Advice on whether we 301 redirect a page or update existing page?
-
Hi guys,
any advice would be really appreciated. We have an existing page that ranks well for 'red widgets'. The page isn't monetised right now, but we're bringing in a new product onto our site that we optimised for 'blue widgets'. Unfortunately, not enough research was done for this page and we've now realised that consumers actually search for 'red widgets' when looking for the product we're creating as 'blue widgets'.
The problem with this is that the 'red widgets' page is in a completely different category of our site than what it needs to be (it needs to be with 'blue widgets').
So, my question is; Should we do a 301 redirect from our 'red-widgets' page to our 'blue-widgets' page which we want to update and optimise the content on there for 'red-widgets'. Or, should we update the existing red-widgets page to have the right products and content on there, even thought it is in the wrong place of our site and users could get confused as to why they are there.
If we do a 301 redirect to our new page, will we lose our rankings and have to start again, or is there a better way around this?
Thanks!
Dave
-
Without seeing the pages, url structure and how similar/different the products are its a bit hard to advise.
However in general if you already have a page ranking, and it is possible to overcome the confusion issues (which can probably be done through design?) I would probably leave the page there, and tweak the content to include your 'blue widget' (but remember part of the reason you are ranking for the term 'red widget' is due to the content on your page so it will still need to be optimised for this.
I've done 301 redirects a few times and when done internally they usually don't cause any long-term drops, however they may cause short-term (which can last a while) your page to disappear while Google re-ranks the new page (and the exact ranking will depending on the new page URL structure, content, page hierarchy etc).
Hope that helps and makes sense
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
-
301 Redirect
Hello Moz Community, I have a question regarding 301 redirecting a new domain that contains keywords relevant to my website. However, I do NOT want to change my current domain. My main question is, by just redirecting this new domain to my current website, will those keywords in the new domain help with ranking in anyway? Thanks in advance for any help!
Technical SEO | | WyzeOwl0 -
Is it OK to 301 a .jpg (image) to a .html (page) ?
I have some old images that are no longer used, but they have a few decent external links pointing to them. Can I 301 them to the page they used to be on? And if yes, will their link juice flow to the page?
Technical SEO | | GregB1230 -
Suddenly Many 301 Redirects captured by SEOMOZ
On April the 7th SeoMOZ captured 6000 301 redirect on my site, but I cant seem to understand how SEOMOZ finds these links Example http://www.iphonegadget.dk/dk/apple-tilbeh-r-36/ipad-tilbeh-r-219/bilholder-239/index-2-4a.html Makes a 301 Redirect to the following page beneath SEOMOZ says http://www.iphonegadget.dk/dk/apple-tilbeh-r-36/ipad-tilbeh-r-219/bilholder-239/index-2.html The weird thing is that both urls work, but if i browse my site in a normal matter this link will never be created i that way. The -4a in the end os the link is not the normal link structure on the site and has never been like that before. So how does SEOMOZ Create that link? http://www.iphonegadget.dk/dk/apple-tilbeh-r-36/ipad-tilbeh-r-219/bilholder-239/index-2-4a.html Also google only has the right one that are this one beneath http://www.iphonegadget.dk/dk/apple-tilbeh-r-36/ipad-tilbeh-r-219/bilholder-239/index-2.html People would normal come to the category with this url http://www.iphonegadget.dk/dk/apple-tilbeh-r-36/ipad-tilbeh-r-219/bilholder-239/ And page 2 would be http://www.iphonegadget.dk/dk/apple-tilbeh-r-36/ipad-tilbeh-r-219/bilholder-239/index-2.html AND NOT http://www.iphonegadget.dk/dk/apple-tilbeh-r-36/ipad-tilbeh-r-219/bilholder-239/index-2-4a.html Can anyone find out what is going on?
Technical SEO | | noerdar0 -
Help with 301 redirect code
Hi, I can't work out how to make this one work and would apreciate if someone could help.
Technical SEO | | Paul_MC
i have a series of folders from a old site that are in the structure:
/c/123456/bags.html (the "123456" changes and is any series of 6 digit numbers), and the "bags.html" changes depending on the product.
I need that to be 301 redirected to the following format:
/default/bags/bags.html0 -
301 redirect all 404 pages
Hi I would like to have a second opinion on this. I am working on an ecommerce website that they 301 redirect all 404 pages (including the URLs entered incorrectly) to the “All categories page”. Will this have any negative SEO impact?
Technical SEO | | iThinkMedia0 -
How do 301 redirects affect rankings?
Scenario: example.com/red-shoes gets 301 redirected to example.com/brown-boots because we have stopped selling red shoes and now only sell brown boots (which is a fairly new page with no authority). the red-shoes page ranked well for "red shoes" and "footwear". Will Google still index and show the red-shoes url in the SERPs? Will the "red shoes" and "footwear" keywords still rank well? Or does the redirected/new boots page need to properly support these keywords? The boots page has inherited the juice from the shoes page, but how does it help the boots page rank well? Only for keywords that both pages targeted, like a general "footwear" type keyword? Thanks in advance!
Technical SEO | | akim260 -
How to Redirect only specific pages to new domain
My HTACCESS FILE IS AS FOLLOWS: rewriteengine on
Technical SEO | | askthetrainer
rewritecond %{HTTP_HOST} ^mydomain.com$
rewriterule ^mydomain/(.*)$ "http://www.mydomain.com/$1" [R=301,L] #4d864805b49b5 I want to move ONLY specific pages from this domain to a new domain How do I edit my HTACCESS (which redirects http:// to www.) to move specific pages from old domain (which I have to delete) to new domain.... I.e. http://mydomaon.com/move.html needs to move to http://mynewdomain.com/move.html Where i can delete the original domains0
