Ranking Implications due to Altering Page Names
-
I'm working on a very large (over 2500 pages), very old website (with pages created in the late 90s). The structure of the site is a mess (it still shows subtle sings of Frontpage!). We are trying to move to a more uniform, dynamic solution.
My question is: what sort of implication will there be on search rankings if we implement 301 redirects from the very old pages (that are poorly named) to new pages which follow a uniform pattern.
Some of these pages have external links pointing to them and others (most) just have internal links pointing to them which will be adjusted to the new urls.
Does the age of the page have a significant implication on rankings? Is there a better way to this than 301 redirects?
Thanks for the help
-
Thanks for the post. Good to hear that someone else went through a similar situation!
Did you do anything about any external links that might have been pointing to some of the pages that went away? Is there anything else that you could suggest that I might have not thought of?
Thanks again,
Scott
-
We went through almost exactly the same thing a little over a year ago (although the pages were not created in FrontPage). When we switched to a more dynamic solution, we did not use 301 redirects and we suffered as a result. With a little bit of elbow grease in the form of optimizing page titles, URLS, on page text, etc. we are ranking even better than we ever have in the past. We did notice a huge increase in branded keyword search and a huge drop in direct traffic (I am attributing this to not having done 301's). Do 301's no matter what!
I've heard of the age of a domain being used a signal by Google, but not the age of a page (I don't have information on this if it is true). I can't imagine that Google would reward an old page as opposed to a page that is optimized and current with valuable content.
It is true that the pendulum could swing either way, so make sure you create a baseline of where you are at in terms of SERPS now and be straight-forward with the stake-holders. Don't panic if you drop. Just work your way methodically back to the top using ethical practices. In short, the ramifications could be good or they could be bad. Good luck! That's quite an endeavor!
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
-
Home Page Ranking Instead of Service Pages
Hi everyone! I've noticed that many of our clients have pages addressing specific queries related to specific services on their websites, but that the Home Page is increasingly showing as the "ranking" page. For example, a plastic surgeon we work with has a page specifically talking about his breast augmentation procedure for Miami, FL but instead of THAT page showing in the search results, Google is using his home page. Noticing this across the board. Any insights? Should we still be optimizing these specific service pages? Should I be spending time trying to make sure Google ranks the page specifically addressing that query because it SHOULD perform better? Thanks for the help. Confused SEO :/, Ricky Shockley
Technical SEO | | RickyShockley0 -
Why is Google Webmaster Tools showing 404 Page Not Found Errors for web pages that don't have anything to do with my site?
I am currently working on a small site with approx 50 web pages. In the crawl error section in WMT Google has highlighted over 10,000 page not found errors for pages that have nothing to do with my site. Anyone come across this before?
Technical SEO | | Pete40 -
Moving Some Content From Page A to Page B
Page A has written content, pictures, videos. The written content from Page A is being moved to Page B. When Google crawls the pages next time around will Page B receive the content credit? Will there not be any issues that this content originally belonged to Page A? Page A is not a page I want to rank for (just have great pictures and videos for users). Can I 301 redirect from Page A to B since the written content from A has been deleted or no need? Again, I intent to keep Page A live because good value for users to see pictures and videos.
Technical SEO | | khi50 -
From page 1th to page 18th @ Google
Hello Mozzers! I have a question, you may help.. How may it be possible that a page ranking well (1th result) goes from 1th result to the 18th page just in 1 day? It doesnt seem to be any kind of penalization.. I now had all suspicious outgoing links to be nofollow (they were not before), this may be a cause .. (?) Do you have any other suggestion? Thanks
Technical SEO | | socialengaged0 -
Does Google think My main keyword is my Company name due to over use in anchor text?
OK, i have recently noticed google is adding a keyword to my titles... I have attached an image which shows the results from a google site:mywebsite search... 8 out of the 10 results on the screen shot clearly have the keyword ( - CCTV Cameras) added to the end of the title. Now a lot of those pages are support pages i.e "Help & Support", "returns" etc etc.. nothing really to do with cctv cameras. The only thing i can think of, is the most common anchor text used on backlinks to my website (according to siteexplorer) is the keyword cctv cameras... (i am currently working on removing a load of the backlinks to my site due to what i think is some kind of google penalty as the anchor text is all keywords etc...) But it seems strange if google has started to discount these backlinks, that it then uses that keyword to add to my titles - unless of course, google thinks that it is my brand name... Any body have any thoughts on this? FqwooQY.gif
Technical SEO | | isntworkdull1 -
Translating Page Titles & Page Descriptions
I am working on a site that will be published in the original English, with localized versions in French, Spanish, Japanese and Chinese. All the versions will use the English information architecture. As part of the process, we will be translating the page the titles and page descriptions. Translation quality will be outstanding. The client is a translation company. Each version will get at least four pairs of eyes including expert translators, editors, QA experts and proofreaders. My question is what special SEO instructions should be issued to translators re: the page titles and page descriptions. (We have to presume the translators know nothing about SEO.) I was thinking of: stick to the character counts for titles and descriptions make sure the title and description work together avoid over repetition of keywords page titles (over-optimization peril) think of the descriptions as marketing copy try to repeat some title phrases in the description (to get the bolding and promote click though) That's the micro stuff. The macro stuff: We haven't done extensive keyword research for the other languages. Most of the clients are in the US. The other language versions are more a demo of translation ability than looking for clients elsewhere. Are we missing something big here?
Technical SEO | | DanielFreedman0 -
New EMD update effected my mom's legit author page? From page 1 in SERP to nowhere for her name
I think my mom's site, MargaretTerry.com was hit by this update for her name "Margaret Terry". Went from bouncing around the first page on google.com and .ca all the time to nowhere on the index. The results are now very strange, a mix of Youtube, linked in, and small book stores that she has done events at recently to promote her first book. I was checking after some of my SEO buddys were freaking out about their EMD's getting hit on Sunday. She is an aspiring author with a book coming out this month. There is obviously no ads or spam content on the site... I have never done SEO for it either except a bit of on page I guess. It sucks that people might be grabbing her book soon and when they Google her name nothing shows up. This couldn't have really happened at a worse time. Not to mention the hours spent building the site to her liking, free of charge of course 🙂 Is there anyone I can contact there to help me out? Shouldn't and EMD that is someones name still rank when you search their name?
Technical SEO | | Operatic0 -
Redirecting over-optimised pages
Hi One of my clients websites was affected by Penguin and due to no 'bad link' messages, and nothing really obvious from the backlink profile, I put it down to over-optimisation on the site. I noticed a lot of spammy pages and duplicate content, and submitted recommendations to have these fixed. They dragged their heels for a while and eventually put in plans for a new site (which was happening anyway), but its taken quite a while and is only just going live in a couple of weeks. My question is, should I redirect the URLs of the previously over-optimised pages? Obviously the new pages are nice and clean and from what I can tell there are no bad links pointing to the URLs, so is this an acceptable practice? Will Google notice this and remove the penalty? Thanks
Technical SEO | | Coolpink0