New Site maintaining rank on old URL's
-
Hi
I have a new website going live which has a different page names etc i.e. the old site had pages that are ranking called aboutus.html and the new site is called about.php
What is the best approach to maintain the rank and also on orphaned pages
Many Thanks
-
Thanks is there a way of doing a 301 of something similar inline on the page code? For example if the old page is called product.html and the new page is called newproduct.html what could I add onto the product.html page to provide the redirect. I dont have access and dont really want to mess about in apache
-
301 redirects are the solution here. Simply redirect URLs on the old site to their new equivalent URL on the new site.
If you have some pages that were on the old site that will NOT have a new equivalent on the new site then take a view as to whether to 301 redirect or to simply let them 404. If a page has some inbound links, ranks for some keywords or generally acquires a lot of inbound traffic from search, then it's definitely worth 301-ing. If there's no equivalent page on the new site, perhaps 301 to the homepage or most similar page that will exist.
Run a full crawl of your site before launching the new one. You can use Screaming Frog (free for up to 500 URLs) so you know exactly what's there. A site:domain.com search in Google will give you the pages Google has indexed specifically.
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
-
Site address change: new site isn't showing up in Google, old site is gone.
We just transitioned mccacompanies.com to confluentstrategies.com. The problem is that when I search for the old name, the old website doesn't come up anymore to redirect people to the new site. On the local card, Google has even taken off the website altogether. (I'm currently still trying to gain access to manage the business listing) When I search for confluent strategies, the website doesn't come up at all. But if I use the site: operator, it is in the index. Basically, my client has effectively disappeared off the face of the Google. (In doing other name changes, this has never happened to me before) What can I do?
Technical SEO | | MichaelGregory0 -
Could using our homepage Google +1's site wide harm our website?
Hello Moz! We currently have the number of Google +1's for our homepage displaying on all pages of our website. Could this be viewed as black hat/manipulative by Google, and result in harming our website? Thanks in advance!
Technical SEO | | TheDude0 -
Should I make a new URL just so it can include a target keyword, then 301 redirect the old URL?
This is for an ecommerce site, and the company I'm working with has started selling a new line of products they want to promote.Should I make a new URL just so it can include a target keyword, then 301 redirect the old URL? One of my concerns is losing a little bit of link value from redirecting. Thank you for reading!
Technical SEO | | DA20130 -
Case sensitive url's
Hi, Really appreciate advice on this one in advance! We had a problem with case sensitive urls (eg: /web-jobs or /Web-jobs) We added a code to convert all urls into lowercase letters and added 301 redirection. We are now experiencing problems with duplicate page content. Each time a url contains caps letter it is converted and redirected to small letter url. I can convert all urls into lowercase letters (all places) but the problem now is google have already indexed urls so they may cause duplicate content issue. The solution: Remove 301 redirection added to convert url into small letter. Add canonical url which converts url into complete small letter, so google index content only from canonical url. But I am little confused about what will happen to already indexed pages with caps in url. Appreciate any advice you can give? Simon
Technical SEO | | simmo2350 -
Can someone tell me how in the heck this site is ranking?
Just saw a huge update on the Serps for "SEO Company" and "Seo Firm " and this site has tons of big Google no's no's going to it. www.seospecialists.co it has links coming from Porn and Gambling sites. It is heavily over optimized for both keywords. I won't cry the sky is falling[SEO is broke] but I am curious to know why Google thinks they are worthy to rank that high.
Technical SEO | | MattieMac0 -
Does adding Tool Tips to a site hurt it's SEO?
I'm wanting to add tool tips to my site as it's intended for non-technical people that are wanting high tech equipment and services. I thought that by adding tool tips, I could clear any confusion they may have about a particular word right there rather then them having to search for what it means. I did some research online and saw that it may hurt SEO ratings but wanted to verify here first before deciding.
Technical SEO | | sDevik0 -
What's the best way to solve this sites duplicate content issues?
Hi, The site is www.expressgolf.co.uk and is an e-commerce website with lots of categories and brands. I'm trying to achieve one single unique URL for each category / brand page to avoid duplicate content and to get the correct URL's indexed. Currently it looks like this... Main URL http://www.expressgolf.co.uk/shop/clothing/galvin-green Different Versions http://www.expressgolf.co.uk/shop/clothing/galvin-green/ http://www.expressgolf.co.uk/shop/clothing/galvin-green/1 http://www.expressgolf.co.uk/shop/clothing/galvin-green/2 http://www.expressgolf.co.uk/shop/clothing/galvin-green/3 http://www.expressgolf.co.uk/shop/clothing/galvin-green/4 http://www.expressgolf.co.uk/shop/clothing/galvin-green/all http://www.expressgolf.co.uk/shop/clothing/galvin-green/1/ http://www.expressgolf.co.uk/shop/clothing/galvin-green/2/ http://www.expressgolf.co.uk/shop/clothing/galvin-green/3/ http://www.expressgolf.co.uk/shop/clothing/galvin-green/4/ http://www.expressgolf.co.uk/shop/clothing/galvin-green/all/ Firstly, what is the best course of action to make all versions point to the main URL and keep them from being indexed - Canonical Tag, NOINDEX or block them in robots? Secondly, do I just need to 301 the (/) from all URL's to the non (/) URL's ? I'm sure this question has been answered but I was having trouble coming to a solution for this one site. Cheers, Paul
Technical SEO | | paulmalin0 -
What's the best format for a e-commerce URL product page
We have over 2000 non branded experiences and activities sold through our website. The website is having a face lift with the a new look and a stronger focus on SEO. As part of this, I am keen to establish what the best practice is for product based URLs. I've researched the market and come up with a few alternatives that are used: domain/category/subcategory/activity_name domain/activity_name/category/subcategory/activity_reference domain/generic_term/activity_reference/activity_name domain/category/activity_location/activity_name Activities are location based but the location can change (say once every 2 years). Activity names, category, subcategory and activity_reference rarely change. Are there any thoughts/ research on the best method? (If there is one) Many thanks in advance for your insights.
Technical SEO | | philwill0