Navigational Changes
-
Need some advice on when to use canonical vs. redirects for navigation changes to a website. However, if there are other options i am open to them as well.
- We are consolidating some navigational paths and moving others
- We are renaming product pages (therefore creating new product pages, CMS platform requirements)
- Keep in mind we have desktop domain and a mobile domain
Questions
- Do we redirect old URL's to the new product page URL's?
- Do we redirect old mobile URL's to new mobile URL's or to the desktop equivalent?
- Do we redirect all old product page URL's containing navigation elements to the new product page URL?
- If we have a category page being added to two different sections how do we determine the right canonical URL? (the URL will be different because the customer paths will be different)
- Do we need to make sure and redirect all old URL's to a new URL? If so, what is the best way to find all of the URL's?
-
So, do I just put in a redirect from the old t-shirt page to the new (demoted) t-shirt page? The old one has built up value so I wasnt sure.
Yes, you do redirect. It doesn't matter that page has built up value. If people come to it and it's not what they expect - they gonna be bouncing like crazy. If you think that it's the same or very similar, then you can leave without redirect, but I wouldn't do it.
But more importantly do I need to redirect every single navigational URL for the old URL's and redirect them to a new page?It seems a bit unnecessary.
So, how would you handle it? Leave them be as 404s?
-
To clarify
Example situation
Current Site Taxonomy
- Section: Men's
- Category: T-Shirt
- Sub-Category: Long Sleeve
New Site taxonomy:
- Section: Men's
- Category: Shirts
- Sub-Category: T-Shirts
In new taxonomy the following is happening:
- T-Shirts is being demoted to a sub-category
- Long Sleeve is going away
- Shirts is becoming a brand new category
So, do I just put in a redirect from the old t-shirt page to the new (demoted) t-shirt page? The old one has built up value so I wasnt sure. But more importantly do I need to redirect every single navigational URL for the old URL's and redirect them to a new page? It seems a bit unnecessary.
-
Hi seo32!
Did Dimitrii's answer help? Or do you have more information for us?
-
Hello, my friend.
Do we redirect old URL's to the new product page URL's?
If you keep the product and just changing URL - yes.
Do we redirect old mobile URL's to new mobile URL's or to the desktop equivalent?
So, the whole mobile URL is different? you actually have domain.com/mobile-version-url and domain.com/desktop-version-url, not m.domain.com/all-version-url and domain.com/all-version-url? if first option, then yes, mobile to mobile, desktop to desktop, if second option - then redirect everything to desktop version. However, it does depend on how exactly you're handling mobile version requests. Basically, if it's completely two different static, physically existing pages for mobile and desktop versions, then they need separate redirects.
Do we redirect all old product page URL's containing navigation elements to the new product page URL?
I'm not understanding the question completely. Are you saying if you have a link on page to old url, then should you redirect to new url? If so, then yes, you should change the link.
If we have a category page being added to two different sections how do we determine the right canonical URL? (the URL will be different because the customer paths will be different)
Again, not understanding the question. The same category page will be in two different places? Anyway, canonicalize it to the page, which you prefer to rank.
Do we need to make sure and redirect all old URL's to a new URL? If so, what is the best way to find all of the URL's?
Yes, you do. Otherwise it's not gonna be working (or you gonna have 404s). To determine which pages are not being redirected - use 404 checker - there are whole bunch free ones on the mighty internet.
P.S. I'm a little confused about the way you're doing redirects etc. At least from what I understand from your questions. It seems that in some questions you're actually talking about changing links from pages, not doing redirects. If so, please, clarify. If not, then I need more details (or clearer questions).
Hope this make sense and helps.
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
-
Would changing the file name of an image (not the alt attribute) have an effect of on seo / ranking of that image and thus the site?
Would changing the file name of image, not the alt attribute nor the image itself (so it would be exactly the same but just a name change) have any effect on : a) A sites seo ranking b) the individual images seo ranking (although i guess if b) would be true it would have an effect on a) although potentially small.) This is the sort of change i would be thinking of making : ![Red ford truck](2554.jpg) changed to ![Red ford truck](6842.jpg)
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Sam-P0 -
Thoughts on my change of address delima?
Currently our corporate website and store website are under two domains. internationalcompany.com (DA: 51; Corporate Website) companystore.com (DA: 34; US Store Website) We were hoping to piggyback on the corporate website domain authority by moving our store to internationalcompany.com/store and when we learned that couldn't happen we opted for us.internationalcompany.com/store. The reason we are leaning towards the route of us.internationalcompany.com is because it is likely that we will be taking over the US branch of the corporate website so we thought it better that the store be a sub address of that. My main concerns... From what I have gathered it seems that I can't do a change of address to a subdomain within Webmaster Tools - I'd have to have access to internationalcompany.com which won't happen soon. So, is a 301 just as good in this case? As a subdomain, we won't actually reap the benefits of the domain authority of the parent domain will we? Are we just as well off considering a new domain and asking that regional tags be established on the current internationalcompany.com so that the content does not interfere with our SEO efforts? This is a broad explanation for a complicated issue. Please ask any question that may help clarify.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | bearpaw0 -
How do I test images in WP migration without Changing URLs?
