Website Restructure - Good or Bad for SEO?
-
Due to the fact that we aren't in the #1 position, (dropped from #5 to page 2 - You have to love Devs and IT), our heads have hired a SEO Audit/Consultant company to review everything we are doing.
I would like to post some of the things they are telling us to do, in which I don't 100% agree with and would like some other professional feedback. Especially since their site isn't marketed very well.
http://www.trupanionpetinsurance.com Disclaimer: (this site was a complete nightmare when I started a year and a half ago. Yes, there are many issues that still need to be addressed.)
Website Restructure
I agree we totally need to restructure our website. I have no idea what the previous SEO guy was thinking. The new SEO company is telling us that the structure is a big part of SEO.
- I don't believe so, but besides a little loss in 301 juice, is there any other downfalls?
- Are there any real benefits?
Similar question asked the other day (and answered by me): http://www.seomoz.org/q/don-t-want-to-lose-page-rank-what-s-the-best-way-to-restructure-a-url-other-than-a-301-redirect
-
Our site is doing the same. EZWatch-Security-Cameras.com
Restructuring allows you to organize your content into "Silos" and eliminate some of the unnecessary links through JSON objects, iframes, and nofollows (some debate there on which is optimal).
The Downfalls: There will probably be a 30-90 day dip in traffic but if you do page-to-page 301's it won't hurt nearly as much. Anytime you change URL's you are likely to see some inbound links drop off, but that happens when the pages don't change, so it's going to be minimal. Sure, 301's might drop some of your PR during transfer, but only a minimal amount according to matt cutts.
The Benefits: Organizing your content into silos and pruning cross-category links will allow you to control the flow of pagerank and anchor text much more effectively. Bruce Clay has a huge amount of resources on this, and they even cover it on their blog.
Will it be painful? Yes.
Will it be worth it? Yes.
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
-
If I disavow bad Backlinks of my website. If, I create Backlinks again, those websites. Did that again become count in my Backlinks?
Hi, all please tell me. If I disavow bad Backlinks of my website. If, I create Backlinks again, those websites. Did that again become count in my Backlinks?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | sourav60 -
Changing website framework: Any negative SEO ramifications?
Hello! We have a website that is built using Asp.net. My colleague and I are wondering whether or not changing the framework from Asp.net to php or html would have any negative impact on current rankings. My colleague was told by an SEO company that doing this would have a big negative effect, but we just can't see why that would be. The URLs of the site do not have an .asp extension, so we don't feel there would be any issues with 404s after the migration. The content, meta data and URL structure would remain the same. We posted this question in the Webmaster Central Forum and were told by a top contributor that it wouldn't have any negative impact, but we wanted a second opinion here. Thanks!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | BBEXNinja0 -
SEO Consult?
Is there anyone here that I can pay to give me a deep analysis of my website and my competitors with recommendation on what to do? I am a small business and I cannot afford expensive monthly SEO fees. I can probably afford a one time consult fee, then I can do the work myself. Or maybe I can pay a-la cart for some of the fixes. I understand this may not be something SEOs want to do since they make their money off doing the work and may not want to share trade secrets. I just thought I would throw that question out there. I've been working on trying to SEO my site for a year now... I was improving and happy with my progress until October and lost 30 positions over my tracked keywords. I have no idea why. I'm kind of at my wits end! 😞
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | CalicoKitty20000 -
Negative seo problem
Hello, Someone attacked our website with negative SEO and our website fell drastically. If i use bing webmaster tools link explorer i see dozens and dozens spam links but if open a link i don't find this link in that website. Is it possible that someone added the links and then remove thouse links when we got hit? Or is it possible to hide the links that they don't show up on webpage but they are still there? How can i use Google disavow links tool if there is no links in thouse websites but Bing link explorer shows spam domains pointing to our website. BR, T
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | otsinguturundus0 -
First Website
Hi Everyone, I have just published my first website and was wondering if anybody would like to help me with some hints and tips. This is my first time branching into SEO and could really do with some help. Any feedback would be greatly appreciated. The site address is www.theremovalistsguide.com.au which targets the furniture removal industry in Australia. Thanks for your help.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | RobSchofield0 -
How Many Words in Content for Good SEO?
I have heard it's best to have 400+ words of content for strong SEO per page. I believe this is true for the most. I have a project in mind, however, that I am considering doing 100-200 words of content per page. This is for a glossary of terms for my industry, where I have a unique page for each term that describes what that term means w/ 1 image and a few links to related products. Is having just 100-200 words going to be enough? Each page will still be unique, original content. Or is it best to really try for longer articles? In other words, is there a general rule for # of words per page for search engines to see the page as valuable and unique and to give it good ranking? Give me a BIG THUMBS UP if you found this question useful. It won't cost you anything! Thanks!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | applesofgold0 -
Geo-tagging using cookie - Is it Good or Bad for Rankings
We have a fairly large site which does a cookie-based 302 redirect to the the specific city page if someone types in the Home page URL. Though if the cookie is not available (first time user) it goes to the Homepage and asks user to select the city as our services are city specific. Everything is working fine with this setup. Though our tech team now wants to display the contents of city page on homepage URL itself if the cookie is available without 302 redirecting to new URL. Though no-cookie available scenario remains unchanged. Technically, I think this change should work fine without any ranking issues as still the first time users see the actual homepage as does Googlebot. Please confirm possible issues in rankings with this change from your experiences as based upon city present in the cookie homepage will display different content.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Webmaster_SEO0 -
Wordpress blog integration with full website effect on SEO
I have searched and searched for the answer to this question and can't find it. We are going to be launching a Wordpress blog on our domain shortly, however we have a much larger site that is mixed with static and dynamic pages full of custom programming tied to databases, etc. that we are running around the blog and can't integrate that into Wordpress due to its complexity. What this means is we have to install Wordpress on our servers somehow separate from the pages of our website. What I am wondering is if we run Wordpress in the /blog directory of our site as a separate installation if it will inherit the domain authority of our domain (currently around 60) or if it will be viewed as a separate site and get no ranking. Also, will our main site inherit the additional link juice from the inbound links that we get from the blog with it being separate from the main site? How does this need to be setup on our webservers to ensure the blog gets authority of the domain, and the blog contributes maximum SEO value to the domain? Any help would be appreciated.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | CodyWheeler0