Best practice for eCommerce site migration, should I 301 redirect or match URLs on new site
-
Hi Guys,
I have been struggling with this one for quite some time. I am no SEO expert like many of you, rather just a small business owner trying to do the right thing, so forgive me if I say something that makes no sense
I am moving our eCommerce store from one platform to another, in the process the store is getting a massive face lift. The part I am struggling with is whether I should keep my existing URL structure in place or use 301 redirects to create a cleaner looking URLs. Currently the URLs are a little long and I would love to move to a /category/product_name type format.
Of course the goal is not to lose ranking in the process, I rank pretty well for several competitive phrases and do not want to create a negative impact.
How would you guys handle this?
Thanks,
Dinesh
-
If you do everything by the "books" then you should not see a huge swing, I just did this with a few sites, but I took some pre and post social precautions which I believe actually helped me in both these, but of course I cannot say that for sure, as overall in both very recent examples I moved to better servers, better code structure, nav structure and other items - So I would still caution and say it is always a possibility to loose some rankings, but it really depends on your end game and end goals.
-
Hi Shane,
I guess I should clarify. I am not a SEO by trade but have been working with SEO since we launched this site back in 2010 and have learned on the job.
Understood about the re-design trust me I am working to keep all the elements as close to the same as possible (Meta Tags, Rel's, Descriptions, ALTS etc...)
I can do the 301 Redirect (from a technical perspective) I was curious to the impact it would have on search. I read a Rand post on when he moved to moz.com with 301's in place it had a negative impact on SERP, he recovered but that could be because of his authority you know?
-
That is tough, it is hard for me to say 301 cause of course you could loose rankings, but you could loose rankings in a re-design in general if precautions are not taken.
If you were an SEO, I would most definitely say 301 because you could work with any negative effects and chalk them up to "growing pains" but with little SEO knowledge I am afraid you could make a detrimental change that seems insignificant.
I am not trying to scare you into not doing it, I would ALWAYS suggest moving to a cleaner URL structure for MANY reasons not just applicable to search engines.
But this is a tough one, as there is risk, but of course not a HUGE amount of risk, but risk none the less......
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
-
Our homepage url has been 301'd to the new https version - as our MD wanted us to have the secure protocol
Hello Mozers I'm just checking whether it is good practice to 301 the main homepage url to its https version. Will this have any detrimental effect on ranking and DA?
Technical SEO | | Catherine_Selectaglaze0 -
301 Clean-Up - Best Practices & Procedure?
Hello Again, I have taken over managing a website for about 2 months and have fixed a whole heap of problems. Im now turning my attention to the URL rewrites as there are ALOT of them. I have fixed the most problematic offenders that were blocking products and all sorts of mischief but I now want to clean them up. The website is on Magento, and there are 240 custom URL rewrites. Question 1: Am i correct that I should edit the links on my website so that they link directly to the new page instead of utilising the re-direct for best SEO results. Question 2: If my website doesn't utilise the URL rewrite (fixed in question 1) its only purpose is to transfer link juice from any external link the page had before. If this page didnt have any external inbound links then I can delete the URL rewrite as it serves no purpose. Question 3: If Q1 and Q2 are correct, what is the quickest way to check the inbound links to a page quickly so I can make a quick decision on if i should remove the re-write. Many Thanks in advance!
Technical SEO | | ATP1 -
Importance of 301 Redirects
Hello, I have been brought in at the last minute to consult for an e-commerce client who is about to relaunch their website. The site currently receives 8000 visits a month, 3100 of which are from organic search. They have a few thousand product pages. The web development firm they are using is changing all of the old product page urls and using 'search engine friendly' urls for the new site, which is expected to launch in a few weeks. However, they did not/are not planning on including 301 redirects from the old URLs. Other than simply stating 'this will be bad for your SEO', what would be a correct way of explaining to the client how much of a problem it will be if their new site launches without 301s. For example, is this a big enough issue to delay the launch of the site / get in a contract dispute with the web developer?
Technical SEO | | stageagent0 -
Creating a Target URL For 301 Redirect in Wordpress
I am confused as to what to put in as the target URL. Is this just a new URL that I must create a name for? I am having trouble finding any answer for this on the internet, just more people asking the same question. I am finally realizing that all the information is found right here at SEOmoz to both learn and ask questions about.
Technical SEO | | lartinos0 -
301 redirect to new website
We are migrating to a new website that will be using entirely new URLs under the same domain as the old website. The old website is a custom PHP script and the new website uses Drupal. I know that I should use individual 301 redirects to the corresponding new pages. My question is just how to set up the hundreds of 301 redirects from the old website to the new one? Here is the process I've come up with. Please let me know if there is an easier and better way for this. Before actually changing to the new website: download an advanced report with all pages on this domain from OSE. Find corresponding pages on the new website Make the hundreds of 301 redirect lines in an .htaccess file with the following code: redirect 301 /oldurl.html http://domain.com/the-full-url Thanks in advance for your help!
Technical SEO | | qbeeker0 -
Is there a great tool for URL mapping old to new web site?
We are implementing new design and removing some pages and adding new content. Task is to correctly map and redirect old pages that no longer exist.
Technical SEO | | KnutDSvendsen0 -
301 redirect .htaccess problem
Can anyone explain to me why this doesn't work? Redirect 301 /category/diamond-pendants/nstart/1/start/(.*) http://www.povada.com/category/pendants/nstart/1/start/$1 Im trying to replace everything after /start/ and insert it into the new url. Thanks in advance.
Technical SEO | | 13375auc30 -
301 redirect: Old pages to new
Hi, We have recently made some changes to our agency site. Looking in webmaster tools we have identified a number of old pages with existing link juice. Not a great deal mostly 32/100 PA. There are a mixture of URLs "meet the team" and people pages etc. The anchor text on the majority of pages is our brand name. Could we now 301 all these pages to one page, or is this a no no in the eyes of Google? Any help greatly appreciated. Best Regards Sean
Technical SEO | | Yozzer0