Is it OK to Delete a Page and Move Content to a Another Page without 301 re-direct
-
I have a page "A" that I want to completely delete and move the written content from A" to page "B". Since I am deleting "A" (not keeping page) is it OK to upload the content from "A" to page "B" and search engines will give "B" credit for the unique content? Or, since the content has already once been indexed on "A", "B" may struggle to get full credit for this new unique content, even though page "A" is deleted?
-
I've tried this. I moved content from page 'A' to page 'B'.
I did not even delete page 'A', and google re-indexed both the updated pages correctly.
In webmaster tools, I submitted page B first, and then page A immediately after.
Note: There were a few scraper sites that were scraping the content in question.
Performing a 'site: <domainname.com><"string of text in quotations here">' in Google showed page B for the content first, above the scrapers. I know this is not a scientific way of determining if you are the owner of content, but it seems to me that Google still gave our site, and page B, the ownership of the content in question.</domainname.com>
-
Totally fine to delete page A and put new content on page B. Google will have no problems with that even if is the exact same content.
Will page B get the same ranking results as page A? That is a question that depends on a lot of variables, the key one being have a lot of links gone to page A from other sites? I would use Moz's Open Site Explorer to check that one and see what links have in fact gone to page A.
In any case, if you're set on transferring to page B, a 301 redirect has alluded to would be a good move that wouldn't do any harm at very least, and offer some SEO to the new page otherwise.
-
yes, I would certainly recommend 301'ing the link - or better could you just simply overwrite the old page (A) with the new page you are intending to create (B) - unless of course B already exists?
If you struggling with managing the 301, then I would first check if there are any external backlinks going to page A. If there are, then I would certainly try and find a way to 301. If not, then it will not effect things to much as there is no external link equity going to the page to loose.
A further option if you are unable to 301, and copying the content from page A to page B is to rel=canonical A to B, which should pass the link equity across in a similar way to a 301.
-
I would definitely 301 re-direct to the new page, this way you'll make sure any links that were coming to page "A" are counted for your new page "B". After all, 301 is such a quick thing to do, it's worth it to be sure.
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 repeat a (focus) keyword used on a previous page, on a new page?
I am cataloguing the pages on our website in terms of which focus keyword has been used with the page. I've noticed that some pages repeated the same keyword / term. I've heard that it's not really good practice, as it's like telling google conflicting information, as the pages with the same keywords will be competing against each other. Is this correct information? If so, is the alternative to use various long-winded keywords instead? If not, meaning it's ok to repeat the keyword on different pages, is there a maximum recommended number of times that we want to repeat the word? Still new-ish to SEO, so any help is much appreciated! V.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Vitzz1 -
Keep ranking homepage for target keyword, or switch to another page?
Hi Moz Community! I've researched Moz to find the answer to this question but nothing for my situation. I'm hoping some experienced SEOs can help me out. Here's the situation: I'm up against some fairly stiff competition for my main keyword - the front page is dominated by major manufacturers with high brand recognition and loads of money, where as my client is a much smaller manufacturer trying to compete. However, their DA is only 37-53 so not impossible to outrank... just many links and a significant advantage. We've honed in on a keyword that still drives good traffic, that's a great term to drive paying customers, and that we can get competitive with. My strategy was to attempt to rank my client's _homepage _for this term, rather than a specific product page, as I knew that they'd have many more links and social shares of their main site. (I've been successful with this strategy before). We've risen 60+ positions for the keyword in the past 3 months, to position 12, but we seem to have plateaued for the past month. We're ranking in top 5 positions for a number of our other keywords, so I know we're trending well. However, I'm concerned that despite our quick rise to #12, I may have made a seemingly fatal decision to rank their homepage for our target keyword term. After we had plateaued for a while, I did a more thorough side by side comparison and found that 8 out of 10 competitors on the front page have 2 main things we don't (and can't, because we're ranking the homepage)... 1- The keyword in the url (they're ranking for product pages, i.e. homepage.com/keyword-here/) 2- Their keyword comes first, or early in the meta title. Ours is _supposed to _, but as you know- Google can do what it likes with your homepage title as it's your brand, so they've put our company name- _then _the keyword we added in the title. e.g. Our Company | The Term We're Ranking For We've done a lot of work, and gained many reputable, high quality links, and we did see a significant rank increase across all our pages. My question is- did I shoot myself in the foot? Or is ranking the homepage still viable in this situation? If ultimately this is going to be impossible to get in the top #5 spots, what can I do to fix it? We've already gained a PA of 38 on the homepage from our work. Or would you let it go and just keep working at it, expecting that eventually we'll break onto the front page? Thanks in advance! Let me know if you need more info. I tried to be general with terms/site for my client's sake.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | TheatreSolutionsInc0 -
Re-using content
Hi, I've just sold the domain for a website, so I'm free to re-purpose the content over to another website I own. How can I make sure that Gg doesn't deem it as duplicate? Do I need to let Gg naturally realise that the 'original' website no longer has the content on it? Do I need to hold-off putting the content live again? Should I notify Gg by-way of a de-index request, etc (assuming the domain won't incur any difficulty if I do this)? Thanks in advance.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | newstd1000 -
Any downsides of (permanent)redirecting 404 pages to more generic pages(category page)
Hi, We have a site which is somewhat like e-bay, they have several categories and advertisements posted by customers/ client. These advertisements disappear over time and turn into 404 pages. We have the option to redirect the user to the corresponding category page, but we're afraid of any negative impact of this change. Are there any downsides, and is this really the best option we have? Thanks in advance!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | vhendriks0 -
Can I delay an AJAX call in order to hide specific on page content?
I am an SEO for a people search site. To avoid potential duplicate content issues for common people searches such as "John Smith" we are displaying the main "John Smith" result above the fold and add "other John Smith" search results inside an iframe. This way search engines don't see the same "other John Smith" search results on all other "John Smith" profile pages on our site and conclude that we have lots of duplicate content. We want to get away from using an iframe to solve potential duplicate content problem. Question: Can we display this duplicate "John Smith" content using a delayed AJAX call and robot.txt block the directory that contains the AJAX call?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | SEOAccount320 -
How much is too much content for a home-page?
Hey guys, I'm looking to implement a strategy where I put a 20,000 word article on my home-page. It won't be a super-long page, this content will be divided into nested tabs. The content will also be found on individual pages (corresponding to the tabs) on the site, but these will have a canonical tag pointing to the home page, Will I get penalized for this kind of structure? Cheers, JC
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | trx0 -
How can we optimize content specific to particular tabs, but is loaded on one page?
Hi, Our website generates stock reports. Within those reports, we organize information into particular tabs. The entire report is loaded on one page and javascript is used to hide and show the different tabs. This makes it difficult for us to optimize the information on each particular tab. We're thinking about creating separate pages for each tab, but we're worried about affecting the user experience. We'd like to create separate pages for each tab, put links to them at the bottom of the reports, and still have the reports operate as they do today. Can we do this without getting in trouble with Google for having duplicate content? If not, is there another solution to this problem that we're not seeing? Here's a sample report: http://www.vuru.co/analysis/aapl In advance, thanks for your help!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | yosephwest0