Most efficient way to change site structure?
-
I would like to change my sites structure to be more efficient for SEO. I have a fear that the changes will have a potential impact on my current rankings, but know this would be a good long term decision.
My site is wordpress, so the changes are relatively easy to make.
What are some ways to change the site structure without damaging your rank? I would have to have to clean up a bunch of errors, so is the best way to simply do 301 redirects on the old pages?
-
Can you offer an example of a couple URLs in your current structure, along with what you plan for your new structure?
Regarding the errors, do you have them now? Or do you believe the change will cause errors?
-
Making solid SEO changes will only have a positive impact in the long run. However there is no magic i'm afraid, and like everything there is a ying and a yang and unfortunately you may see a dip in rankings whilst Google reconfigures itself based on your changes. If your changes are done correctly this should not take too long though.
I would have to have to clean up a bunch of errors, so is the best way to simply do 301 redirects on the old pages?
This really depends on what the errors are?
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
-
Best way to go about merging 2 sites with significant search volume?
Hi everyone! A client of ours ('Company A') recently acquired another company ('Company B') - both brands carry weight within their industry. Company A's brand name currently registers over 6,500 searches per month, while Company B's brand name draws about 2,500 searches per month. While Company B is smaller, their search volume isn't insignificant. The powers that be plan to discontinue Company B's site at an unspecified date in the future, but it's on the backburner. We'd obviously like to transfer as much of their current ranking as possible, but we also don't want to confuse users. There's additional search volume for term variations such as 'Company B jobs' & 'Company B locations' that we'd like to capture for as long as there's still volume there. Would a microsite with Company B's look & feel (to make it easier to house pages built to capture careers/locations searches) justify its inherent cost, or would it be just as valuable to build a series of landing pages on Company A's site? (Obviously assuming that valid redirects would be in place once Company B's site is taken down.) Thanks in advance!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | wilcoxcm0 -
Mobile First Index: What Could Happen To Sites w Large Desktop but Small Mobile Sites?
I have a question about how Mobile First could affect websites with separate (and smaller) mobile vs desktop sites. Referencing this SE Roundtable article (seorountable dot com /google-mobile-first-index-22953.html), "If you have less content on your mobile version than on your desktop version - Google will probably see the less content mobile version. Google said they are indexing the mobile version first." But Google/ Gary Illyes are also on the record stating the switch to mobile-first should be minimally disruptive. Does "Mobile First" mean that they'll consider desktop URLs "second", or will they actually just completely discount the desktop site in lieu of the mobile one? In other words: will content on your desktop site that does not appear in mobile count in desktop searches? I can't find clear answer anywhere (see also: /jlh-marketing dot com/mobile-first-unanswered-questions/). Obviously the writing is on the wall (and has been for years) that responsive is the way to go moving forward - but just looking for any other viewpoints/feedback here since it can be really expensive for some people to upgrade. I'm basically torn between "okay we gotta upgrade to responsive now" and "well, this may not be as critical as it seems". Sigh... Thanks in advance for any feedback and thoughts. LOL - I selected "there may not be a right answer to this question" when submitting this to the Moz community. 🙂
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | mirabile0 -
How much SEO damage would it do having a subdomain site rather directory site?
Hi all! With a coleague we were arguing about what is better: Having a subdomain or a directory.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Gaston Riera
Let me explain some more, this is about the cases: Having a multi-language site: Where en.domain.com or es.domain.com rather than domain.com/en/ or domain.com/es/ Having a Mobile and desktop version: m.domain.com or domain.com rather than domain.com/m or just domain.com. Having multiple location websites, you might figure. The dicussion started with me saying: Its better to have a directory site.
And my coleague said: Its better to have a subdomain site. Some of the reasons that he said is that big companies (such as wordpress) are doing that. And that's better for the business.
My reasons are fully based on this post from Rand Fishkin: Subdomains vs. Subfolders, Rel Canonical vs. 301, and How to Structure Links for SEO - Whiteboard Friday So, what does the community have to say about this?
Who should win this argue? GR.0 -
Technical Site Questions
When i do a google cache of our site, i see 2 menus, our developers say that's because the 2nd is for the mobile menu - is that correct, as when i look up other sites that have mobile rendering they only have one menu visible. Plus GWT's has the number of internal links per page at least x2 what they should have - are they connected? Secondly when i do a spider test through http://tools.seobook.com/general/spider-test/ it shows all "behind the scenes text" eg font names, portals, sliders, margins - "font size px" is shown as 17 times and a density of 2.15% - surely this isnt correct as google will be thinking that these are my keywords !? My site is www.over50choices.co.uk Thanks Ash
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | AshShep10 -
Dramatic Ranking Changes
Hi, My website is ranked on the 2nd page of Google for the /ncr. Last week suddenly it climbed up to the first page and I let my boss know about it with a quite enthusiasm and happiness 🙂 Then my boss didn't look at it on that day and next day our site was on the second page again and still is. Now I kind of lost reputation in the office, and people start questioning my comments. It wasn't a delusion but I would like to know what it was. No one does any SEO for this 10 years old site, and I've just started an SEO campaign about 1,5 months ago. And I really thought this is it, we are on the first page. But now we are back in to the 2nd page. Is waiting for couple days or weeks to Google to settle right approach for such cases? Or it was just a random bounce or coincidence? Never seen such thing, so I'm quite curious about your opinions or experience if you have.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | nunobaronio0 -
Backlinking 3 sites from same domain and backlinking main site too
Hello, we have 4 sites, in which 1 is a main site and rest 3 are niche sites All these 3 sites have dofollow links to main site from home page We got a high quality backlink - through which all 3 niche sites have got it from that domain Is it worth to add backlink from that domain to main site too, despite the fact the 3 sites already have recvd it and they all link to main site many thanks
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Modi0 -
New Site Structure and 404s. Should I redirect everything?
Hi fellow Mozzers, I've recently re-released a site and also took the opportunity to change/clean up the URL structure. As a result of this Google is starting to report many 404s such as below; blog/tag/get-fit/ blog/tag/top-presents/ Most of these 404 errors are from tag or category pages which simply don't exist any more (because they were unnecessary, crap or irrelevant). Although there's also a few posts I've removed. My question is whether it's worth redirecting all these tags and pages to the root directory of the site's new blog (as there isn't really a new page which is similar or appropriate) or just to leave them as 404 errors. Bearing in mind; They don't really rank for anything There's little if any links pointing to these pages Thanks.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | PeterAlexLeigh0 -
Changing Hosting Companies - Site Downtime - Google Indexing Concern
We are getting ready to switch to a new hosting company. When we make the switchover, our sites will be offline for a couple of hours and in some cases perhaps as long as 12 hours while DNS is configured -- should we be worried about Google trying to index pages and finding them unavailable? Any fear of Google de-indexing pages. Our guess was that Google would not de-index anything after just a short period of not being able to find pages -- it would have to be over an extended period of time before GOOGLE or BING would de-index pages -- CORRECT? Just want to gut check this before pulling the trigger on switch over to new hosting company. We appreciate input on this and/or any other thoughts regarding the switch over to new hosting company that we may not have thought of. Thanks, Matt
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | MWM37720