If I want clean up my URLs and take the "www.site.com/page.html" and make it "www.site.com/page" do I need a redirect?
-
If I want clean up my URLs and take the "www.site.com/page.html" and make it "www.site.com/page" do I need a redirect?
If this scenario requires a 301 redirect no matter what, I might as well update the URL to be a little more keyword rich for the page while I'm at it. However, since these pages are ranking well I'd rather not lose any authority in the process and keep the URL just stripped of the ".html" (if that's possible). Thanks for you help!
[edited for formatting]
-
Thanks so much! I really appreciate it.
-
Yes, I would highly suggest creating 301 rewrites here. Like Travis said, search engines "may" be smart enough to understand that the new pages (without the .html ext) should redirect to the new site.com/page.
But I would play it safe and create the redirects from the get go.
-
You would get a 404 if you didn't employ the proper URL rewrites at the server level. Unless search engines have become smart enough to understand common extensions of a URL and attribute any possible link equity to the proper URL - then yes - you may likely need a 301 instead of rewrites.
Full disclosure: I've gone extensionless for years. I have never studied this particular case.
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
-
[Organization schema] Which Facebook page should be put in "sameAs" if our organization has separate Facebook pages for different countries?
We operate in several countries and have this kind of domain structure:
Technical SEO | | Telsenome
example.com/us
example.com/gb
example.com/au For our schemas we've planned to add an Organization schema on our top domain, and let all pages point to it. This introduces a problem and that is that we have a separate Facebook page for every country. Should we put one Facebook page in the "sameAs" array? Or all of our Facebook pages? Or should we skip it altogether? Only one Facebook page:
{
"@type": "Organization",
"@id": "https://example.com/org/#organization",
"name": "Org name",
"url": "https://example.com/org/",
"sameAs": [
"https://www.linkedin.com/company/xxx",
"https://www.facebook.com/xxx_us"
], All Facebook pages:
{
"@type": "Organization",
"@id": "https://example.com/org/#organization",
"name": "Org name",
"url": "https://example.com/org/",
"sameAs": [
"https://www.linkedin.com/company/xxx",
"https://www.facebook.com/xxx_us"
"https://www.facebook.com/xxx_gb"
"https://www.facebook.com/xxx_au"
], Bonus question: This reasoning springs from the thought that we only should have one Organization schema? Or can we have a multiple sub organizations?0 -
Our protected pages 302 redirect to a login page if not a member. Is that a problem for SEO?
We have a membership site that has links out in our unprotected pages. If a non-member clicks on these links it sends a 302 redirect to the login / join page. Is this an issue for SEO? Thanks!
Technical SEO | | rimix1 -
Using "Div's" to place content at top of HTML
Is it still a good practice to use "div's" to place content at the top of the HTML code, if your content is at the bottom of the web page?
Technical SEO | | tdawson090 -
Hi! I'm wondering whether for keyword SEO - a url should be www.salshoes.com/shoes/mens/day-wear (so with a few parent categories) or www.salshoes.com/shoes-mens-day-wear is ok for on page optimization?
Hi! I'm wondering whether for keyword SEO - a url should be www.salshoes.com/shoes/mens/day-wear (so with a few parent categories) or www.salshoes.com/shoes-mens-day-wear is ok for on page optimization? Hi! I'm wondering whether for keyword SEO - a url should be www.salshoes.com/shoes/mens/day-wear (so with a few parent categories) or www.salshoes.com/shoes-mens-day-wear is ok for on page optimization?
Technical SEO | | SalSantaCruz0 -
Does rel="canonical" support protocol relative URL?
I need to switch a site from http to https. We gonna add 301 redirect all over the board. I also use rel="canonical" to strip some queries parameter from the index (parameter uses to identify which navigation elements were use.) rel="canonical" can be used with relative or absolute links, but Google recommend using absolute links to minimize potential confusion or difficulties. So here my question, did you see any issue using relative protocol in rel="canonical"? Instead of:
Technical SEO | | EquipeWeb0 -
Does adding subcategory pages to an commerce site limit the link juice to the product pages?
I have a client who has an online outdoor gear company. He mostly sells high end outdoor gear (like ski jackets, vests, boots, etc) at a deep discount. His store currently only resides on Ebay. So we're building him an online store from scratch. I'm trying to determine the best site architecture and wonder if we should include subcategory pages. My issue is that I think the subcategory pages might be good from a user experience, but it'll add an additional layer between the homepage and the product pages. The problem is that I think a lot of user's might be searching for the product name to see if they can find a better deal, and my client's site would be perfect for them. So I really want to rank well for the product pages, but I'm nervous that the subcategory pages will limit the link juice of the product pages. Home --> SubCategory --> Product List --> Product Detail Home --> Men's Ski Clothing --> Men's Ski Jack --> North Face Mt Everest Jacket Should I keep the SubCategory page "Men's Ski Clothing" if it helps usability? On a separate note, the SubCategory pages would have some head keyword terms, but I don't think that he could rank well for these terms anytime soon. However, they would be great pages / terms to rank for in the long term. Should this influence the decision?
Technical SEO | | Santaur0 -
Old URL redirect to New URL
Alright I did something dumb a year a go and I'm still paying for it. I changed my hyphenated URL to the non-hyphenated version when I redesigned my website. I say it was dumb because I lost most of my link juice even though I did 301 redirects (via the htaccess file) for almost all of the pages I could find in Google's index. Here's my problem. My new site took a huge hit in traffic (down 60%) when I made the change and even though I've done thousands of redirects my old site is still showing up in the SERPS and send much if not most of my traffic. I don't want to take the old site down in fear it will kill all of my traffic. What should I do? Is there a better method I should explore then 301 redirects? Could the other site be affecting my current rank since it's still there? (FYI...both sites are built on the WP platform). Any help or ideas are greatly appreciated. Thank you! Joe
Technical SEO | | kaje0 -
Http:// vs http://www.
Why is it that when I run an "On Page Optimization Keyword Report" for my website I get a different score when using http://www.tandmkitchens.com vs http://tandmkitchens.com. My keyword is "Kitchen Remodeling" http://www.tandmkitchens.com scores an A http://tandmkitchens.com scores a B It's the same page yet one url scores higher than the other. Any help! Thanks
Technical SEO | | fun52dig
Gary0