I'm redesigning example.com on a subdomain of my own site, so at example.mysite.com. As part of the redesign, I am optimizing the site's images. I used Wordpress Importer to get the content to the development site, but I did not import the images. Instead, I added the images to the development site by copying and moving over the contents of example.com's uploads folder. The posts at example.mysite.com are showing the images, but they are pulling them from the original location. I tried adding the following code to wp-config.php under the (misunderstood?) impression that the image URLs would use the development site's domain: 1 define('WP_HOME', 'http://example.mysite.com');
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | kimmiedawn
2 define('WP_SITEURL', 'http://example.mysite.com'); I am not seeing any change and the images are still pulling from the original site. How can I test the images on the current site without actually changing the URLs in the database. (If I understand correctly, I could search and replace, but that is not what I am trying to achieve.) The original domain is not changing with the redesign, so there is no need to actually change the URLs. I just need to test the images, as I will be removing those that are not being used as well as optimizing the remaining images before moving the redesigned site over to the original domain.0 -
Cons and pros of changing your e-commerce store domain name?
We have an online toy store, the domain is old over 10 years and we have some traffic, we are considering to change our domain name. There are two reasons why. First of all, we expand our product category, before we were only a puzzle store now we sell almost any kind of toy. And at this point, our current domain, PuzzleZoo.com is not representing our capacity. We also have toyzoo.com domain registered, that is also an old domain but there has been no activity with that domain. Our concern is, how do we avoid to lose ranking and keyword authority, are we going to start from the ground? What are the correct procedures to follow during this switch if we prefer to switch? As an alternative scenario, if we decide to keep both and open another e-store with toyzoo domain name and continue operating PuzzleZoo.com, with same products, will taht be a duplicate issue? If it is what are the consequences? (Just to add a note here, our PuzzleZoo is also a small brick and mortar store chain in CA and TX) ToyZoo will only be an online store. Even in this case at the eyes of Google, are we going to have a duplicate store that can potentially be penalized or PuzzleZoo being a brick and mortar store chain might help us to avoid being penalized? Should we switch the domain and redirect PuzzleZoo to ToyZoo, should we keep them both and running separately? We need to give a decision and I was wondering if there are any expert here that can give us a good intelligent advise on which path to go?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | PuzzleZoo0 -
Improve change my Meta Description shows in SERP
I feel my meta descriptions are descriptive and fairly represent the info on each page of my site. However, Google frequently includes this "20+ items" in front of the snippet. I run a job site and each page list 20 jobs. What if I include a bit of coding in the Meta Description to include "Latest Jobs Posted TODAY's DATE" - since the jobs listed on the page will include a date. On each page there is also option to "Create Email Alert" and "save Jobs" maybe I should include writing about that as well? I have read all Google's documents on the importance of making Meta Des relevant for the page etc, so any good insight how increase my chances of getting the meta des displayed in the SERP would be appreciated. thank you, Kristian
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | knielsen0 -
Change to SiteLinks?
Hi All, Perhaps it's been like this all along (I don't think so) but can someone tell me why some pages with Google sitelinks now look like this (see the "Coke" search) while others look like this (see the "Amazon" search image). Is this because of Rich Snippet use? One of my client's SiteLinks used to resemble the Amazon one, but now resembles the Coke one (not preferred). Any input? Thanks, Chris Elevated Synergy Group - SEO coke.png amazon.png
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Chris.Bleill0 -
Excessive navigation links
I'm working on the code for a collaborative project that will eventually have hundreds of pages. The editor of this project wants all pages to be listed in the main navigation at the top of the site. There are four main dropdown (suckerfish-style) menus and these have nested sub- and sub-sub-menus. Putting aside the UI issues this creates, I'm concerned about how Google will find our content on the page. Right now, we now have over 120 links above the main content of the page and have plans to add more as time goes on (as new pages are created). Perhaps of note, these navigation elements are within an html5 <nav>element: <nav id="access" role="navigation"> Do you think that Google is savvy enough to overlook the "abundant" navigation links and focus on the content of the page below? Will the <nav>element help us get away with this navigation strategy? Or should I reel some of these navigation pages into categories? As you might surmise the site has a fairly flat structure, hence the lack of category pages.</nav> </nav> </nav>
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | boxcarpress1 -
Techniques to fix eCommerce faceted navigation
Hi everyone, I've read a lot about different techniques to fix duplicate content problems caused by eCommerce faceted navigation (e.g. redundant URL combinations of colors, sizes, etc.). From what I've seen suggested methods include using AJAX or JavaScript to make the links functional for users only and prevent bots from crawling through them. I was wondering if this technique would work instead? If we detect that the user is a robot, instead of displaying a link, we simply display its anchor text. So what would be for a human COLOR < li > < a href = red >red < /a > < /li >
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | anthematic
< li > < a href = blue>blue < /a > < /li > Would be for a robot COLOR < li > red < /li >
< li > blue < /li > Any reason I shouldn't do this? Thanks! *** edit Another reason to fix this is crawl budget since robots can waste their time going through every possible combination of facet. This is also something I'm looking to fix.0