Should I not Change the URL of Ranking Pages

[JaredDetroit]

My site currently ranks #1 or #2 for 2 separate pages on web design & SEO for my geographic location. The URLs are currently mysite.com/services/web-design/ and mysite.com/services/seo/

I'm redesigning my site and I'm taking out the "Services" page as I'm focusing on web design and SEO and lumping everything else into my "Internet Marketing" page. Because my pages for web design and SEO rank so well, should I keep the URL structure even though I don't have a "Services" page or should I just remove services and 301 redirect so I have mysite.com/web-design/ and mysite.com/seo/.

I know doing a 301 redirect could hurt me in the short term but I'm wondering if I should just bite the bullet now and change it in favor of a better URL structure.

What do you think?

[JaredDetroit]

Alright, sounds like I should keep the URL structure. My reason in thinking about removing it was that I don't really want to have the menu structure of:

Services

• Web Design
• SEO
• Internet Marketing

I want Web Design, SEO, and Internet Marketing to be main menu items to draw attention to them. Maybe I'll leave the services page but only link to it from the footer. I guess that provides flexibility for the future if I add services.

[rhutchings]

I honestly dont think you would get that much more incremental benefit from just removing the "services" portion of the url.  I wouldnt change whats there (even getting rid of the services page) unless you have a really good reason to.  Why not still keep the seo and design under a services page, and then create an internet marketing page that lives off of the services page that  houses all your other services?

[ninjamarketer]

Jared,

I would think more about the user experience and less about the search spider when changing the site / url architecture. If your users are able to find the information they need faster and easier with your new architecture then I would go with that.

Using "services" page does sounds appropriate and you can always use right keywords in the URL while 301 redirecting your older URLs to the new ones.

[EGOL]

If you are wearing your successful business person's hat or your successful SEO's hat then you will probably decide not to make any change - because there could be some loss of linkvalue on a redirected page.

However, if you are wearing a compulsive web designer's hat and having tidy URLs make you feels so much better that you are willing to risk sacrificing some ranking power and probably some income then change the URLs.