New Website, New URL, New Content - What do we do with the old site? Are 301's the only option?
-
We've just built a new site for a client. They were adamant on changing the url. The new site is entirely new content, however the subject mater is the same. Some pages are even titled very similarly.
Is is advisable to keep the old site running, and link it to the new site? Permanently, or temporarily?
Do we simply place redirects from the old site the new? Old site was 30 pages, new site is 80 pages. So redirects won't be available to all the new pages.
It seems a shame to trash the old site, it is getting some good traffic, and the content - although outdated is unique and of a high quality.
Old url is 4+ yrs old, the new url is new.
Some enlightened opinions would be greatly welcomed.
Thanks
-
Personally I would try to use all the old content & try to keep the urls (if not duplicate) and put a 301 redirect on the old website, hopefully will be indexed well and not lose that traffic.
-
Hello Luke,
If I had to make the call, I'd 301 redirect the relevant old pages to the corresponding new pages. I'd also tell Google that you've updated your web address using GWT. Obviously there's not much you can do with the new pages that don't have relevant old pages, so just leave those to be indexed as normal.
Thanks!
Ryan
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
-
URL with query string being indexed over it's parent page?
I noticed earlier this week that this page - https://www.ihasco.co.uk/courses/detail/bomb-threats-and-suspicious-packages?channel=care was being indexed instead of this page - https://www.ihasco.co.uk/courses/detail/bomb-threats-and-suspicious-packages for its various keywords We have rel=canonical tags correctly set up and all internal links to these pages with query strings are nofollow, so why is this page being indexed? Any help would be appreciated 🙂
Technical SEO | | iHasco0 -
SERP result (URL) doesn't change after a 301
A couple of months ago there was a result in Google for our branded search term which wasn't the 'official' URL, actually the result shown in the SERP was www.mycompany-ip.nl. We've applied a 301 redirect of this URL to the 'official' URL which is a subdomain: department.mycompany.nl. From Google the redirect is obviously working, but up until now, I don't see Google replacing the incorrect URL by the correct URL. I am wondering what to do to make the result correct. André
Technical SEO | | ConclusionDigital0 -
What's Moz's Strategy behind their blog main categories?
I've only just noticed that the Moz' blog categories have been moved within a pull down menu. See it underneath : 'Explore Posts by Category' on any blog page. This means that the whole list of categories under that pull-down is not crawlable by bots, and therefore no link-juice flows down onto those category pages. I imagine that the main drive behind that move is to sculpt page rank so that the business/money pages or areas of the website get greater link equity as opposed to just wasting it all throwing it down to the many categories ? it'd be good to hear about more from Rand or anyone in his team as to how they came onto engineering this and why. One of the things I wonder is: with the sheer amount of content that Moz produces, is it possible to contemplate an effective technical architecture such as that? I know they do a great job at interlinking content from one post onto another, so effectively one can argue that that kind of supersedes the need for hierarchical page rank distribution via categories... but I wonder : "is it working better this way vs having crawlable blog category links on the blog section? have they performed tests" some insights or further info on this from Moz would be very welcome. thanks in advance
Technical SEO | | carralon
David0 -
How can I get the most out of uploading a print magazine to my client's website?
Hi Mozers, My client is just about to launch a print magazine for her watch business. There is so much valuable content in the magazine and we want to feature it on the website both for SEO purposes and also for those who prefer to read articles online instead of reading a physical magazine. My question is: what is the best method of displaying the magazine to get the most from search rankings and also to capitalise on the beautiful imagery from the magazine. The best option that I can think of is to upload the magazine as a flipbook and create a separate page on the website to display each article so that search engine crawlers can index the content. I do understand that this could be problematic if users are only spending time reading the flipbook and not so much time on the article pages. Do you guys have any suggestions about how to get the most out of this opportunity for my client? THANK YOU IN ADVANCE. Meaghan
Technical SEO | | StoryScout0 -
Maintaining Link Value Of Old URLS With 301 Redirects
Large ecommerce site that has been around for a long time (15+ years.) During that time technology has changed a lot and we are running into issues maintaining 301 redirects for very old urls. For example we have a good amount of links to product and category pages. Some of the old links are to products that still exist and will exist for many years to come.(of note little to no traffic comes via these links. Most of them are close to 9 years old so they are buried deep within articles, forums, or websites) However as we make changes to the site and URL structure these old urls are taking up more resources to continue to maintain 301 redirects. I am Leary of no longer supporting them because I do not want it to impact rankings however there is concern on how much development time and technology resources it takes to continue to support as time goes on. Does anyone have experience handling redirects 3 or 4 url structures old? Looking for insight from someone who has crossed this bridge before.
Technical SEO | | RMATVMC0 -
301 redirect blog posts from old URL to new one
I moved a wordpress blog from domain.com to domain.com/blog . I want to redirect the links in google from the old domain.com to the new one, but I also want to put a new site/application at domain.com..so I'm thinking an .htaccess 301 redirect at the root wouldn't work. Any tips?
Technical SEO | | callmeed0 -
Duplicate Content - That Old Chestnut!!!
Hi Guys, Hope all is well, I have a question if I may? I have several articles which we have written and I want to try and find out the best way to post these but I have a number of concerns. I am hoping to use the content in an attempt to increase the Kudos of our site by providing quality content and hopefully receiving decent back links. 1. In terms of duplicate content should I only post it on one place or should I post the article in several places? Also where would you say the top 5 or 10 places would be? These are articles on XML, Social Media & Back Links. 2. Can I post the article on another blog or article directory and post it on my websites blog or is this a bad idea? A million thanks for any guidance. Kind Regards, C
Technical SEO | | fenwaymedia0 -
Url's don't want to show up in google. Please help?
Hi Mozfans 🙂 I'm doing a sitescan for a new client. http://www.vacatures.tuinbouw.nl/ It's a dutch jobsite. Now the problem is here: The url http://www.vacatures.tuinbouw.nl/vacatures/ is in google.
Technical SEO | | MaartenvandenBos
On the same page there are jobs (scroll down) with a followed link.
To a url like this: http://www.vacatures.tuinbouw.nl/vacatures/722/productie+medewerker+paprika+teelt/ The problem is that the second url don't show up in google. When i try to make a sitemap with Gsitecrawler the second url isn't in de sitemap.. :S What am i doing wrong? Thanks!0