Our URLs have changed. Do we request our external links be updated as well?
-
Hello Forum,
We've re-launched our website with a new, SEO-friendly URL structure. We have also set up 301 redirects from our old URLs to the new ones. Now, is there any benefit to asking those external websites that link to us to update their links with our new URLs? What is the SEO best practice?
Thanks for your insight.
-
I agree with Alan! Focus on sending link change requests to the highly authoritative sites ( old domains with good link profiles) that already link to you. Also it would be worth having some sort of social accelerator strategy in place in order to speed up the indexing process. Twitter is a good example!
Cheers
Ari
-
I'm in agreement with EGOL - where it makes sense from a time and resources perspective, requesting updates to links is the best practice recommendation. While Banar has a valid point if there are thousands, tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands of links, those that come from very highly authoritative sites that you can get changed can help send the proper signals to search engines sooner in regard to the need to provide search engines validation that the new URLS deserve the same trust the old URLs held.
This is an important, yet often overlooked factor. Here's why:
Just because you change URLs, and while the content might appear to match the last version, the fact exists that previous links were generated to the old URL - those that provided those links presumably did so because they trusted the content and/or deemed it valuable. Since it's possible that content changes when URLs do, those same people might not want to link to the new page if that content changed.
It's why search engines do not solely rely on their own data or algorithms, and to gain maximum value after a 301, rely on new links being generated directly to the new URL. Lack of that is a prime cause of the bleeding off of link value in a 301. It's a minor loss, yet it's a loss nonetheless.
-
I believe that a small percentage of linkjuice is lost through a redirect and that anchor text is lost. So, I would ask webmasters that have a relationship with me to edit the link. I would not ask everyone, just the ones who I know and who would gladly do this very easy job.... they know that I would do it for them if they asked... and they know that I would offer to do it without being asked if I knew that they changed their brand to a new domain.
-
Hi Pano,
Congrats on your new website. If you did all 301s properly it's good enough, as it sends about 90% of the juice. Asking link partners to update the link may be very time consuming. I'd recommend to spend that time on new link building instead of contacting places that link to you. Also, some of them will probably never do it, some of them will but in days/weeks, so I do not recommend going this path.
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
-
Links
Hi 64% of our links come from a .com website and only 30% from .co.uk. We only do business in the UK should I continue with the .com links as they are easier to source. Does this hurt my SEO efforts?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Caffeine_Marketing0 -
Site still indexed after request 'change of address' search console
Hello, A couple of weeks ago we requested a change of address in Search console. The new, correct url is already indexed. Yet when we search the old url (with site:www.) we find that the old url is still indexed. Is there another way to remove old urls?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | conversal0 -
Link Audit - Sponsor/Partners Images Links
Hi everyone, 1. I'm conducting a link audit and read that if you are a sponsor or partner of a company, links should be nofollowed. I always no follow them if they are money keywords, but branded I leave alone. is that a good strategy? Or do i nofollow my brand name as well? 2. What if I'm a sponsor and have my company logo on their website that links to my website? How would i know if that link should be nofollowed? a. Does it depend on the "alt" of the image? b. Does it depend on the landing page of the link of the image? c. Do i just no follow image links from sponsor pages and partner pages as a whole? Please keep in mind that I'm sponsoring websites that are relevant to my niche. PLEASE HELP!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Shawn1240 -
How much is the effect of redirecting an old URL to another URL under a new domain?
Example: http://www.olddomain.com/buy/product-type/region/city/area http://www.newdomain.com/product-type-for-sale/city/area Thanks in advance!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | esiow20130 -
Changing the spellings of titles and URl changes
Hi, Changing the spellings of titles and URl changes We identifies 500+ titles with some issues like spellings and punctuations and short or too long. We want to change them, but the titles are connected with the URL's when we change the titles the URl's change as well. My questions are 1. Is it a good way to change them all in one shot or do few daily 2. As the URl's change will Google index drop the old pages as they would be 404 and index new ones? 3. Will we have chances to have drop in traffic due to this? 4. Any way to redirect? as we have a Drupal website Thanks
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | mtthompsons0 -
New Website Look/Structure - Should I Redirect or Update Pages w/ Quality Inbound Links
This questing is regarding an ecommerce website that I hand wrote(html) in 1997. One of the first click and buy websites, with cart/admin system that I also developed. After all this time, the Old plain HTML look just doesnt cut it. I just updated to XHTML w/ a very modern look, and believe the structured data will index better. All products and current category pages will have the identical vrls taken from the old version. I decided to go with the switch after manual penalty, which has since been removed... I figured now is the time to update. My big question is that over the years, a lot of my backlinks came from products/news that are either no longer relevant or just not available. The pages do exist, but can only be found from the Outbound Link Source. For SEO purposes, I have thought a few things I can do but can't decide which one is the best choice. Any Insight or suggestions would be Awesome! 1. Redirect the old link to the most relevant page in my current catalog. 2. Add my new header/footer to old page(this will add a navigation bar w/ brands/cats/etc) 3. Simply add a nice new image to the top of these pages linking home & update any broken/irrelevant links. I was also considering adding just the very top 2 inches of my header(logo,search box, phone, address) *note, some of these pages do receive some traffic. Nothing huge, but consider the 50+ pages, it ads up.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Southbay_Carnivorous_Plants0 -
External links from banned websites
Currently working with a client that has seen his rankings diminish after the penguin update. I've manually analyzed all his 600 backlinks and identified approximately 85 external links from websites that have been banned by Google. How do these sites affect his current rankings? Should i just disavow all these links using the Google disavow tool? Any comments would be highly appreciated!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Nick_Johansson0 -
Do links from twitter count in SEOMoz's Toolbar link count?
I am using the Chrome extension and looking at a SERP, when a page is said to have 2000 incoming links, does that include tweets with a link back to this page? What about retweets. Are those counted separately or as one? And what about independent tweets that have exactly the same content (tweet text + link)
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | davhad0