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Hello there.

If you've changed 100's of links, then I'd like for you to contribute to this thread.

I've created a new URL structure for a website with 500+ posts in an effort to make it more user friendly, and more accessible to crawlers. I was just about to pull the trigger, when I started reading up on the subject and found that I might have a few surprises waiting for me around the corner.

The status of my site.

• 500 posts
• 10 different categories
• 50+ tags
• No Backlinks
• No recent hits (according to Google Analytics)
• No rankings.

I'm going to keep roughly 75% of the posts, and put them in different (new) categories to strengthen SEO for the topic which I'd like to rank multiple categories for, and also sorted a list with content which I'd like to 410.

• Created new structure
• created new categories
• Compiled list of old URLs, and new URLs
• New H1, Meta Title & Descriptions
• New tags

It looks simple on paper, but I've got problems executing it.

**Question 1. **What do I need to keep in mind when deleting posts, categories, and tags - besides 410, Google URL removal?

Question 2. What do I do with all the old posts that I am going to re-direct? Each post has between 10-15 internal links. I've started manually removing each link in old posts before 301'ing them.

The reason I'm doing this is control the UX, as well as internal link juice to strengthen main categories. Am I on the right path?

On a side note, I've prepared for the 301'ing by changing the H1's, meta data and adding alt text to images. But I can't help but to think that just deleting the old posts, and copying over the content to the new url (with the original dates set) would be a better alternative.

Any contribution to this thread would be greatly appreciated. Thank you in advance.

8 years later, I learned something. Solid. Very solid. Thank you for sharing the knowledge, Dan!

8 years however is an eternity in the world of SEO. Are there any updates on your stance re. this problem in particular?

Following your guide and generating reports to put them in the "Nay"-bag, I want to delete them. I'm going to remove them from index first by nofollowing the tags taxonomy, and removing from XML sitemap.

So, the big "What if" ... What if I simply delete all of them after doing so?

I stumbled across something new when doing a site audit in SEMRUSH today ---> Modals.

The case: Several pages could not be crawled because of (modal:) in the URL.

What I know: "A modal is a dialog box/popup window that is displayed on top of the current page" based on CSS and JS.

What I don't know: How to prevent crawlers from finding them.

Thank you, Nigel Carr!

My first reaction looking at your answer was "No, wait.. you got it wrong", then I realized the beauty of it's simplicity. You're right. Simple does it

Have a good weekend!

Hi.

I have a set of affiliate links on my website. That's 50 unique links in total. They are placed in a separate folder /go/, and are all nofollowed.

My website has 100 pages. When doing a site audit I get a report with 50 affiliate links pr. page x100. That's a huge report.

Is this really necessary? I can ofc. choose to ignore the automated reports, but I can't help but to think that there must be an easier way to keep track of it?

Like, if Link 1-50 is located in /go/, they should automatically be nofollowed, regardless of where they are located on the root/sub domain.

Bonus question: The format of the link is https://exampledomain.com/go/brandname

I am wondering if I should add that "/" at the end of it. If yes, why? If no, why?

am I correct to assume that:

• a) Social, "nofollow"-links have no tangible value in terms of directly affecting rankings
• b) All social links indirectly affects rankings (time on page, increase in traffic, more direct traffic, and so forth ...)

Thank you for both your time and effort in response to my thread, Joseph.

The reason I do not want to use WordPress and its Tags-function, is that it is a WP-function, and not something beneficial to SEO at all. On the contrary, tags create new URLs, duplicate content, and thin content as well.

Continuing on your stating that "relevant content to the keywords", does this mean I can skip the "provider-name" in the url?

I've seen competitors that includes the provider in URL, and they outrank others that do not. I recognize the fact that the URL is not the only signal / factor here, but I'm seeing a trend, hence my question.

Hi.

I've spent the last day fiddling with the setup of a new URL structure for a site, and I can't "pull the trigger" on it.

• Example: - domain.com/games/type-of-game/provider-name/name-of-game/
• Specific example: - arcade.com/games/pinball/deckerballs/starshooter2k/

The example is a good description of the content that I have to organize. The aim is to a) define url structure, b) facilitate good ux, **c) **create a good starting point for content marketing and SEO, avoiding multiple / stuffing keywords in urls'.

The problem? Not all providers have the same type of game. Meaning, that once I get past the /type-of-game/, I must write a new category / page / content for /provider-name/.

No matter how I switch the different "sub-levels" around in the url, at one point, the provider-name doesn't fit as its in need of new content, multiple times.

The solution? I can skip "provider-name". The caveat though is that I lose out on ranking for provider keywords as I don't have a cornerstone content page for them.

Question: Using the URL structure as outlined above in WordPress, would you A) go with "Pages", or B) use "Posts"