Does it make sense to create new pages with friendlier URLs then redirect old pages to new?
-
Hi Moz!
My client has messy URLs. does it make sense to write new clean URLs, then 301 redirect all old URLs to the new ones?
Thanks for reading!
-
Hi Daniel,
Having a friendly/readable url structure will surely help you in several ways.
You can read more about it here:
- http://moz.com/learn/seo/url
- http://moz.com/beginners-guide-to-seo/basics-of-search-engine-friendly-design-and-development
In the second article check the "Url construction guidelines" part.
But before you start implementation on such a development, try to check how you could avoid an url structure redesign failure. (Such as forgetting about 301 redirects from the old structure to the new one).
I hope it helped. Gr. Keszi
-
Depending on how messy, or how lacking they are in good organization or keyword value, I sure would if I felt the benefit out weighed the cost. I don't see a risk here if done properly.
Good luck.
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
-
Possible duplicate content issues on same page with urls to multiple tabs?
Hello everyone! I'm first time here, and glad to be part of Moz community! Jumping right into the question I have. For a type of pages we have on our website, there are multiple tabs on each page. To give an example, let's say a page is for the information about a place called "Ladakh". Now the various urls that the page is accessible from, can take the form of: mywanderlust.in/place/ladakh/ mywanderlust.in/place/ladakh/photos/ mywanderlust.in/place/ladakh/places-to-visit/ and so on. To keep the UX smooth when the user switches from one tab to another, we load everything in advance with AJAX but it remains hidden till the user switches to the required tab. Now since the content is actually there in the html, does Google count it as duplicate content? I'm afraid this might be the case as when I Google for a text that's visible only on one of the tabs, I still see all tabs in Google results. I also see internal links on GSC to say a page mywanderlust.in/questions which is only supposed to be linked from one tab, but GSC telling internal links to this page (mywanderlust.in/questions) from all those 3 tabs. Also, Moz Pro crawl reports informed me about duplicate content issues, although surprisingly it says the issue exists only on a small fraction of our indexable pages. Is it hurting our SEO? Any suggestions on how we could handle the url structure better to make it optimal for indexing. FWIW, we're using a fully responsive design with the displayed content being exactly same for both desktop and mobile web. Thanks a ton in advance!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | atulgoyal0 -
What to do with large number of old/outdated pages?
Are we redoing a large portion of our site (not ecommerce). We have a large number of pages (about 2000 indexed pages, out of about 3000) that have been forgetten about until recently, are very outdated, don't drive any traffic (according to Google Analytics) But they are ranking very well for the targeting keyword (#3 organic for most). What should I do with those pages? Could you give any guidance on whether we should or what affect it might have one the rest of the website if we delete those pages or simply 301 redirecting all those pages to the home page?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | aphoontrakul0 -
Several 301 Redirects to Same Page
Hi, I have 3 Pages we won't use anymore in our website. Let's call them url A, url B and url C. To keep their SEO strength on our domain, I've though about redirecting all of them to url D. For what I understand, when 301 redirecting, about 85-90% of the link SEO juice is passed. Then, if I redirect 3 URLs to the same page... does url D receive all the link SEO juices for URLs added up? (approximately)
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | viatrading1
e.g. future url D juice = 100% current url D juice + 85% url A juice + 85% url B juice + 85% url C juice Is this the best practice, or is there a better way? Cheers,0 -
Removing 301 redirect from 2.5 yr old domain
Hello, Need Advise. We are in Automobiles We have an Automotive site - build 3 yrs back - which is our main site (Site A) We built a separate niche site on Used cars 2.5 yrs back (Site B - url http://www.usedcarindelhi.com) - did seo - promote it for a year and later on in feb 2013 - did 301 domain redirection to Site A Now - we thinking to rebuild Site Site B again and remove redirection Will there be any harm on Site A, as we have now removed the redirection or shall we pass on link from home page of Site B to Site A i.e say Powered by Site A (on Top) or at all no direct linking is actually needed. PS :- Also - can anyone let know the backlink quality of www.usedcarindelhi.com. Its PR 3, DA - 18, Majestic Citation Flow - 18, Trust Flow - 11 . Pl advise
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Modi0 -
Redirecting Pages from site A to site B
Hi, I have a client who have a solid, high ranking content based site (site A). They have now created an ecommerce site in addition (site B). To give site B a boost in terms of search engine visibility upon launch, they now wish to redirect approx 90% of site As pages to site B. What would be the implications of this? Apart from customers being automatically redirected from the page they thought they where landing on, how would google now view site A? What are your thoughts to thier idea. I am trying to talk them out of it as I think its a poor one.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Webrevolve0 -
Creating a new site for each department of your business. Thoughts?
What is everyone's thoughts on creating several websites for your business for each department. For example.. say you owned a car dealership. You create a different site for: New cars for sale Used cars for sale Service department -mechanical repairs Parts & accessories department Financing department Positives: Having separate sites for each department would probably make it easier to rank on the specific search terms. Since a whole site on one topic Ie. Used cars would rank over just a page with the same information on a dealership website. Negatives: You would have to maintain 5 sites Link building Social Media Analytics ETC. Since they are all new domains & sites it will take longer for each site to rank. Google will see them as small lower authority sites since they are only a few pages & not larger sites. What is everyone's thoughts on this? Would you create several small sites? Or would you continue working on one big main authority site & continue link earning to the specific department pages, blogging on the topics etc. Thanks for any help & opinions!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | DCochrane0 -
New to SEO. How do I set up a 301 Redirect? What Else should I do?
Hello, I am new to web design. I designed my own site using dreamweaver and did all my seo on my own, I read a few books. Long story short I rank on the bottom of page 1 just after 3 months and the keywords are highly competitive. Now, I am up against some heavy hitters from national brands versus my local real estate site. I don't have a 301 redirect, and am not sure what else I should be doing to get my site ranked higher. I have back links from various sites, ( non-paid ) so it's what others call white hat. When I grade my site on website grader I get a great score versus the sites that are higher than me. I'm guessing my sites age is an issue. I guess I'm looking for some guidance. Thank you all, Here is my site to view. http://www.bronxpad.com
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | bronxpad0 -
Why are new pages not being indexed, and old pages (now in robots.txt) remain in the index?
I currently have a site that was recently restructured, causing much of its content to be reposted, creating new URL's for each page. To avoid duplicates, all of the existing pages were added to the robots file. That said, it has now been over a week - I know Google has recrawled the site - and when I search for term X, it is stil the old page that is ranking, with the new one nowhere to be seen. I'm assuming it's a cached version, but why are so many of the old pages still appearing in the index? Furthermore, all "tags" pages (it's a Q&A site, like this one) were also added to the robots a few months ago, yet I think they are all still appearing in the index. Anyone got any ideas about why this is happening, and how I can get my new pages indexed?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | corp08030