Reducing multi-page website to one page & SEO ramifications?
-
Hello there!
I just want to check in before I do this. I am reducing a multi-page website to one page (temporarily, but for at least 4-6 months). I will be 301 redirecting all old pages to the one, new home page. The new home page has a lot more content, long and short keyword phrases.
Aside from losing the benefit of internal links, will reducing the number of website pages hurt a ranking? Does having associated keywords on other website pages provide benefit to another (in this case Home) page?
Thanks so much for your invaluable advice!
-
simple, you have 1 logical URL with a bunch of anchors around the page that scrolls to different "subpages", but again, you are still on that one URL for ranking and optimization purposes. Google does not consider your different sections of the same page (despite the change in /pagepart or # part of the web address) as separate pages.
Now, imagine you sell SEO & web design in Austin, TX.
If you had a single page to try and optimize and rank for two sets of keywords related to each service, the page will not be focused on either one specifically. This means a competitor who decided to separate out their pages topically with unique URLs for each can also separate their anchor text profile for each page, using proper and old school meta tags in the right places instead of having a bunch of H1s all over one page, among a bunch of other things that they can segregate and focus to optimize better, will have a much easier time getting their independent subpages rank better than your catch all page.
I guess the best way I can describe it is: do you like to go to a long ass page and scroll down scroll down to find what you are looking for.... or do you like to land on a precisely relevant page with what you are looking for right up top and also all over that page with all the juicy details?
I guarantee you most users will answer for the latter.
For these reasons, it is a much tougher task to make a 1-pager win from an SEO-standpoint when compared to multi-page competition (assuming everyone involved is doing a fine job on both sides), but more importantly you must think more of UX than UI. You must think of the experience than the trend. Trends die off. One-pagers are a limited application trend that does not apply to a lot of sites and businesses out there.
-
Thanks sym-admin. Appreciate your response. What I'd really love to know is why? What are the technical SEO reasons for why a single page faces more issues for ranking properly if one is only targeting one keyword phrase? This infers that keywords on other pages of a website contribute to the overall ranking of one page of the site. Is this correct, or is it for another reason (aside from internal links to other pages).?
-
Generally this is a bad idea. Single page sites face more issues for ranking properly for the right keywords than separate pages topically speaking. Jordan is right to say you could see a drop in ranking and ?I add perhaps traffic as well.
-
Hi Jordan, and thanks.
So to go a little more deeply into your answer, are you saying that associated keywords on other pages of a website contribute to the ranking of, for example, the home page? So even though Google doesn't rank a website, it ranks a page, the rest of the website does count towards the page ranking?
-
You could see a drop in ranking. It is difficult for a single web page to be relevant for a large set of keywords for searchers.
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
-
Is it OK to put a Blog Post and a Page within the same folder on a Wordpress hosted website?
Our education company website (hosted on wordpress) has evolved into having content on key topics distributed across both blog posts and pages. For example, "top-pharmaceutical-companies" lends itself to being published as a page. However other content "top-pharmaceutical-companies-usa-2016" lends itself to being published as a blog post as it's more temporal in nature. Now we'd like to establish topical domain relevance for the root keyword "pharmaceutical companies" and build a folder www./ourcompany/pharmaceutical-companies/ But when we look through our blog content, we notice we have "Blog Posts" that would be an excellent fit for certain folders within our "Page" url structure. So would it be OK to amend these blogs post urls addresses to place them within the folder structure of the pages.
On-Page Optimization | | GetReskilled0 -
Is it better to keep a glossary or terms on one page or break it up into multiple pages?
We have a very large glossary of over 1000 industry terms on our site with links to reference material, embedded video, etc. Is it better for SEO purposes to keep this on one page or should we break it up into multiple pages, a different page for each letter for example? Thanks.
On-Page Optimization | | KenW0 -
Best On page SEO guides needed.
I know my question looks so basic but let me explain what I want. I want advanced on-page SEO guides, should include something new exce[t the below listed things: title, description keyword in article content length video images with alt tag headings external authority links internal links please share something new....
On-Page Optimization | | hammadrafique0 -
What is the best way to target two keywords with one website?
I have a client that needs to target two different citys for her service. I have her front page ranking first page for one of the cities, but I have tried all sorts of things and can't get her front page to rank first page in the second (and less competitive) city. I know the drill about making a second page and trying to rank that page but is there a better way?
On-Page Optimization | | jonnyholt0 -
Why is this page not ranking?
Can you please tell me why this page is not ranking. http://goo.gl/BqoRT The page doesn't rank at all for keywords but even if I copy a line or 2 of text it still doesn't rank for that text. Any help will be much appreciated.
On-Page Optimization | | JillB20130 -
It is NOW time to invest in SEO consultant, How/ Where can i find a good one???
I have learn the basics of seo and use seoMoz for more then a year. this help me to rank my online store better and increase sales. I only know the basics of seo and it is now time increase traffics to our online store, www.furnacefilterscanada.com How can I hired a good seo consultant? I'm self employes and the only one managing my online store. I want to be shure I invest in a good consultant. Our small business does not have thousand$$$$$ dollards to invest. For example, can I see result if I invest $1000? Thank you
On-Page Optimization | | BigBlaze2050 -
Website in a frame
Following situation. Domain A is indexed at google , it use a frame within this frame a website is hosted from another domain. Because it not workes proper (all url's where only the main url from domain A) The webdesigner deleted domain A , the url's are delered from the google index. (some ranked well) (position 3) Now all url's from Domain B are in the index , but on a bad position (position 74) Now i want to move the website from domain A to domain B (and add a redirect 301) Will domain A gets his position in the google index B ? (All things happened 4 weeks ago) does anyone have other ideas how to get the position back ? Thanx in advance
On-Page Optimization | | digspinat0 -
Duplicate Page Content and Duplicate Page Title
Hi All, I'm new in SEOMoz and have some questions after I have already spend 2-3 days trying to resolve the problems identified from Crawling one of my clients websites. I get quite a lot of Duplicate Page Conntent and Page Titles warnings and trying to find a workaround through the forums and posts. I continuously get this error on most of my pages: URL: http://domain.com/benefits with the same Page but with a WWW in front URL: http://www.domain.com/benefits Any advice will be highly appreciated. Thanks, Athos
On-Page Optimization | | athosk0