Changing URLS - wondering about implications

[CIEEwebTeam]

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!!

[DanSpeicher]

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.

[CIEEwebTeam]

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?

[DanSpeicher]

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:

http://ciee.org/#home

http://ciee.org/

http://www.ciee.org/

http://www.ciee.org/#home

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.