Moz Q&A is closed.
After more than 13 years, and tens of thousands of questions, Moz Q&A closed on 12th December 2024. Whilst we’re not completely removing the content - many posts will still be possible to view - we have locked both new posts and new replies. More details here.
How do I redirect a page that no longer exists?
-
I changed the name of a blog article I wrote and the original name is giving a 404 error. I am not sure why it isn't being directed like the other articles I renamed to improve SEO.
Since the webpage no longer exists, I don't know how to redirect it.
I use Wordpress and Thesis.
Thanks!
-
I see. Yes the 301s are just within my own site. Whew that makes me feel better.
Ok since I said I was using Wordpress in the OP, I figured CMS meant something else. Good to know.
I will check out that link, thanks!
-
If you used Simple URLs then your CMS is Wordpress (Content Management System).
I didn't mean to scare you though. 301s on your own site are fine. Don't worry about them as long as they are coming FROM pages that you don't want to pages that you DO want. The way you have them working on your site are perfect. That's what they are for. I have thousands of them on one particular site that I work on. Have you had a chance to read through SEOmoz's SEO 101 (beginners guide to seo) yet? It is a great starting point.
But, let me just clarify the 301 thing. If an off site link is coming into a non existent page and you 301 that page, you'll lose some of the link juice coming in from that off site. So it will be better to change the link from the offsite at the source. 301s on your own site are fine though. For instance, if you 301 the non www to the www version of your site, that is a 301. That's obviously good for users and good for search engines.
Sorry for the confusion.
-
Thanks for the info. I used the plugin Simple URLs. I hope I did it right. I am very green.
I googled CMS but I still can't tell you what CMS I am using. Sorry.
Regarding using 301s, yes I am probably using several. Not hundreds or anything but probably tens. This is because I am updating permalinks on the advice of my SEOmoz reports. Then the old permalink automatically redirects to the new one.
How can I get rid of the 301 redirects so I don't lose link juice?
-
Firstly, 404s are a natural part of the web and don't think it will kill your site. It won't. When you get a 404 error iit can mean that something is pointing to that page or that Google has seen the page before but now it's not there. Google wants to make sure that that page is completely gone and not an accident to the 404. Technically if you have nothing pointing to the old post (no external links coming in and no internal links either, including sitemaps) then it will go away after a few crawls. If you do however have off-page links coming into that page a 301 would definitely be a good idea (best idea would be to get those sources to change the link to the new page url but that's not always possible. Remember, when you 301 you do loose some link juice)
If you are on Wordpress there are some great plugins to do this like the 301 redirect option on Wordpress SEO by Yoast
If you need to do this manually then let us know and we'll give you the actual code to do it in your .htaccess
-
what CMS are you using, usually there are plugins to help you do this. Another alternative is to change the URL back to the old URL but the name stays as the new one - this is a common thing that can happen. But it all depends on your CMS - search its name and 301 redirect, you will get there
-
Just create a redirect in your htaccess file with the old URL to the new URL. There are multiple plugins that support this feature on WordPress such as "simple redirect" etc.
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
-
Page Authority
I feel like I'm wasting time by going out and creating backlinks for a new page to increase page authority, especially when I've already got the domain link for domain authority. In your opinion, how important is it to go out and create back links for a page? - am I wasting time I could be using towards creating more great content? Shannon Peel
Content Development | | MarketAPeel
Telling Stories about Women
MarketAPeel1 -
Pages and categories with the same name?
I manage a wordpress based site that is needing to under go a site architecture overhaul. the site is christ.org and one of the problems is it has 89 pages but really only 4 are navigatable (not a word apparently). The site also has over 400 posts so categories and parent pages are both definitely needed. One option is I convert a lot of the pages into posts, but would that happen to break any links pointing to those pages turned posts? Or another option is to keep the pages and posts and create a bunch of subpages, then I would most likely end up with similarly named categories and top level pages. I would guess the name of the category needs to be unique from page titles right? And not just unique but very much differentiated than any page title (not posts but page titles). Maybe what I need to do is convert the pages that are not really unique into posts and put them in the category it fits with. And then keep those that are unique as top level pages. The architecture needs some serious work I think 🙂 Any help would be greatly appreciated.
Content Development | | ThridHour0 -
Does every keyword need its own landing page?
So we're doing a bunch of keyword research. We've identified the big traffic, higher competition keywords and we've identified tons (thousands) of long-tail keywords that would be appropriate. What I'm wondering is: does every keyword need its own landing page (or content page)? Obviously, we'll be building content for all the primary keywords we're targeting. I'm less mystified about that. What I'm more confused about is what to do about the long tail keywords. For there to be any measurable traffic increase, we need to rank well for thousands of long tail keywords. But it's just not realistic to create thousands of quality content pieces to target each of these long tail keywords individually. So how do you go about ranking for large numbers of long tail keywords? I saw somebody post about using an FAQ page to target multiple long tail keywords which makes sense but even with that I'm not going to have a thousand questions. How does one go after large volumes of long tail keywords? Thanks, --eric
Content Development | | EricOliver0 -
Can you have too many words on a page for SEO?
One line of thinking is that you can not have too many words on a page because the more words you have the higher the chances that a long tail phrase will attract traffic. But can you go overboard with this? Is there a limit to the number of words on a page in terms of SEO?
Content Development | | ProjectLabs0 -
How many words should be placed on a home page, category pages, and product pages?
To optimize content for a website, how many words should be provided for a home page, category page and a product page?
Content Development | | gallreddy0 -
Posts vs Pages and Rankings Differ Greatly
I use wordpress for most of my sites and generally have a post 'news' section. What I've noticed is that just about every time a post will always rank much higher and much faster than a 'page'. As long as I don't let it get buried in the news archives it continues to rank well, better than if I were to create a 'page'. Is there any sort of reason this might occur? I'd like to be able to just create 'pages' but at this point in time it makes no sense.
Content Development | | GYMSN0 -
What are tier 1, tier 2, tier 3 keywords (pages)?
I am seeing these terms, but for the life of mine I can't understand what they are. Could anybody explain that in layman's terms? Thanks.
Content Development | | VinceWicks
0 -
How to edit Page Title & Meta Description in Blogger?
I'm managing my blog on Blogger platform. I have published 7 blog posts to my patio umbrellas blog. Today, I have published following blog post to my blog. http://vistastores.blogspot.com/2012/03/offset-umbrellas-awesome-choice-for.html When I see page title so it is shows me as follow. Patio Umbrellas Blog: Offset Umbrellas: Awesome choice for good quality time outside! I want to remove Patio Umbrellas Blog: segment from each blog posts' page title. I can't find out Meta description in my blog posts. So, How can I make it happen?
Content Development | | CommercePundit0
