Ranking Implications due to Altering Page Names
-
I'm working on a very large (over 2500 pages), very old website (with pages created in the late 90s). The structure of the site is a mess (it still shows subtle sings of Frontpage!). We are trying to move to a more uniform, dynamic solution.
My question is: what sort of implication will there be on search rankings if we implement 301 redirects from the very old pages (that are poorly named) to new pages which follow a uniform pattern.
Some of these pages have external links pointing to them and others (most) just have internal links pointing to them which will be adjusted to the new urls.
Does the age of the page have a significant implication on rankings? Is there a better way to this than 301 redirects?
Thanks for the help
-
Thanks for the post. Good to hear that someone else went through a similar situation!
Did you do anything about any external links that might have been pointing to some of the pages that went away? Is there anything else that you could suggest that I might have not thought of?
Thanks again,
Scott
-
We went through almost exactly the same thing a little over a year ago (although the pages were not created in FrontPage). When we switched to a more dynamic solution, we did not use 301 redirects and we suffered as a result. With a little bit of elbow grease in the form of optimizing page titles, URLS, on page text, etc. we are ranking even better than we ever have in the past. We did notice a huge increase in branded keyword search and a huge drop in direct traffic (I am attributing this to not having done 301's). Do 301's no matter what!
I've heard of the age of a domain being used a signal by Google, but not the age of a page (I don't have information on this if it is true). I can't imagine that Google would reward an old page as opposed to a page that is optimized and current with valuable content.
It is true that the pendulum could swing either way, so make sure you create a baseline of where you are at in terms of SERPS now and be straight-forward with the stake-holders. Don't panic if you drop. Just work your way methodically back to the top using ethical practices. In short, the ramifications could be good or they could be bad. Good luck! That's quite an endeavor!
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
-
Search Console Indexed Page Count vs Site:Search Operator page count
We launched a new site and Google Search Console is showing 39 pages have been indexed. When I perform a Site:myurl.com search I see over 100 pages that appear to be indexed. Which is correct and why is there a discrepancy? Also, Search Console Page Index count started at 39 pages on 5/21 and has not increased even though we have hundreds of pages to index. But I do see more results each week from Site:psglearning.com My site is https://wwww.psglearning.com
Technical SEO | | pdowling0 -
Ranking
Hi, I am New Here in community.. My site Ranking Well in google But From Last two month its rank and traffic got down, i am worried about my site. and now when i created a new account on moz and check my site I saw there is a Spam Score: 5 /17 For my domain www.getmp3songspk.com I have Total indexed 1,132,913 url in google indexed Give Me Suggestion How can i remove bad links on my site. Seeking Help.
Technical SEO | | Getmp3songspk0 -
Page has Noindex, nofollow, still ranks #1
Hi there, I have a question about a few pages on our site, whom has a no index, nofollow meta tag but they are still indexed and even rank number one in our market for the term. How is that possible or is it that Google just ignores the tags when they think it´s an error from our side? The url is www.drogisterij.net/kilo_killer and the keyword is kilo killer. We rank number 1 if you search from Google.nl Anyone have seen it before and know why this might be? Thanks in advance.
Technical SEO | | JaapWillemDrogisterij0 -
Missing page titles
Does anyone know why my SeoMoz crawl reads my page titles differen't to what they truly are on my active site? I changed my pages titles and optimised them several months ago. Is my old page titles still been crawled rather than the new ones how do i fix this is?
Technical SEO | | gimes0 -
Two pages exactlt the same but 1 ranks the other doesnt :-(
Buonjorno from 13 degress C heavily overcast wet Wetherby UK... When you enter term "Ramsdens York" this page is visible in the serps:
Technical SEO | | Nightwing
https://www.ramsdensforcash.co.uk/buy-it/find-your-nearest-branch/york/#results When you enter term "Ramsens arbroath" the following page is not visible:
https://www.ramsdensforcash.co.uk/buy-it/find-your-nearest-branch/arbroath/#results So my question is please why when both pages have equally bad mark up & equally bad internal linking does one page rank & the other is invisible? Any insights welcome 🙂0 -
H-tags and Page Name best practice
For the past few months I've been working on a new site launch, but have been left with a couple of annoyances from my predecessor.. I've got a couple of questions about best practise (and if it's worth changing now). For reference, a good example page is http://polestars.net/hen-party/life-drawing-hen-party/ H-tags The (external) web designer has insisted that wrapping the logo in an H1 tag (with the same branded H1 text on every page), and using an H2 for the actual title of the page is fine. I really don't believe him, but at the same time, feel like maybe google is smart enough to discern the theme of a page in this structure. Is it worth having this changed so that the actual title is the first H1? Page naming convention Another annoyance that I've been left with is the fact that every product page is named the same "burlesque hen party", "life drawing hen party", "whatever hen party"... It looks a little weird, but my real concern is that as we now have 60 "hen party" links in the navigation menu of a bunch of our pages, this may be seen as keyword stuffing - is this a real concern, or am I overthinking it?
Technical SEO | | AlecPR0 -
No. of links on a page
Is it true that If there is a huge number of links from the source page then each link will provide very little value in terms of passing link juice ?
Technical SEO | | seoug_20050 -
On-Page Question
Im trying to increase value to specific pages by putting history, and additional images. Will copying snippets from other sites negatively affect me? Should the content be re-written completely?
Technical SEO | | Anest0