Any reason not to redirect entire directory from old site structure to new?
-
I'm helping on a site that has tons of content and recently moved from a 10 year old .ASP structure to WordPress. There are ~800 404s, with 99% of them in the same directory that is no longer used at all. The old URL structures offer no indication of what the old page contents was.
So, there is basically no way to manually redirect page by page to the new site at this point.....is there any reason not to redirect that entire old directory to the new homepage?
Matt Cutts seems to think its OK to point an entire old directory to a new homepage, but its not as good as the 1:1 redirects: http://support.google.com/webmasters/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=93633
Any thoughts?
-
That's how I see it....the old homepage was at ..../af/index.asp -- this will definitely get 301ed, its just about the other 800+ random URLs.
There is no penalty for redirecting a page that could otherwise have a 404? Or, once GoogleBot views a 404 on a particular page, is it too late at that point to 301 it? With the "index.asp" page, it still makes sense to redirect because there are links around the web pointing to that location, and those visitors need the redirect.
-
Well think about it like this. Would you rather have a ton of 404's linked to your site? or would you rather risk the PA on each of those pages and redirect them to 1?
If you decide to not redirect to a single page then at least remove the urls in webmaster tools so you can seem a little better to google
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
-
Domain Name redirection to new Domain Name - VS - Transfering Domaine Name from account 1 to account 2
Hi there! Thanks for your time 😉 I have a new cutsomer that bought his domain name via WIX and your know... WIX sucks huge time for SEO. Basically, we want to do SEO outside of WIX. But I am not sure HOW I should proceed. I think I have 2 options: OPTION 1- We transfer the domain name from WIX to a new hoster. But we will lose 7 days during that, lose prospects while the website is in maintenance and we might lose the little bit of ranking we have on the way. BUT! ONCE Everything is done with the transfer, we will be able to operate our SEO campaing with a Domain Name that as 15 domain authority, links, little bit a ranking, etc. OPTION 2- I just buy a new domain name. I build the new Website on it and then use the SEO juice from the old domain name with redirect to push the new domain name. Like this, I won't lose any opportunities. BUT I will have to restart the SEO as new... Any tips or ideas for me? Maybe there is an OPTION 3 that I don't know about.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Gab-SEO1 -
Phasing in new website - new content on www2
Hi Mozzers, I'm working on a large website redesign / redevelopment project. New sections of the website will be phased in over the next 12 months. The plan is to launch all new content on a subdomain (www2.domain.com) while the old site remains on www.domain.com. There will be no duplicate content across the www and www2 sites, as old content will be removed on www as it is replaced with new content on www2. 301 redirects will also be setup from old content on www to new content on www2. Once the new site on www2 is complete, everything will be moved to www, with a robust 301 redirect setup in place. Is this approach logical, and can you see any SEO implication for managing the migration in this way? Thanks!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | RWesley0 -
Tools to scan entire site for duplicate content?
HI guys, Just wondering if anyone knows of any tools to scan a site for duplicate content (with other sites on the web). Looking to quickly identify product pages containing duplicate content/duplicate product descriptions for E-commerce based websites. I know copy scape can which can check up to 10,000 pages in a single operation with Batch Search. But just wondering if there is anything else on the market i should consider looking at? Cheers, Chris
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | jayoliverwright0 -
Does it make sense to create new pages with friendlier URLs then redirect old pages to new?
Hi Moz! My client has messy URLs. does it make sense to write new clean URLs, then 301 redirect all old URLs to the new ones? Thanks for reading!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | DA20130 -
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 -
3 Wordpress sites 1 Tumblr site coming under 1domain(4subdomains) WPMU: Proper Redirect?
Hey Guys, witnessSF.org (WP), witnessLA.org(Tumblr), witnessTO.com(WP), witnessHK.com(WP), and witnessSEOUL.com(new site no redirects needed) are being moved over to sf.ourwitness.com, la.ourwitness.com and so forth. All under on large Wordpress MU instance. Some have hundreds of articles/links others a bit less. What is the best method to take, I understand there are easy redirects, and the complete fully manual one link at a time approach. Even the WP to WP the permalinks are changing from domain.com/date/post-name to domain.com/post-name? Here are some options: Just redirect all previous witinessla.org/* to la.ourwitness.org/ (automatic direct all pages to home page deal) (easiest not the best)2) Download Google Analytics top redirected domains about 50 urls have significant ranking and traffic (in LA's sample) and just redirect those to custom links. (most bang for the buck for the articles that rank manually set up to the correct place) 3) Best of the both worlds may be possible? Automated perhaps?I prefer working with .htaccess vs a redirect plugin for speed issues. Please advise. Thanks guys!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | vmialik0 -
Urgent Site Migration Help: 301 redirect from legacy to new if legacy pages are NOT indexed but have links and domain/page authority of 50+?
Sorry for the long title, but that's the whole question. Notes: New site is on same domain but URLs will change because URL structure was horrible Old site has awful SEO. Like real bad. Canonical tags point to dev. subdomain (which is still accessible and has robots.txt, so the end result is old site IS NOT INDEXED by Google) Old site has links and domain/page authority north of 50. I suspect some shady links but there have to be good links as well My guess is that since that are likely incoming links that are legitimate, I should still attempt to use 301s to the versions of the pages on the new site (note: the content on the new site will be different, but in general it'll be about the same thing as the old page, just much improved and more relevant). So yeah, I guess that's it. Even thought the old site's pages are not indexed, if the new site is set up properly, the 301s won't pass along the 'non-indexed' status, correct? Thanks in advance for any quick answers!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | JDMcNamara0 -
.htaccess - error404 redirect within a directory?
Hi, One of my clients has a CMS website offering Health and Safety training. When the courses have been run they automatically drop off of the system which is great for the front-end of the site but this leaves pile 404 errors for the URLs. I am trying to put a .htaccess redirect in place that will redirect back to the main category for that course i/e : http://www.domain.co.uk/courses/highways/6-NRSWA/27-nrswa-operative-sept-11.html will redirect to http://www.domain.co.uk/courses/highways/6-NRSWA I have spent a looooong time hitting google for a solution but can't seem to come up with anything. If at all possible I would also like to be able to post a php variable via the redirect url so that I can display a message on the category page saying that the course is no longer available be please select a different course. i/e: http://www.domain.co.uk/courses/highways/6-NRSWA?course=not-available Any help on this would be most gratefully received.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | AdeLewis0