Changing URLS - wondering about implications
-
We are in the process of changing our URLs from dynamic to more SEO friendly. The website is ciee.org and I'm specifically talking about ciee.org/study. While we work with the business to get approval for ciee.org/study-abroad, we are going with ciee.org/study/abroad.
Can anyone foresee any difficulties or negative implications that could come if we change from study/abroad to study-abroad all within 6 months?
Thank you in advance!!
-
A negative effect would be from incoming links. You want the links going to the old page to route to the new page. I'd use a 301.
The old pages might still be indexed if you do your proposed switch. Currently your site has a robots.txt file, but it doesn't have Meta Robots. Meta Robots will allow you to choose whether to index a page or not.
-
I realize there are greater problems here, but I'm only talking about ciee.org/study. These are all study abroad programs. For example, changing http://www.ciee.org/study/programOverview.aspx?pID=100#1rightForYou to ciee.org/study-abroad/france/rennes/liberal-arts. The question is if we have to use study/abroad instead of study-abroad for a period of time, will there be a negative effect?
-
There shouldn't be any major issues. You will lose the link juice going to the old link if you don't use a 301 redirect. But the conversion you are describing isn't a dynamic URL issue. Both are static URLs. The bigger issue is the duplicate site locations:
Also the meta description and home page title are too long:
CIEE is a leading provider of international educational experiences. Each year, more than 35000 people from around the world study, work, travel, host, and ...
CIEE - work, travel, study and exchange programs for students ...
Hope that helps.
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
-
Replace dynamic paramenter URLs with static Landing Page URL - faceted navigation
Hi there, got a quick question regarding faceted navigation. If a specific filter (facet) seems to be quite popular for visitors. Does it make sense to replace a dynamic URL e.x http://www.domain.com/pants.html?a_type=239 by a static, more SEO friendly URL e.x http://www.domain.com/pants/levis-pants.html by creating a proper landing page for it. I know, that it is nearly impossible to replace all variations of this parameter URLs by static ones but does it generally make sense to do this for the most popular facets choose by visitors. Or does this cause any issues? Any help is much appreciated. Thanks a lot in advance
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | ennovators0 -
Replicating keywords in the URL - bad?
Our site URL structure used to be (example site) frogsforsale.com/cute-frogs-for-sale/blue-frogs wherefrogsforsale.com/cute-frogs-for-sale/ was in front of every URL on the site. We changed it by removing the for-sale part of the URL to be frogsforsale.com/cute-frogs/blue-frogs. Would that have hurt our rankings and traffic by removing the for-sale? Or was having for-sale in the URL twice (once in domain, again in URL) hurting our site? The business wants to change the URLs again to put for-sale back in, but in a new spot such as frogsforsale.com/cute-frogs/blue-frogs-for-sale as they are convinced that is the cause of the rankings and traffic drop. However the entire site was redesigned at the same time, the site architecture is very different, so it is very hard to say whether the traffic drop is due to this or not.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | CFSSEO0 -
Should I try to change these links or no?
Hey guys, I need some advice on a link profile I'm currently working on. Our client sells a product in the hunting industry and has been around for over ten years. I just finished up classifying and looking at all of their links today and found that around half of them are sponsor links, links on "link pages," and a few directory links with almost all of them being followed. Because we are the first company to do SEO for them, I know that these aren't maliciously solicited links, but I'm worried that they may be having a negative impact on the site. Most of the links are coming from other non-competing websites in the outdoor industry which typically tends to have very antiquated sites with very antiquated practices. Essentially, I don't want to go out and try to nofollow or disavow all of these links that the website has had for a long time on other related websites if they're helping us, but I also don't want to be leaving anything up that could algorithmically be identified as spam. Below are some examples to show you what I'm referring to by the sponsor links and link resource pages. Any advice would be much appreciated. Thanks! Sponsored - http://www.becomeabetterhunter.com/ or http://outdoorobsession.tv/ or http://thehollywoodhunter.com/ Link Resource Pages - http://bowhuntamerica.com/links or http://cornerarchery.com/CompanyLinks.html
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | CaddisInteractive0 -
URL Structure
URL i have to use targeted keyword on all sub page domain or not for example now i am using url like this format fundingtype.html litigation-funding.html legal-funding.html financingservices.html process.html and if i re-write all url with targated keyword like this format lawsuit-loans-fundingtype.html lawsuit-loans-litigation-funding.html lawsuit-loans-legal-funding.html lawsuit-loans-financingservices.html lawsuit-loans-process.html so which type URL are more effective for best SEO ??
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | JulieWhite0 -
Change to SiteLinks?
Hi All, Perhaps it's been like this all along (I don't think so) but can someone tell me why some pages with Google sitelinks now look like this (see the "Coke" search) while others look like this (see the "Amazon" search image). Is this because of Rich Snippet use? One of my client's SiteLinks used to resemble the Amazon one, but now resembles the Coke one (not preferred). Any input? Thanks, Chris Elevated Synergy Group - SEO coke.png amazon.png
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Chris.Bleill0 -
Can Anybody Link to my URL to Hurt SEO? Weird URL pointing at my Domaine!
Our ranking has drop since a few weeks. I did not do any major change in my site. Surfing WebMaster Tool, I found lots of new URL linking at our site: url.org linkarena.com seoprofiler.com folkd.com digitalhome.ca bustingprice.com surepurchase.com lowpricetoday.com oyax.com couponfollow.com aspringcleaning.com pamabuy.com etzone.ca How do I find if those was done intentionelly to hurt SEO? Could it be possible? Thank you, BigBlaze
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | BigBlaze2050 -
What url should i link to?
Hi everybody, after some discussions i decided to keep my page on the old domain for better seo rankings; However, the new third level domain sounds better: poltronafraubrescia.zenucchi.it.... the question is: i'm going to recive a high value link and i don't know if i should link directly to the old adress ( www.zenucchi.it/ITA/poltrona-frau-brescia.it ) where the page is located or to the new one by making a 301 redirect to the previous. what's best? and second question what's the way to keep the page on this adress ( www.zenucchi.it/ITA/poltrona-frau-brescia.it ) but show poltronafraubrescia.zenucchi.it as url? thank you guido
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | guidoboem0 -
How to fix issues regarding URL parameters?
Today, I was reading help article for URL parameters by Google. http://www.google.com/support/webmasters/bin/answer.py?answer=1235687 I come to know that, Google is giving value to URLs which ave parameters that change or determine the content of a page. There are too many pages in my website with similar value for Name, Price and Number of product. But, I have restricted all pages by Robots.txt with following syntax. URLs:
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | CommercePundit
http://www.vistastores.com/table-lamps?dir=asc&order=name
http://www.vistastores.com/table-lamps?dir=asc&order=price
http://www.vistastores.com/table-lamps?limit=100 Syntax in Robots.txt
Disallow: /?dir=
Disallow: /?p=
Disallow: /*?limit= Now, I am confuse. Which is best solution to get maximum benefits in SEO?0