301'ing over 700 internal links to the main page
-
I just got a contract for a site. After I analyzed their website, I noticed that they have over 700 pages indexed. However, their internal linking structure sucks. It's basically all 700 pages in one directory.
What do you recommend? I redirect all the internal structures to their new locations, or would it be better to redirect all those internal pages to their main domain name, and build a completely new seo-friendly structure?
Redirecting their current pages to each individual page is gonna take a lotta time, and I don't think they're gonna pay for it. :l
-
EGOL has a very important answer you need to consider, which is what I was really getting at in my second and last sentences. (but I didn't say it well)
But to answer about the redirect of every page to the root: I don't have any actual experience of this but I wouldn't think it would be a good thing because the front page is untargeted, compared to the page the visitor thought they were going to get.
If doing this was a good idea, there would be no reason for using a 404 page not found. You would instead just redirect all missing pages to the front page.
My guess is that as soon as that pattern was discovered, the value you got from it would evaporate.
Remember that the whole purpose of all those pages was to satisfy the needs of a visitor. Send them to an inappropriate place and you have failed. (by the way, google does this a lot themselves. Their own redirects leave a lot to be desired.)
-
After I analyzed their website, I noticed that they have over 700 pages indexed. However, their internal linking structure sucks. It's basically all 700 pages in one directory.
What do you recommend?
STOP!
Do not do this until you have clearly defined two things.
-
Why you are doing this.
-
The goal that you want to accomplish.
Any actions that you take without considering BOTH of those questions are shooting without taking aim and not knowing what your target should be.
You might not need the redirect because linking structure and directory structure are completely different things. Redirects could cause a significant loss of power for this site.
-
-
If the pages you are redirecting have links pointing at them and you 301 them to your home page, chances are your home page will rank higher and DA will increase.
Whatever plan you decide on, my advice would be to do it a few pages at a time and see what happens.
-
Thanks for the detailed response.
I've been analyzing the website and their pages for the past hour.
For example, lets say the keyword is "send flowers to city". The domain name is "cityflorists". And she has pages for every city. I'm gonna 410 them, and just keep pages relevant to the city, it'll being down the number of pages to below 50 for sure.
The main question I want to ask, however, without any complications is, that what happens if you 301 over 700 internal pages to the main domain? Will the website get penalized? Or will the domain authority increase?
-
700 pages is nothing.
It really depends on what you are trying to do, but if you are a programmer, it would be very simple and fast to decide how to split up the files into the final structure, then get a listing of the new locations and generate the .htaccess file from that, because you know the original location.
I would do it by taking an exact copy of the current data and do this in a different location, so as not to cause any disruption. Once it all works, then do a fast swap.
What would make this more complex is if you had to rename the pages, but I would just write a file that contains old,new and use that to generate the needed changes.
interlinking the pages is another job (in their new locations) but if you are a programmer, as noted in the previous line, it is simple.
Something else you must consider is how will the client manage the system afterwards. Be sure not to put them in the situation that they need you in order to add a new page..
At least you are thinking about this before doing it. I just heard from a friend whose client got someone else to restructure his site and they completely destroyed the fantastic #1 and page 1 ranking they spent years creating.
-
Hi,
Will do my best to understand and your answer question appropriately.
If those pages are not are not providing any value in terms of traffic, ranking or links then there's no point of keeping them on the site. You could redirect but I would just implement a 410 status code to indicate to search engines that these pages no longer exist.
For pages which are providing value, restructure the site and place them in different directories (with 301 from old to new pages). Obviously you should build out these pages in terms of content and links in the following months.
It wouldn't be too difficult to evaluate your most important pages through Google Analytics, Webmaster Tools e.t.c
However the most difficulty for this project is prioritsation and how you present this to the client, considering there are 700 pages. Take the following steps when handling this with the client:
(1) Map out and plan how you want to structure the site.
(2) In plain english, list what you want to do with the site and the steps you will be taking to do so (for the next 3-6 months). Also be prepared for alternatives and difficult questions the client might potentially ask. In addition calculate the time, resource and how much you can do based on your allocated budget.
(3) Present this to the client in a clear and honest approach- be upfront with the situation. You should try and negotiate a common ground - Maybe he can give you a bit more budget this month but you get less next month for link building. How you bargain this depends on your payment terms which I do not know. But you should also be prepared to take some of the costs from your own pocket.
Next time I would suggest before taking on a contract to clearly identify the number of pages, site issues e.t.c so that project scope creep and this difficult situation does not occur to you again.
But to end this on a calmer note, buddy it's ok and you shouldn't allow yourself to get stressed about this, its all good and take this as a positive step towards your career. Whatever happens, just know that in future effectively planning will help you anticipate these issues beforehand and behave accordingly.
Take care and hope this helps.
