URL Change Best Practice
-
I'm changing the url of some old pages to see if I can't get a little more organic out of them.
After changing the url, and maybe title/desc tags as well, I plan to have Google fetch them.
How does Google know that the old url is 301'd to the new url and the new url is not just a page of duplicate content?
Thanks... Darcy
-
Yes, and this is especially problematic if you change all of your internal links to point to the new page, thereby leaving Google little reason to recrawl the old page. There are a couple of quick, simple solutions to this...
1. Update your XML sitemap to include the OLD URLs and set their priority to 1, update frequency to daily, and last updated date to today. This will tell Google that the old URLs are important and updated, so you may be able to coax Google to recrawl them quickly.
2. Use "Fetch as Googlebot" on the old URLs to show Google the 301 redirects
These are, admittedly, speculative, but Google hasn't given us a clear solution to this very common problem. Good luck!
-
Hi Bryan,
Wouldn't it have to re-crawl the old url to see that if forwards to the new url?
-
So long as you set your 301 redirect up correctly, it's not an issue. A 301 tells Google that Page-A should permanently direct to Page-B. Because this is often done to replace or update a page, Google and others will know that the similarity / duplicitous nature of the pages is likely due to that very same thing.
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
-
SEO Best Practices regarding Robots.txt disallow
I cannot find hard and fast direction about the following issue: It looks like the Robots.txt file on my server has been set up to disallow "account" and "search" pages within my site, so I am receiving warnings from the Google Search console that URLs are being blocked by Robots.txt. (Disallow: /Account/ and Disallow: /?search=). Do you recommend unblocking these URLs? I'm getting a warning that over 18,000 Urls are blocked by robots.txt. ("Sitemap contains urls which are blocked by robots.txt"). Seems that I wouldn't want that many urls blocked. ? Thank you!!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | jamiegriz0 -
Linking to URLs With Hash (#) in Them
How does link juice flow when linking to URLs with the hash tag in them? If I link to this page, which generates a pop-over on my homepage that gives info about my special offer, where will the link juice go to? homepage.com/#specialoffer Will the link juice go to the homepage? Will it go nowhere? Will it go to the hash URL above? I'd like to publish an annual/evergreen sort of offer that will generate lots of links. And instead of driving those links to homepage.com/offer, I was hoping to get that link juice to flow to the homepage, or maybe even a product page, instead. And just updating the pop over information each year as the offer changes. I've seen competitors do it this way but wanted to see what the community here things in terms of linking to URLs with the hash tag in them. Can also be a use case for using hash tags in URLs for tracking purposes maybe?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | MiguelSalcido0 -
Two homepage urls
We have two different homepages for our website. One is designed for daytime users (i.e. businesses), whereas the second night version is designed with home consumers in mind. Is this hurting our SEO by having two homepage urls, instead of just building a strong presence around one? We have set up canonical meta on each one: On the night version: domain.com/indexnight.html we have a On the day version: domain.com/index.html we have a It seems to me that we should just choose one of them and set up a permanent 301 redirect from one to the other. Any assistance would be greatly appreciated, thank you!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | JessieT0 -
How to optimize an about page for SEO. Best practices? Word count?
Does anyone have any advice on word count and best practice SEO for a blog about page or even a website about page?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | jdodd0 -
What Should I Do With My URL Names?
I release property on my blog each week, and it has come to the point we will get property in the same area as we have had in the past. So, I name my URL /blah-blah-blah-[area of property]/ for the first property in that area right. Now I get a different property in that same area and the URL will have to be named /blah-blah-blah-[area of property]-2/. Now I'm not sure if this is a major issue or not, but I'm sure there must be a better way than this, and I don't really want to take down our past properties - unless you can give me good reason too, of course? So before I start getting URLs like this: /blah-blah-blah-[area of property]-2334343534654/ (well, ok, maybe not that bad! But you get my point) I wanted to see what everyones opinion on it is 🙂 Thanks in advance!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | JonathanRolande0 -
Best tools for exploring links?
and not just every single link, but ones you know that Google is actually indexing. I find seomoz to be super easy, but there is no way to distinguish links that are actually counting "juice", or am i missing something. What about majesticseo - any other similar tools you use when trying to find linking sites that pass juice?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | imageworks-2612900 -
Change of domain procedure
Hi Guys, I have been tasked with conducting a change of domain for our company website. The website will be exactly the same, just change from www.jamesburfield.co.uk to www.burfieldcreative.co.uk. This was attempted before but my boss got cold feet and switched back after he saw a drop in rankings. (He put in the redirects and went through the change of domain procedure with google). I have told him that I think its possible with minimal disruption and we have agreed even with some disruption it will better in the long run for the company. Here is the process I intend to follow: 1. Copy and upload site to new domain 2. Redirect all pages with a wildcard or individually - possibly drop the www also 3. Follow the change of domain procedure in webmaster tools 4. Change the href of as many as possible back links to point at the new domain Please let me know your thoughts on my plan and if there is anything else I can do to ensure we maintain our rankings. Any help is appreciated as this is my suggestion and my neck is on the line! Thanks guys! Gareth
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | SimpsonGareth0 -
Best practice to change the URL of all my site pages
Hi, I need to change all my site pages URL as a result of moving the site into another CMS platform that has its own URL structure: Currently the site is highly ranked for all relevant KWs I am targeting. All pages have backlinks Content and meta data should remain exactly the same. The domain should stay the same The plan is as follow: Set up the new site using a temporary domain name Copy over all content and meta data Set up all redirects (301) Update the domain name and point the live domain to the new one Watch closely for 404 errors and add any missing redirects Questions: Any comments on the plan? Is there a way (the above plan or any other) to make sure ranking will not be hurt What entries should I add to the sitemap.xml: new pages only or new pages and the pages from the old site? Thanks, Guy.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | jid1