Restructuring Areas of a Website
-
Hi
We are changing the structure of 2 areas of our site but the URL's won't be changing.
We're effectively removing the first category level as it doesn't make much sense:
Current structure
Cat 1 - http://www.key.co.uk/en/key/cupboards-lockers
Cat 2s - http://www.key.co.uk/en/key/lockers & http://www.key.co.uk/en/key/cupboards
Cat 3s...
New structure will look like
Cat 1's http://www.key.co.uk/en/key/lockers & http://www.key.co.uk/en/key/cupboards
Cat 2's.... etc
The top category 1 doesn't rank for much & the level 2's perform better anyway. Will moving the structure change rankings even though the URLs don't change - just what is assigned to them in the back changes
I know if the on-page content changes, things may be affected, but we're minimising this as much as possible.
Thank you
-
Your internal link structure does help your rankings, but the way I see this, there's not going to be any change to the pages that are actually ranking, right? If you remove the page that didn't rank for the keywords anyway, It shouldn't impact the rankings of the other pages.
There are a couple of factors to take into account when you do this:
- Don't forget to 301 the link to, for example, the level above, in this case /key/, so that direct/referral traffic to that page doesn't get 404'd.
- Is there a lot of traffic on the /cupboards-lockers/ page now? If so, how does this traffic behave, does it flow towards the other pages before converting or do they convert on this page? How is the UX (bounce rate, time on page, exit rate etc.)? These factors can help you determine what you should do with which page.
- Make sure there are no other dead ends in your page: check the sitemap and scrape your site with, for example, Screaming Frog to prevent any 404's from showing up.
- Make sure there are no products assigned to that page specifically, creating an odd URL structure on product level or a breadcrumb with missing or dead links.
Hope this 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
-
Any Website SEO Benefits from SAAS Linked Content?
An installed software application has a help section for users, and that help content is housed on the software company website. Would the links from the software application to the company website benefit the websites SEO efforts? Or, would no referring URL mean no SEO value?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | sysprousa1
Thanks!0 -
How to Target Country Specific Website Traffic?
I have a website with .com domain but I need to generate traffic from UK? I have already set my GEO Targeting location as UK in Google Webmasters & set country location as UK in Google Analytics as well but still, i get traffic only from India. I have also set Geo-targeting code at the backend of the website. But nothing seems works. Can anyone help me how can is do this? I am unable to understand what else can be done.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | seoninj0 -
Cross Linking two related ecommerce websites
Hi Guys, Hope you'll be able to help me with a technical problem I am facing right now. We are a company right ? We own 2 webistes. Let's say one sells car parts, the other one buys second hand car parts to refurbish them and sell them. (It is not our case, just an example very similar to ours). sellparts.com buyparts.com Both are ecommerce websites, with large catalogues (7000 skus). sellparts sells a lot and is a big actor in its market. buyparts.com doesn't work nad has a really low DA. My new SEO external consultant, which I am not too convinced about, is telling me to cross link the sites on product level using cross-linking extensions. He want have them do-follow. That would mean having hundreds or thousands of links with really similar linking patterns. buy [parts] [model ] [make] sell [parts] [model ] [make] That to me seems a bit too much and I am worried it compromises the sellparts site's SEO. So should i no-follow the links ? Or do it differently ?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Kepass0 -
Using author on every page of website?
I'm currently get to grips with schema and one thing im using is author on my blog posts and seeing my photo etc on organic searches which are related. I see one of my competitors is using author on every page on their website, not just blog posts etc. Are there any recommendation when it should be used? Should it be site wide or is it really intended for blog posts etc? Would it be wrong for me to use on every page of my website as one of my businesses is myself as a lone person? This is what you get when searching for driving lessons in just about any town! https://www.google.co.uk/#gs_rn=15&gs_ri=psy-ab&tok=LS_DOrAHswmHC9_8AJZEJA&suggest=p&pq=driving instructor brighton&cp=20&gs_id=1k2&xhr=t&q=driving+lessons+crawley&es_nrs=true&pf=p&sclient=psy-ab&oq=driving+lessons+craw&gs_l=&pbx=1&bav=on.2,or.r_cp.r_qf.&bvm=bv.47244034,d.d2k&fp=45c2f917e11bca99&biw=1680&bih=843 Any comments welcome! Antony
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Ant710 -
When optimizing videos for a website should the Alt and Title be the same or different?
When optimizing videos for a website should the Alt and Title be the same or is that too much? If so what is the best practice for optimizing images on a website? For example title=Blue widgets in Atlanta alt=Blue widgets in Atlanta Also, I'm assuming the image name should be Blue widgets in Atlanta
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | webestate0 -
Website change of address
Hi Everyone, I apologize if the answer to this questions is obvious, but I wanted some input on how changing our web address of our site will affect our SERP. We are looking to change our website address from a.com to b.com due to rebranding of our company (primarly to expand our product line as our current url and company name are restricting). I understand that this can be done using 301 direct and via webmaster tools with google. My question is how does this work exactly? Will our old website address show in SERP rankings, and when a user clicks on the listing are they redirected to our new address? With regards to building new links from press releases etc, do we have links point to our new web address or the old one in order to increase SERP? Does google see our old address and new address as the same website and therefor it does not matter where inbound links point to and both will increase our ranking positions? It took 6 years of in house seo to get our website to rank on the first page of all the major search engines for our keywords, so we am being very cautious before we do anything. Thanks everyone for your input, it is greatly appreciated 🙂
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | AgentMonkey0 -
URL Parameter is not available in website which was monitored by Google
I was checking URL parameters section over Google webmaster tools. Google have monitored following parameters and exclude it from crawling. utm_campaign utm_medium utm_source I have built URLs with following tool to track visits from vertical search engine like Google shopping and other comparison shopping engines. http://www.google.com/support/analytics/bin/answer.py?answer=55578 So, I am quite confuse to see over my data. Will Google consider external URLs which are available with above parameters or require to consist on live website? Note: I am asking for my eCommerce website. http://www.lampslightingandmore.com/
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | CommercePundit0 -
Can I use the same source for two different websites?
I have developed a successful portal based website but would like to grow my portfolio of sites by expanding into new niches and sectors. I would like to use the same source code to fast track new sites but I'm not sure of the dangers involved. Content, meta details etc. will all be unique and the only similarity will be the html code. Another example of how I want to use this is that my current site targets the UK but I want to target a global market with a .com domain and this would involve using the same source. Is this possible without a penalty or am I overlooking something?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Mulith0