What to do when a Bad URL has to stay?
-
I am working with a friend on optimizing a site that has a troublesome set of issues.
The company has integrated some ERP system that cannot be changed or removed and it is creating goofy URL's. So my question is which URL do I build links to? the www.xxx.com or the crazy URL that it is being redirected to.
Site URL: www.nauticalchartsonline.com
redirect: http://www.nauticalchartsonline.com/n.c/NauticalChartsOnline.htmlI would greatly appreciate constructive feedback.. Thanks, Jeannie
-
I agree with James here. Especially if you have anchor text in the link, people aren't going to see that URL as much. While it's not the best URL, I've certainly seen worse.
Do you have any update you can give us with any interesting lessons learned or things that you did?
-
Send links to the new (ugly) URL. Consistency is critical, all links to the same content must use the same URL. The actual URL is less important; more a "would be nice" rather than a "must have"
-
Moldy, they will not allow me to change URL structure and know SEO will be limited. We are going to go ahead. Your answer was really helpful.
-
Can't you just do a quick .htaccess url rewrite to remove the /n.c?
If you want the links to have more value sending them to the actual /n.c/ directory would be better (as long as there is no plan to change the url stucture in future.)
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
-
Are charity/sponsorship links good, bad or just useless?
Some facts: We will probably only doe this 2-3 times a year (we have hundreds of links coming in each year from organic sources). This is for a really prestigious charity website with very nice link profile from other non-profits, news organizations, and even government websites. We will get a logo on their sponsorship page, with a link back to our site. Some articles say Google considers this "buying a link" and will therefore penalize you. Or at best, this will have no effect. And here's a Search Engine Land article saying the exact opposite. $1,500 is a lot of money. So I just want to make sure I'm not wasting it -- or worse -- getting penalized.
Link Building | | Brand_Psychic0 -
Does social media presence + inbound links outweigh bad SEO?
Some of our competitors have SEO errors in the thousands, yet rank much higher than us for keywords that we're targeting. The SEO errors are duplicate content, titles, and 404 errors. We've successfully nailed down much of our SEO issues to a bare minimum, although not eliminated them completely, so we're at a loss as to why we aren't gaining much ground. From what we can tell, the difference between us and them is they have a large amount of inbound links to their site plus popular social media presence. Can it be inferred from this that an active social media presence and large inbound link count outweigh bad SEO practices? What else should we be looking for to help pinpoint why we're not gaining rank with the keywords we're targeting?
Link Building | | Closetstogo0 -
Sitewide links from affiliates. Good or bad?
We have 14 affiliate sites that have a sitewide banner linked to one of our pages. The banner link is "follow" and contains an alt text that includes a brand name and a keyword. Are these links harming us, or creating value? We were hit by Panda 2.0 - do you think it might be the reason?
Link Building | | imoney0 -
Are Link Exchange A Bad Idea
Hi, i am wondering if link exchanges are a bad idea. I have seen a company called link market where you join and exchange links with other companies and i am just wondering if this is now a bad idea. The last thing i do not want to happen is for google to get angry if i done link exchanges
Link Building | | ClaireH-1848860 -
How to recover from bad links?
I come to know about this blog post by recent blog post on Penguins, Pandas, and Panic at the Zoo! I have very good experience with example number 6. Honestly, It's working without any issue towards performance and ranking. But, I have very critical issue after implementation. I bought new home but, I have to hang Sign board with my old address. 🙂 I want to give live example with Google search result. I have removed my old website and set 301 to new category page due to duplication issue. Honestly, Who will like to mesh up performance in panda update? There are 56,311 links & 551 source domains pointing to my old home page. Just see this one! I'm creating quality links to my new category page where 301 redirect set from old home page to category page. I have big mind bubble about display of URL in search result. Why Google shows old home page URL in search result? Does it require to create 56,311 + 1 links or 551 + 1 source domains to get appear my new address?
Link Building | | CommercePundit0 -
Shortened url vs. anchor text
Are there any benefits to linking a shortened url vs. an anchor text when I am link building?Would linking via shortened link such as tinyurl cause problems with SERPS? Also, would it be more beneficial to short link to the homepage or landing page?
Link Building | | Modbargains0 -
Are link exchanges bad for SEO these days? Also, is adding my site to free yet relevent directory sites a bad idea?
I operate a computer services company in Eugene, Oregon called "Eugene Computer Geeks". We do a lot of web design, and need incoming links to my site very badly. Lately I've been asking clients if they would link to me, but they almost always ask for a link in return. If we exchange links, does Google penalize my site? Would the incoming link be better for SEO if I'm not linking back to the other site? ALSO Is it possible that manually submitting my site to free, yet relevant web directories would hurt my rankings? It's not a big deal to me if it doesn't help my rankings, as I see a benefit to having my site listed, but wanted to make sure there wasn't a chance that it would hurt my rankings. As far as I know all the directories are free from SPAM, porn, warez, or anything like that. Thanks!
Link Building | | eugenecomputergeeks0 -
How do I link specific keywords to a specific URL on my landing page? i.e.-Cloud Computing
Example keyword Cloud Computing California. How do I link this keyword on SeoMoz to a specific URL on my landing page?
Link Building | | SteelsmithGroup970