Modifying urls cause broken links?

[natearistotle]

I want to modify my urls for the purpose of creating clean, informative urls that can be pasted directly for backlink purposes.  Instead I have urls with long, garbled, strange characters.  When I change the URL it breaks existing back links! Any way around this?

[AlanMosley]

Dan is correct you need a 301 to correct the problem

Seems like you are trying to create friendly urls. Depending on what server you are using this can be very easy. If you are using a Microsoft server you can create the freindlly ursls along wuth the 301 redirects simply with a wizard.

See half way down the page.
http://www.seomoz.org/ugc/microsoft-technologies-and-seo-web-development

[Francisco_Meza]

I 100% agree with Dan. He has the correct answer

[evolvingSEO]

You need to 301 redirect old URLs to the corresponding new ones. You typically do this with a few lines of code in the .htaccess file.

This article is the best for info on how to do this.

And see this article and the section on 301s for additional info.

-Dan