Best way to change URL for already ranking pages
-
Hello.
I have a lot of pages that I'm optimising. The ones I'm focusing on right now is already ranking, but the URLs could be better (they don't include the keywords right now). However I'm worried that if I change the URLs they will drop in rankings or have to start over. I would of course set up 301 redirect, but is there more I need to do?
What is the best way to change URL for already ranking pages?
-
My case it not quite that an incorrect page is ranking. It is the right ones, but I want to change the URL for these pages to optimise that part also, since the keywords are not included in the URLs right now.
-
Hi
I don’t think this will affect your ranking, I am sure you are familiar with the process.No matter what, changing your domain name will affect your search engine rankings, largely because each search engine responds differently to such changes, but you can substantially limit the damage done. Google has taken the lead as usual in dealing with URLs that change and will quickly index the new file with virtually no interruption if you follow some fairly straightforward procedures. AllTheWeb quickly followed suit. Unfortunately, the procedures described below do not work in the same way on the other major search engines.
The critical element in successful url redirecting or domain forwarding is taking the time to make sure that ALL links to your old page from directories and other websites are updated. That step must be done. Unfortunately, it is the most difficult step, as many links may be on sites that are neglected or even abandoned.
Google has published guidelines on changing your URLs. See, Google Information for Webmasters : "Once your new site is live, you may wish to place a permanent redirect (using a '301' code in HTTP headers) on your old site to inform visitors and search engines that your site has moved."
hope this helps ..:) -
Hi GoMentor,
Rand did a whiteboard friday on this topic: https://moz.com/blog/wrong-page-ranks-for-keywords-whiteboard-friday
Hope it helps,
Tom
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
-
What's the best way to integrate off site inventory?
I can't seem to make any progress with my car dealership client in rankings or traffic. I feel like I've narrowed out most of the common problems, the only other thing I can see is that all their inventory is on a subdomain using a dedicated auto dealership software. Any suggestion of a better way to handle this situation? Am I missing something obvious? The url is rcautomotive.com Thanks for your help!
Technical SEO | | GravitateOnline0 -
Does google know every time you change content on your page
What i mean by the question is, so on our home page www.in2town.co.uk we change the article under lifestyle story of the day, if this changes every hour, will this encourage google to visit that page more often or will then just ignore that and just visit each day would love to hear your thoughts on this
Technical SEO | | ClaireH-1848860 -
Is there a way of changing the Permalink without getting the 404 Error?
Hi, I am new to this all.. Is there a way of changing the permalink for example from: domain/content/ to domain/profile/ without receiving the 404 error message. It's just that since my website has been developed, some pages and their content have changed but the permalink still shows the name of the old page which may be confusing. Ps. Please use most simple language for explanations as I am really new to it. Thank you! Ve
Technical SEO | | MissVe0 -
Best Way to Fix Dupe Content
We have some internal pages which we have discovered may be causing a duplicate content problem. Does anyone have a recommendation on the best way to fix this? Main page: **http://**bit.ly/ViYqqn Dupe pages: **http://**bit.ly/116uzXe
Technical SEO | | darkgreenguy
**http://**bit.ly/WxyyoW
**http://**bit.ly/TNxPVm
http://bit.ly/VMnbuY Thanks in advance!0 -
My company is changing ecommerce platforms. What are image URL considerations?
My company is switching from osCommerce to Magento. What should I do about my image URL's? Should I try to recreate the filenames and directory paths from the old site on the new one? How bad is it for our SEO if I can't do that?
Technical SEO | | Kyle_M0 -
Wrong Page Ranking
Higher-level page with more power getting pushed out by weaker page in the SERPs for an important keyword. I don't care about losing the weaker page. Should I: 404 the weaker page and wait for Google to (hopefully) replace it with the stronger page? 301 the weaker page to the stronger page? NOTE: Due to poor communication between content team and myself, the weak and strong pages have similar title tags (i.e, "lawsuits" and "litigation")
Technical SEO | | LCNetwork0 -
Duplicate Page Content and Title for product pages. Is there a way to fix it?
We we're doing pretty good with our SEO, until we added product listing pages. The errors are mostly Duplicate Page Content/Title. e.g. Title: Masterpet | New Zealand Products MasterPet Product page1 MasterPet Product page2 Because the list of products are displayed on several pages, the crawler detects that these two URLs have the same title. From 0 Errors two weeks ago, to 14k+ errors. Is this something we could fix or bother fixing? Will our SERP ranking suffer because of this? Hoping someone could shed some light on this issue. Thanks.
Technical SEO | | Peter.Huxley590 -
Domain Authority and Page Rank concerns when using CNAME
In the event that a person uses a service like Blogger or a photo service like Photo Shelter, but use a CNAME to resolve example.blogspot.com or example.photoshelter.com to example.com, how does that affect Domain Authority and Page Rank in real world results, and how does it affect the user when/if they leave the service and establish their own site? For example: A client has a blog on Blogger called johndoephotography.blogspot.com but uses CNAME so what is shown is johndoephotography.com. The Domain Authority is quite high since he is really on Yahoo's domain. How does that affect SERP rankings? Is it ignored, since it is merely a sub-domain, or does the parent domain actually give a benefit? The second part: If John Doe decides to host his own WordPress blog, what happens to that domain authority? Has he lost it all?
Technical SEO | | WilliamBay0