Re-naming pages without affecting SEO
-
Due to the management software used for a lot of our websites, the URLs for specific pages appears as:
brand.com/page/pagename/number
I want to add slug URLs so that they appear as:
First of all, do you think this is an effective use of my time and will it significantly benefit SEO in the long run. Secondly, these pages have developed a decent PA over time and I don't want to lose that. Will adding 301s for all the renamed pages be enough to not have a negative effect?
-
I disagree with mrcensorious and Dubs: I highly doubt that taking the time to change all of your URLs will be much of an SEO benefit, plus, changing URLs always brings a dip in traffic.
Your current URLs are not so incredibly long that they're difficult to understand or share, and you already have keywords in them (I'm assuming they're in the "page" and/or "pagename" subfolder). As Google has been getting smarter, we've seen it place less and less emphasis on keywords in URLs and their structures, so my guess is, this would minimally help SEO right now (if at all), and probably wouldn't help in the future.
Add on to that, whenever you make URL changes, you will always see two things:
- A temporary dip in organic traffic, as search engines see the new URL as an entirely new page and haven't attributed all of the links from the old URL to the new URL yet.
- A permanent dip in organic traffic, because 301 redirects don't seem to pass as much authority as a direct link.
We never advise that our clients change their URLs unless they're going through a site redesign anyway and have to change them. So, I recommend you leave things the way they are!
-
Totally agree that the plan is a good move! Keep the URLs short and sweet. 301's will pass along any linkjuice and forward visitors to the new URLs.
-
Your plan ist definitely a good thing!
A short and precise URL is a relevant ranking factor, a significant factor from which your site can benefit a lot...
I would recommend that every time someone asks about that issue.
A 301 redirection will pass the linkjuice to the new URL, I don`t think that you have to consider about loosing PA.
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
-
Include Site Name in Page Titles or not
i would like to ask if it is a good practice or not to Include Site Name in Page Titles. My page is not selling products it is about plagiarism checker tool. i will give one example in one page we are writing about the plagiarism types so the page title is plagiarism types and then is the site name. what is the better practice? Keep it or not? thanks in advance
On-Page Optimization | | anavasis3 -
Maximum page size for better seo results?
Does really page size affect the results in search engines? And, what is the maximum in this case?
On-Page Optimization | | Eslam-yosef0 -
Will pushing a visitor to a conversion page hosted on a 3rd-party domain hurt the landing page ranking
Had an interesting question from a client. The client has a page that is optimized for a specific term. The goal of the page is to push users to sign-up for a trial. The trial registration (conversion) page is hosted by a third-party. Will pushing users to the conversion page cannibalize the SEO authority of the landing page. My reflexive answer is to say no, but now am not so sure.
On-Page Optimization | | infoblue0 -
Does Google penalize a page with the image tag with alt and without src?
Hi, I am curious whether Google penalizes a page with the image tag with a value in the "alt" attribute and without one in the "src" attribute? Would this count as stuffing? Sometimes you cannot put an image but you would like to get SEO benefit by having a keyword in an image?
On-Page Optimization | | Plivo0 -
Home page or landing page?
Hello, I want to ask a question related to that - Should we put keywords in the home page title if we wish to position another landing page better for particular keywords? I have read in one website about SEO that it's good the main keywords of your website to be positioned in homepage title also. f.e. Let's say we have website about web-design and our company is named Company Ltd. The title of the home page is "Company Ltd. - Web design, SEO, etc" We have also another inner page named "Web design | Company Ltd.". So should we leave the first page name only "Company Ltd." and the landing page's name "Web design | Company Ltd." . I don't know if they both have the same keyword in their title they won't compete with each other.
On-Page Optimization | | HrishikeshKarov0 -
Canonical URLs and SEO
After publishing my new wordpress website my on page analysis shows two canonical urls on my homepage. In checking the source code the Yoast SEO plugin states my canoncial url is www.homepage.ca/ This is the only one showing. Having said this I do not add the trailing slash to anything on my url structure. Could this be why the on page analysis tool says there are 2? If so is there any way to resolve this?
On-Page Optimization | | casper4340 -
Generic domain for SEO versus Brand name
I am currently building a retail e-commerce site in a highly competitive area. We have a generic brand name; e.g. kitchen-knives.com and we also have another brand name, e.g. 'slycers.com' We have 3 options that I can see and I would like to know which is better for SEO. Build generic.com as a blog site. Link to brand.com 301 redirect from generic.com to brand.com. Use generic.com as anchor text in all links 301 redirect from brand.com to generic.com . Use generic.com as anchor text in all links Also, if there are other better options, then I would appreciate the input! thanks
On-Page Optimization | | cestor0 -
Page Authority
I have recently optimised a set of images for a client of ours: I'm looking through all the PA of these newly optimised images, and have varying PA {from SEOmoz toolbar} I understand that internal linking will pass link juice, and obviously external links will add to the overall PA. I have several pages with a PA of 36: { Fairly deep pages} Yet they have no external or internal links going to them. My question is "How can a page gain any authority when it has no visible links pointing at it?" Obviously there must be a link pointing at it {internally} as Google wouldn't have crawled the page right? Also lets say all the keywords are of equal competitiveness would the keywords with highest PA rank higher than those on O PA pages. Many Thanks
On-Page Optimization | | Yozzer0