Renaming web pages vs new web site
-
I am struggling with renaming a lot of my web pages because I used short form acronyms vs long form keyword page names and now my pages aren't ranking where they should be and used to be. I am weighing a whole new web site or just a massive update with new page names. I also have an old domain that 301's to the new url but the old one outranks the new one. If you search google for cheap tubes the first domain you see is www.cheaptubesinc.com (the 301'd version) when the real url is www.cheaptubes.com. I know I am getting a duplicate content penalty and when moz crawls my site they see 2X the page that I really have. I tried fixing this with canonical tags but it only helped 5 pages according the moz crawls since doing them. Since last July 4th my business has been declining and I know there was an SEO algorithm update last July 4th. I think either method of renaming the web pages with better SEO for instance cheaptubes.com/single-wall-carbon-nanotubes.htm vs cheaptubes.com/swnts.htm as it is currently. In either case, it is still an HTML 2 website done on frontpage and the question I keep asking myself is if I should just scrap the whole site and start over with a more modern format. Should I try to get a new site together with good SEO and publish it quickly vs rename and 301 a bunch of pages? What about the old site? Do I need to track the old page names and 301 them to the new ones? Any help is appreciates
Mike
-
thx William
-
Thanks for posting the follow up. I'm really glad I could help.
I hear bluehost is okay. I've tried a lot of hosting companies over the years, and the majority have that arrogant attitude. Charging $60 per 301 is insane though. If you decide to move your site, I recommend having a professional do it, or it could go very wrong.
Happy to see your ranks recover
-
Thanks for your help William. I got the old url cheaptubesinc.com 301'd to cheaptubes.com this week. Of course network solutions left off the / after .com and before the page name so that only the home page would 301 and they could try to sell me more 301s, it cost $60 for 1 and I have 48 pages on my site. I called and emailed them all week and they kept saying they had done it right and and they couldn't force google to change the links. I then realized if I typed www.cheaptubesinc/graphene.htm that it didn't work because it 301'd to www.cheaptubes.comgraphene.htm. They were argumentative with me even though I was polite with them (though I didn't want to be). I finally got a tech on the phone who said he would add the slash and ask his boss for forgiveness. However given the history of having the domain parked and pointed before and that not working over time & now this, I think my best bet is to transfer my domains to someone else. I heard bluehost is good. My concern is if they were that unethical in our dealings and the boss was argumentative in emails than they could go in an remove the slash at any time.
I also found a ton of code errors right at the top of my pages. I now know it was from putting up temporary messages but not checking to make sure the code was clean. The woman I bought my them from (6.5 years ago I paid her $60 and she still helps me for free, what difference between her & NS) notice open H1's & P elements at the top of the pages. I was still ranking well for acronyms but missing out on the long keywords since last july which caused my sales to drop off. I figure I lost at least 150K in sales because I neglected my website and didn't clean up the code on my pages a painful lesson I won't soon forget. On tuesday, when I searched single walled carbon nanotubes I had to go 8 pages back in google to find my page. By week's end I was #8 on page 1 and ahead of sigma aldrich a major materials supplier.
Thank you so much for your help William, it is sincerely appreciated
Mike
-
It sounds like it's time to get aggressive with your hosting company. Tell them they botched it. Tell them it's effecting your business. Also ask them how they attempted it in the first place. If you don't know what they did, you can't fix it efficiently. Discovering what they did without their help could possibly take a lot of digging and technical knowledge, but it's possible.
-
Thx William- The only way I could do it was to have the hosting co (network solutions) do it for me. The only way I can make changes to the site is with frontpage which can't do php. I called the hosting co and they did it for me. I am unsure of how to do it given my situation.
-
Hello,
There is some good news and bad news here:
The bad news news? That old site, cheaptubesinc.com is not 301'd. Notice how to URL doesn't direct to the new one when you type it in. You have two identical sites going on due to a botched 301. In order to help with that, more information on how you attempted the redirect is needed..
The good news? It is probably an relatively simple fix. Once you fix that 301, things may settle in.
Hope this 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
-
Listings site -is freshness important on results or articles?
We have a property listing site.
Content Development | | nick-name123
Wandered if its more important to update the results of the listings (adding or deleting them) or is adding new articles more important.?0 -
How best to handle on-site blogs for multiple site views in Magento?
Hi, I'm working with a site on Magento with views for UK, US and FR websites. Currently they have a French WordPress Blog that is pulled into the French site view and an English one that appears on both the US and UK views. Of course the problem here is that the US and UK views are duplicating content so these needs sorting super-fast. The plan is to disconnect the US view from the current English blog and create a dedicated US onsite blog. However, should we continue to use WordPress or instead use an alternative blog module or plugin for Magento? Cost is an issue and running three separate blogs and the cost of plugging these into each site view. However, getting these right for SEO is the most important factor here. I'm also concerned about the mess of multiple plugins causing page speed issues etc... My instinct is to go with WordPress, but I'm keen to hear what others think or have experience of.
Content Development | | ExtraDigital0 -
B2b services site, deep long tail services or flat and broad
Hi all, i have a small internet agency with services in several area's.
Content Development | | mdkay
Currently i structud my services in 2 different area's.
General services and specialized products with services underneath. like so:
domain.com/services
domain.com/services/service1
domain.com/services/service2
and so on. domain.com/product
domain.com/product/service1
domain.com/product/service2 domain.com/product2
domain.com/product2/service1
domain.com/product2/service2 But now im thinking of create loads of different services i provide,
there are some overlapping content of course, but all services are still individual.
But i can write a lot of unique content about all the services. But is it smarter to make just a few big pages with the services more bundled.
Or really long tail. Now i have around 15 services pages.
when i make it a lot deeper im talking about 40 pages. Currently my complete website is around 35 pages.0 -
Video content sites
In addition to you tube are there any other video sites worth uploading content to? Such as Vimeo? Are these any good or is you tube the only place worth publishing
Content Development | | Hardley1110 -
Wordpress Duplicate Pages/ URL's - Help !
Hi guys, I have been running SEOMoz for just over a month and slowly cleaning up one of my Wordpress Blogs. While going through the crawl reports I have noticed that I have duplicate pages showing on the crawl. For example, the main post would be; www.xxxxx.com/blog/post-title Then I see another URL which would be; **www.xxxx.com/blog/page/59 ** When I click on either URL it goes back to the actual post title URL. What's with these page URL's ? Isn't these two URL's showing duplicate content to the search engines ? Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.
Content Development | | dcc0 -
Blog for SEO: embedded in the site or separate
Hello, For both ecommerce and sites that sell services, I've seen a lot of people recommending a blog for SEO. Should this blog be inside or separate from the main website for the most results? I can see how adding one to a site would create more unique content and an opportunity for link bait, but perhaps there is a reason to have a blog separate from the main site Thank you.
Content Development | | BobGW1 -
Site structure question
I'm doing a site that will have many many pages.
Content Development | | OxzenMedia
Now I have heard that you get more seo value if its a lower tear so for example: site.com/product rather than site.com/brand/subbrand/product Is this correct? Should I structure my site like this? site.com/product
site.com/brand points to site.com/product (so all products are on the sub root.) Does that make sense?0 -
Index pdf files but redirecto to site
Hi, One of our clients has tons of PDFs (manuals, etc.) and frequently gets good rankings for the direct PDF link. While we're happy about the PDFs attracting users' attention, we'd like to redirect them to the site where the original PDF link is published and avoid that people open the pdf directly. In short, we'd like to index the PDFs, but show to users the pdf link within a site - how should we proceed to do that? Thanks, GM
Content Development | | gmellak0