301 redirect + new website copy
-
Hi There,
We are currently redeveloping our website and we're rewriting and optimising our many of our service pages.
I think I may already know the answer but should we apply 301 redirects from our old services pages to the new versions? The content subject matter will be the same on the new versions, they will just be completely reworded.
I would be interested to hear your views.
Thanks,
Stu
-
Sorry... I just had to jump in on this since the other members of the Roberts Tribe of Moz have chimed in. I agree completely with their assessment.
-
Good advice from Tom (no relation).
The only thoughts I'd add are:
1. Can you keep the URLs the same and just update the new page content and avoid the re-direct completely. (Unless of course you feel that optimising your URLs would deliver more benefit than retaining all the link equity)
2. Make sure you have an up to date list of your old pages and their URLs before you deploy the new site! Use this list to test!
3. Watch out for internal links in any old content and make sure these are up to date.
4. A good opportunity to look at your 404 page and see how you can improve that to help people find what they're looking for (not just telling them that the page can't be found)
-
Hi Stu,
I totally agree with Tom Roberts. Something to keep in mind as well. Redirects are absolutely necessary is you have incoming links to those pages. If you have a lot of pages you can get away with only doing redirects from the URL's that have incoming links.
-
Hi Stu
In general, yes - I would implement a 301 redirect here.
One thing to consider which might alter this decision are the links (if any) pointing to those pages at the moment. If you see any links going to those pages that you think may be spammy or against Google quality guidelines, it would be a good idea not to implement the 301 redirect - as then those bad links will no longer point to your site.
If you ever have a decision on whether to bulk redirect a large number of 301s - here's two things to consider:
-
Do those pages have any external links pointing towards it? If they don't, you're unlikely to get sustained 404 errors, as nothing will direct Google/Bing to visit those URLs (providing your on-site links and XML sitemap are updated too).
-
Have you had many page views for those pages? Hop into Google Analytics and look at the number of page views for the last 3 months. If it's a strong number, it would indicate people visit the page frequently and may have it bookmarked - in which case you'd want to redirect. If the value is low or nil, then it may not be an issue if you don't redirect.
The reason why you may not want to redirect a big number of URLs is that every redirection you add to the .htaccess file makes the file size bigger - and the bigger it is, theoretically the slower it may be. This is only a real concern when you have thousands of redirects to consider - so the above points are applicable then.
But if it's a small number, implement the 301s, update your onpage links and XML sitemap, and everything should be great!
Hope this helps
-
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
-
301 Redirects from Subdomain to Location Pages
I have a client site that is getting redesigned. Its a multi location service provider. Currently (for whatever reason) the location pages are sub domains. https://<location-name>.site.com/ In the new design the locations will be on the main domain. https://site.com/locations/<location-name> We are considering using 301 redirects from the current sub domains to the new location pages on the main domain. The current sub domains are setup on a multi-site with A records for each one in our GoDaddy account. Would like to get feedback on any unforeseen SEO issues that anyone might have input on.
Technical SEO | | ColeBField12210 -
What if my host doesn't have the 301 redirect feature?
Ok, So i need to do a 301 redirect but my host doesn't have the feature with htaccess. I currently use yahoo. What are my options?
Technical SEO | | bronxpad0 -
301 Redirect with an Exact Domain name Match
My Client had a site that ranked for a pretty competitive two word phrase, but for a variety of reasons had to transfer the site to a different domain name (with none of the previous keywords). We've 301'd everything just fine to the new site, but our traffic for that two word phrase, as well as related long tail traffic, is beginning to drop. Could the drop be related to something that we didn't do well in the transfer? Or is it due to the new domain name now not being an exact match? Sitenote question: Our Google Analytics is still set up for the former domain name and shows data just fine. Is there any reason to switch GA to the new domain? What are the pros/cons? Much thanks in advance!
Technical SEO | | TrevorMcKendrick0 -
Seo template for new website
I am revamping my website (www.UltimateBasicTraining.com). It's going to be major and I am concerned about the potential traffic loss since over 60% of my overall traffic comes from organic search results in the military basic training area. Are there any good SEO website templates I can start from? I see a lot out there but would prefer the advice of professionals. Thanks
Technical SEO | | TheVolkinator0 -
Canonical tag, CNAME and 301 redirect
I have a website with a couple of domains pointing to one IP address. Let's say I have two domains www.example.com and www.example.ca I also see during my SEO analysis that the example.com and the www.example.com (same for the example.ca and the www.example.ca) are triggering server responses. How do I deal with this issue for best SEO. Canonical links? CNAME, or 301 redirects? thanks
Technical SEO | | casper4340 -
301 Redirection of entire section to the homepage
Hi Guys, So here's the deal. Let's say I have a site at mysite.com/ which talks about tomatoes, and I also have a subsection that talks about potatoes at mysite.com/potatoes I want to stop providing information about potatoes altogether so i'm thinking about doing a 301 redirection from all of the pages at mysite.com/potatoes(.*) to the home page. The thing is, mysite.com/potatoes actually has a great page authority (3475 links from 145 domains) so I really don't wan to lose all that juice... Here are my questions: Will the links be added to the ones i have for the homepage already? Since my home page and my /potatoes section ranked for 2 different subjects, how is this transfer going to affect my rankings for the homepage? will it now also rank for both tomatoes AND potatoes? How much time does it usually take for google to recognize the 301 and pass the link juice? Any other tips on optimizing this process? Thank you for your time! -francois
Technical SEO | | nyakim0 -
301 redirects and old domain names
Thanks to the great advice i've received on this forum, I'm combining 50 different truck sites into a single, ultimate truck website. So my question is how long should I make a website 301 redirect to the appropriate page on my new website? My thought is that if it works well to have a single website, it might be nice to eventually sell off some of the old domain names that I won't be using anymore. Thanks! Andy
Technical SEO | | daenterpri0 -
On Page 301 redirect for html pages
For php pages youve got Header( "HTTP/1.1 301 Moved Permanently" );
Technical SEO | | shupester
Header( "Location: http://www.example.com" );
?> Is there anything for html pages? Other then Or is placing this code redirect 301 /old/old.htm http://www.you.com/new.php in the .htaccess the only way to properly 301 redirect html pages? Thanks!0