Best method to update navigation structure
-
Hey guys,
We're doing a total revamp of our site and will be completely changing our navigation structure. Similar pages will exist on the new site, but the URLs will be totally changed. Most incoming links just point to our root domain, so I'm not worried about those, but the rest of the site does concern me.
I am setting up 1:1 301 redirects for the new navigation structure to handle getting incoming links where they need to go, but what I'm wondering is what is the best way to make sure the SERPs are updated quickly without trashing my domain quality, and ensuring my page and domain authority are maintained.
The old links won't be anywhere on the new site. We're swapping the DNS record to the new site so the only way for the old URLs to be hit will be incoming links from other sites.
I was thinking about creating a sitemap with the old URLs listed and leaving that active for a few weeks, then swapping it out for an updated one. Currently we don't have one (kind of starting from the bottom with SEO)
Also, we could use the old URLs for a few weeks on the new site to ensure they all get updated as well. It'd be a bit of work, but may be worth it.
I read this article and most of that seems to be covered, but just wanted to get the opinions of those who may have done this before. It's a pretty big deal for us.
http://www.seomoz.org/blog/uncrawled-301s-a-quick-fix-for-when-relaunches-go-too-well
Am I getting into trouble if I do any of the above, or is this the way to go?
PS: I should also add that we are not changing our domain. The site will remain on the same domain. Just with a completely new navigation structure.
-
It all depends on what you're trying to achieve. If you want people to see a 404 page then serve them a useful 404 page.
If you're trying to redirect link value then you should 301 to the most relevant page to what that URL used to have on it.
For me a 404 error is a great opportunity to catch the visitor and give them something of use.
If you redirect 404s you'll also reduce your site's general server errors, which can only be a positive thing, right?
-
Thanks for the RE.
About redirecting pages that don't exist anymore, I thought of doing that, however isn't that what the 404 page is for? I was going to redirect all other pages to the root, but that would likely mean we'd never get a 404 response.
Maybe I'm not understanding the programming logic involved in something like that.
-
We changed our domain a few months back so here's a few observations
- Where possible ensure effective 301's are in place
- If a page URL does not have to change don't change it. It is possible to create a better website structure/navigation without altering URLs.
- Ensure a full sitemap is submitted when you roll out the new design
- Be patient, you may see a drop for a short while, as the 301's take time to attribute value from old->new URLs.
- Get any sites linking to old URLs (the non-home ones) updated to the new URLs when you know them.
- In a few months, if you have any old URLs in Google (do a site:www.website.com) search then use the URL removal tool in GWT to get rid of old URLs.
- You may want to consider redirecting any pages that don't exist at all any more, to your home page or the next nearest match in terms of content.
Hope this helps to get you started!
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
-
Google Rank 0 - Best way?
We are trying to create tables or bullet points on each of our pages summarising the content of the page and get it to rank on position 0 on Google. This technique worked for some searches but not all so we were wondering: Is it beneficial to add links or not ? Is there a keyword limit? We are on Magento 2 if that helps. Thanks James
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | JamesDavison0 -
URL Change Best Practice
I'm changing the url of some old pages to see if I can't get a little more organic out of them. After changing the url, and maybe title/desc tags as well, I plan to have Google fetch them. How does Google know that the old url is 301'd to the new url and the new url is not just a page of duplicate content? Thanks... Darcy
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | 945010 -
Does it hurt your SEO to have an inaccessible directory in your site structure?
Due to CMS constraints, there may be some nodes in our site tree that are inaccessible and will automatically redirect to their parent folder. Here's an example: www.site.com/folder1/folder2/content, /folder2 redirects to /folder1. This would only be for the single URL itself, not the subpages (i.e. /folder1/folder2/content and anything below that would be accessible). Is there any real risk in this approach from a technical SEO perspective? I'm thinking this is likely a non-issue but I'm hoping someone with more experience can confirm. Another potential option is to have /folder2 accessible (it would be 100% identical to /folder1, long story) and use a canonical tag to point back to /folder1. I'm still waiting to hear if this is possible. Thanks in advance!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | digitalcrc0 -
Best way to block a sub-domain from being indexed
Hello, The search engines have indexed a sub-domain I did not want indexed its on old.domain.com and dev.domain.com - I was going to password them but is there a best practice way to block them. My main domain default robots.txt says :- Sitemap: http://www.domain.com/sitemap.xml global User-agent: *
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | JohnW-UK
Disallow: /cgi-bin/
Disallow: /wp-admin/
Disallow: /wp-includes/
Disallow: /wp-content/plugins/
Disallow: /wp-content/cache/
Disallow: /wp-content/themes/
Disallow: /trackback/
Disallow: /feed/
Disallow: /comments/
Disallow: /category//
Disallow: */trackback/
Disallow: */feed/
Disallow: /comments/
Disallow: /?0 -
Which URL structure is much better?
Hi Everybody, Which URL structure is much better? Type 01. http://www.domain.com/category-a/
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | cprasad
http://www.domain.com/category-a/subcategory-a-1/
http://www.domain.com/category-a/subcategory-a-2/
http://www.domain.com/category-b/
http://www.domain.com/category-b/subcategory-b-1/
http://www.domain.com/category-b/subcategory-b-2/ Type 02. http://www.domain.com/category-a/
http://www.domain.com/subcategory-a-1/
http://www.domain.com/subcategory-a-2/
http://www.domain.com/category-b/
http://www.domain.com/subcategory-b-1/
http://www.domain.com/subcategory-b-2/ How these 2 types can affect for Ranking, Site Links in Google and passing PR from root to other pages? Thanks Prasad0 -
Best way to clean up a nasty backlink profile?
A new client of mine sadly has a TON of terrible links (3800 links from 1500 domains) which are pointing to landing pages that have been created specifically for manipulating engines. Besides contacting these sites and asking to have the links removed the only solution I can think of it to delete these pages and let them 404. Obviously I am not thrilled about that but I'm not sure what else to do. Does anyone have any other ideas for how to clean up this backlink profile? Thanks
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | LukeMontgomery0