Vahe
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
-
How to 301 Redirect /page.php to /page, after a RewriteRule has already made /page.php accessible by /page (Getting errors)
A site has its URLs with php extensions, like this: example.com/page.php I used the following rewrite to remove the extension so that the page can now be accessed from example.com/page RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME}.php -f
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | rcseo
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ $1.php [L] It works great. I can access it via the example.com/page URL. However, the problem is the page can still be accessed from example.com/page.php. Because I have external links going to the page, I want to 301 redirect example.com/page.php to example.com/page. I've tried this a couple of ways but I get redirect loops or 500 internal server errors. Is there a way to have both? Remove the extension and 301 the .php to no extension? By the way, if it matters, page.php is an actual file in the root directory (not created through another rewrite or URI routing). I'm hoping I can do this, and not just throw a example.com/page canonical tag on the page. Thanks!0 -
Putting "noindex" on a page that's in an iframe... what will that mean for the parent page?
If I've got a page that is being called in an iframe, on my homepage, and I don't want that called page to be indexed.... so I put a noindex tag on the called page (but not on the homepage) what might that mean for the homepage? Nothing? Will Google, Bing, Yahoo, or anyone else, potentially see that as a noindex tag on my homepage?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Philip-DiPatrizio0 -
- Truth ? ''link building isn't considered a suitable way of promotion as per recent search engine updates''
I need SEO. A SEO consultant said: ''link building isn't considered a suitable way of promotion as per recent search engine updates'' they mention: ''Therefore we would be undertaking a range of promotional exercises such as blog postings, social book marking, press release, etc that are more effective for ensuring best possible rankings for the website.'' Do you agree? Thank you
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | BigBlaze2051 -
Can internal links from a blog harm the ranking of a page?
Here is the situation: A site was moved from its original domain to its new domain, and at the same time, the external wordpress.com blog was moved to a subdirectory, making it an onsite blog. The two pages that rank the highest on the site have virtually no links from the blog and no external links, while all the other pages are linked extensively from the blog and have backlinks. Their targeted keywords are not so much easier to rank than the other pages for that to be the sole cause. To confuse the matter even more, there was a manual penalty affecting incoming links which was removed last month. The old site, which has many backlinks to the new site, is still in Google's index. The old blog however, has been redirected page by page and is not in Google's index. Most of the blog posts are short 1-paragraph company updates and potentially considered low quality content because of that (?) The common denominator among the two highest ranked pages (I'm talking top 3 in SERP v. page 3 or 4) seems to be either the lack of external backlinks or the lack of internal links from the blog. Could there be an issue with the blog such that internal links from it are detrimental rather than helpful?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | kimmiedawn0 -
Effect SERP's internal 301 redirects?
I'm considering installing Wordpress for my website. So I have to change the static URL's from /webpage.html to /webpage/. Yet I don't want to lose in the SERP's. What should I expect?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | wellnesswooz1 -
301 redirect w/ dynamic pages to static
I am trying to redirect old dynamically created pages to a new static one (single page). However, when I implement the redirects, it still uses part of the old dynamic url. For instance... dynamic.php?var=example1 dynamic.php?var=example2 dynamic.php?var=example3 should all redirect to: static.html. However, they are redirecting to: static.html?var=example1 static.html?var=example2 static.html?var=example3 The page is resolving fine, but I don't want google to misinterpret the new static page as numerous page with dup content. I tried this in PHP on the dynamic.php page as follows, but it the problem above persisted: header('HTTP/1.1 301 Moved Permanently');
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | TheDude
header('Location: http://www.mysite.com/static.html'); I tried doing it in my .htaccess file as follows, but the problem persisted: redirect 301 /info/tool_stimulus.php?var=example1 http://www.mysite.com/static.html
redirect 301 /dynamic.php?var=example2 http://www.mysite.com/static.html Can anyone solve this in PHP or w/ htaccess? Help!!! 🙂0 -
Flow of internal link equity
I've recently come across this: A site changes the URL of one internal page to something more search friendly, and 301's the old to the new as you would expect. They don't change the link on the homepage in the navigation. Instead they keep it to the old URL so they go through the 301 to get to the page even though it's internal. They say if they change the URL it will reset the internal flow of link equity to that page. I've not come across this before and so am not sure what to think. I mean I can see what they're saying but I would have though that it being internal would mean it's different and that the flow to internal pages would just kind of resume as-was quite soon afterwards. Any views?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | SteveOllington0 -
OOPS!! My website links the most to me, I can't get it??
Today, I have checked Google webmaster tools to get answer of following question. Who links the most to my website? I was assumed that Google webmaster tools provide me list of external website where I have created my text links. But, I can't get it when see my own website links the most to me. (4652??) I checked my other websites which are integrated in Google webmaster tools. They also developed on same platform as well as same internal linking structure. But, I am not able to find out similar issue over there. That's why I am quite confuse with Vista Store. How can I solve it? Does it really matter? "Open Site Explorer is my favorite one and always using that to get it done. But, Google webmaster tools is also active & free so why should I not jump in to... 🙂 "
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | CommercePundit0