After a website redesign, what is the impact and is it a good practice to use /v2/ naming convention?

[NicolasE]

Hi mightyful SEOMoz community.

We just launched a redesign of our commercial website from

https://www.data-field.com to

https://www.data-field.com/v2/

All URLs from previous website were 301 permanent redirect to the appropriate page in the new website, and the root domains ( /, /v2/ ) send the users to their own language content /v2/en/, /v2/fr/, /v2/zh/

Up to here everything is fine. But then I setup the usual "Share" buttons, only to find that they were displaying a "0" count.

Then I realized that it was because of the root URL change from / to /v2/

My question is the following:

1. Is using /v2/ a good practice?

2. If yes, then should I link the Social tool to https://www.data-field.com/ ( only ) instead of linking it to the actual page in the address bar?

Thanks for your answers.

[NicolasE]

Yes, it is quite simple to fix. I think I will follow your recommandation. It'll reduce the levels of redirections ( there is still the redirection to the appropriate language that I don't want to remove ) and make the urls cleaner.

Thanks for your answers.

[RyanKent]

You would be redirecting your entire site. Whenever you use a redirect, you are losing some link authority. For a single redirect only a small amount of link juice is lost, but if you ever encounter multiple redirects, the effect is amplified.

It is common to redirect when necessary, but the case you shared is completely unnecessary. Additionally, you are adding an extra term, "v2" to your URLs which is not helpful to users or programmers.

In summary, using the /v2 directory in the manner you suggested is easily corrected. You should fix it.

[NicolasE]

Thanks for your answer.

Would it be "detrimental"? Or simply not very clean?

[RyanKent]

Is using /v2/ a good practice?

No. The subfolder would be used during testing. Once the redesign is complete, the /v2 would typically be removed and the redesigned site would replace the old site.