Changing URLs to include a fixed identifier or ID

[Tit]

The Scenario: I got pages that I need to track, located in a domain, within several folders. Adding a common identifier or ID (eg. www.domain.com/folder/page-name-identifier.html) in those URL's will ease my work so I would be able to select, in Anlx, all traffic including URL's with that specific identifier. URL's for which track is needed lack this identifier today.

My Plan: add identifier (7 letters fixed and common for all URLs) to those existing pages and 301 redirect from old to new URL's

My Question: will this change of URL's and redirections SEO-hurt me in anyway?

[CleverPhD]

I agree with Andrew.  If you use GA, custom variables are the way to go.  You can actually put several parameters onto a page and have them in plain English without have to have a bunch of crazy stuff in the URL.  We use this on a site and it works quite nice.

What is great about this too, is that since this is all in GA and if you have goal and goal values setup you get all types of insights into what are the most valuable categories etc on your site.

If you do need to change the URL, setup the 301 redirects from the old URL to the new URL and you should be fine, especially if you have a 1 to 1 relationship with those 301 redirects.

One thing to consider, we have setup urls for articles etc that read like this

www.domain.com/folder/######-page-name-slug-here.html

The ###### is a ID number for the content that we use internally in our CMS.   We are then able to use the ###### as a fail safe in the URL structure if there is some other error in the url when it is types in or linked to

for example

www.domain.com/folder/######-page-name-

www.domain.com/folder/######-page-name-slug-here.

www.domain.com/folder/######-page

www.domain.com/folder/######-page-nam

www.domain.com/folder/######-Page-Name-Slug-Here.html

www.domain.com/folder/######-page-name-slug-here.htm

www.domain.com/folder/######

We setup our system so that if any of the examples wrong URLs occur above, the system can use the folder and the ID to always 301 redirect to

www.domain.com/folder/######-page-name-slug-here.html

As we have the ID as the absolute identifier.  We have found this helpful with the inevitable issues that may come up with an incomplete URL.

Good luck!

[Kurt_Steinbrueck]

In theory, nothing should change and it should not hurt your SEO, but there's always some risk involved whenever you start redirecting pages. There may be some authority that's lost or Google may take some time and shuffle things around for a while. So, I would consider if there are other options. If you have good rankings for these pages, see if there's another way that you can track the traffic in a reliable way before you go messing around with 301 redirects. If it's the only way to track what you need to track, then what you're planning should work in theory.

[AndieF]

Howdy!

Instead of messing about with URLs, have you considered using Google Analytics custom variables?

They're quite simple, and may make your life a lot easier: https://developers.google.com/analytics/devguides/collection/gajs/gaTrackingCustomVariables

Kind Regards,

Andrew