New Website Look/Structure - Should I Redirect or Update Pages w/ Quality Inbound Links
-
This questing is regarding an ecommerce website that I hand wrote(html) in 1997. One of the first click and buy websites, with cart/admin system that I also developed.
After all this time, the Old plain HTML look just doesnt cut it. I just updated to XHTML w/ a very modern look, and believe the structured data will index better. All products and current category pages will have the identical vrls taken from the old version. I decided to go with the switch after manual penalty, which has since been removed... I figured now is the time to update.
My big question is that over the years, a lot of my backlinks came from products/news that are either no longer relevant or just not available. The pages do exist, but can only be found from the Outbound Link Source.
For SEO purposes, I have thought a few things I can do but can't decide which one is the best choice. Any Insight or suggestions would be Awesome!
1. Redirect the old link to the most relevant page in my current catalog.
2. Add my new header/footer to old page(this will add a navigation bar w/ brands/cats/etc)
3. Simply add a nice new image to the top of these pages linking home & update any broken/irrelevant links. I was also considering adding just the very top 2 inches of my header(logo,search box, phone, address)
*note, some of these pages do receive some traffic. Nothing huge, but consider the 50+ pages, it ads up.
-
Yeah because of the age of my website, there was just news that was picked up YEARS ago... a lot are hi-pr links, i just want to make sure I do the right thing with em because as it stands right now any traffic gained from these now is 75%+ bounce rate. Good anchor text for most, 301 is what I was thinking about first... then i thought, maybe just wrap the pages in my new header and hope the searches dont remove or derank these random pages.
Again - We are talking about 50 pages, which bring in about 4k clicks a month... Albeit not huge, just didnt know what to do with them.
One more Idea - I make a new different header that used a "nofollow" on all links for all my category & brand pages, then use it to wrap these old pages... The idea would be to preserve the "old content" , and hopefully keep the pages ranked #1 for their respective low volume searches...
Would that even work?
-
301 the old pages to the new pages that are most relevant to the pages so that user experience should not get hurt!
**If links are spammy then try not to redirect (at least without disavowing bad quality links)
-
I vote to 301 the crusty old links and be done with it. I don't think you'll be able to squeeze much more juice out of them in any other fashion so just set the 301s and move on.
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
-
URL structure - Page Path vs No Page Path
We are currently re building our URL structure for eccomerce websites. We have seen a lot of site removing the page path on product pages e.g. https://www.theiconic.co.nz/liberty-beach-blossom-shirt-680193.html versus what would normally be https://www.theiconic.co.nz/womens-clothing-tops/liberty-beach-blossom-shirt-680193.html Should we be removing the site page path for a product page to keep the url shorter or should we keep it? I can see that we would loose the hierarchy juice to a product page but not sure what is the right thing to do.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Ashcastle0 -
New link explorer
I was checking this new tool which is really cool by the way and was wondering if I can outrank big guys with just content. I have a Domain authority of 28 with a spam score of 28 % Can I outrank with amazing content a site that hase a domain authority of 50 and a spam score of 1 % ? Should I ask for all my bad links to be removed so that my spam score goes down or doesn't it matter anymore those days and what matters is good content, link just don't count anymore ? Thank you,
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | seoanalytics1 -
Client rebranded with a new website but can't migrate now defunct franchise website to new website.
Hi everyone, My client is a chain of franchised restaurants with a local domain website named after the franchise. The franchise exited the market while the client stayed and built its own brand with a separate website. The franchise website (which is extremely popular) will be shut down soon but the client will not be able to redirect the franchise website to the new website for legal reasons. What can I do to ensure that we start ranking immediately for the franchise keyphrase as soon as the franchise website is shutdown. We currently have the new website and access to the old website (which we can't redirect) Thanks, T
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Tarek_Lel0 -
Does the number of links on a page metric include repeated links?
Just wondering if the number of links on the page metric includes links that are repeated? So, if I had 100 links to one page would this count as 100 or 1 link?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Cornwall
If it's the former does this mean more links to one page adds weight? Thanks0 -
Duplicate Page Title/Content Issues on Product Review Submission Pages
Hi Everyone, I'm very green to SEO. I have a Volusion-based storefront and recently decided to dedicate more time and effort into improving my online presence. Admittedly, I'm mostly a lurker in the Q&A forum but I couldn't find any pre-existing info regarding my situation. It could be out there. But again, I'm a noob... So, in my recent SEOmoz report I noticed that over 1,000 Duplicate Content Errors and Duplicate Page Title Errors have been found since my last crawl. I can see that every error is tied to a product in my inventory - specifically each product page has an option to write a review. It looks like the subsequent page where a visitor can fill out their review is the stem of the problem. All of my products are shown to have the same issue: Duplicate Page Title - Review:New Duplicate Page Content - the form is already partially filled out with the corresponding product My first question - It makes sense that a page containing a submission form would have the same title and content. But why is it being indexed, or crawled (or both for that matter) under every parameter in which it could be accessed (product A, B, C, etc)? My second question (an obvious one) - What can I do to begin to resolve this? As far as I know, I haven't touched this option included in Volusion other than to simply implement it. If I'm missing any key information, please point me in the right direction and I'll respond with any additional relevant information on my end. Many thanks in advance!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | DakotahW0 -
Linking Within Website
Hello - I have about 10 landing pages that I am focusing on ranking for and I'm doing okay. My question is should I have all these pages on a drop down menu from my home page or is the innerlinking too much? http://www.kasplacement.com
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | ksundheim10 -
Create new subdomain or new site for new Niche Product?
We have an existing large site with strong, relevant traffic, including excellent SEO traffic. The company wants to launch a new business offering, specifically targeted at the "small business" segment. Because the "small business" customer is substantially different from the traditional "large corporation" customer, the company has decided to create a completely independent microsite for the "small business" market. Purely from a Marketing and Communications standpoint, this makes sense. From an SEO perspective, we have 2 options: Create the new "small business" microsite on a subdomain of the existing site, and benefit from the strong domain authority and trust of the existing site. Build the microsite on a separate domain with exact primary keyword match in the domain name. My sense is that option #1 is by far the better option in the short and long run. Am I correct? Thanks in advance!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | axelk0 -
Should I redirect secondary keyword page
I have a reasonably high authority home page and have decided to optimise the home page to target a competitive keyword that previously had a specific page that was optimised on an internal page of my site that I have spent time building links to. The internal page has over 200 links to it so should I 301 redirect this internal page to the home page. Will that increase the auhority of the home page further? Or should I keep the internal page as a 'secondary' page for that keyword?. If I do have two pages don't I risk confusing google?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | SamCUK0