now im thinking of create loads of different services i provide,
there are some overlapping content of course, but all services are still individual.
But i can write a lot of unique content about all the services. But is it smarter to make just a few big pages with the services more bundled.
Or really long tail. Now i have around 15 services pages.
when i make it a lot deeper im talking about 40 pages. Currently my complete website is around 35 pages.0 -
Would my ranking be affected if i had a snipet of an article showing on another site
Hi, i am thinking of using rss feed to show a snippet of an article on two sites for people then to be able to visit the main site, but i want to know if this would damage my seo and rankings. Any help and advice on this would be great
Content Development | | ClaireH-1848860 -
Site Content Review Please!
I m looking for someone who can review my site and let me about quality of content on my site. Can anyone suggest / know who I can talk to about this ? Nick
Content Development | | orion680 -
Are there quality blog sites allowing guest blogging ?
hi can someone guide me the right direction for guest blogging ? i m looking for quality blog sites that allow guest blogging especially for ecommerce related sites. Thank you Nick
Content Development | | orion680 -
Can I share share my content with other sites either as a individual post or RSS or will I be encourage duplicate content on the web and upset Google
Hi, I have a new site http://www.homeforbusiness.co.uk. I want to encourage traffic to the site by sharing some of my content with other related websites which have a higher PR ranking and traffic for a link to my site. Is this going to upset Google re-duplicate content and devalue my site and stop any organic rankings in the future? Equally some high PR sites which have a good synergy with mine such as http://thewomensbusinessclubs.com/ allow me to add my RSS feed with their blog network. Is this a good thing to do or not for the same reasons as above? Or can I only do the above my creating fresh content? Thanks, Elizabeth Conley
Content Development | | econley0 -
Is the Page Authority/Rank of my corporate site affected by my blog's PA/PR and vice versa?
If I host my blog on my corporate site (it is a wordpress blog) will the page authority and page rank of my site translate to the blog? And does this also go the other way around? My gut says this would make sense, and I think I have seen it in action with other corporate sites that host their wordpress blogs, but I want to be completely sure. Even better, if someone can explain to me how this works, that would be super helpful!
Content Development | | Kendi0