How do I redirect a page that no longer exists?
-
I changed the name of a blog article I wrote and the original name is giving a 404 error. I am not sure why it isn't being directed like the other articles I renamed to improve SEO.
Since the webpage no longer exists, I don't know how to redirect it.
I use Wordpress and Thesis.
Thanks!
-
I see. Yes the 301s are just within my own site. Whew that makes me feel better.
Ok since I said I was using Wordpress in the OP, I figured CMS meant something else. Good to know.
I will check out that link, thanks!
-
If you used Simple URLs then your CMS is Wordpress (Content Management System).
I didn't mean to scare you though. 301s on your own site are fine. Don't worry about them as long as they are coming FROM pages that you don't want to pages that you DO want. The way you have them working on your site are perfect. That's what they are for. I have thousands of them on one particular site that I work on. Have you had a chance to read through SEOmoz's SEO 101 (beginners guide to seo) yet? It is a great starting point.
But, let me just clarify the 301 thing. If an off site link is coming into a non existent page and you 301 that page, you'll lose some of the link juice coming in from that off site. So it will be better to change the link from the offsite at the source. 301s on your own site are fine though. For instance, if you 301 the non www to the www version of your site, that is a 301. That's obviously good for users and good for search engines.
Sorry for the confusion.
-
Thanks for the info. I used the plugin Simple URLs. I hope I did it right. I am very green.
I googled CMS but I still can't tell you what CMS I am using. Sorry.
Regarding using 301s, yes I am probably using several. Not hundreds or anything but probably tens. This is because I am updating permalinks on the advice of my SEOmoz reports. Then the old permalink automatically redirects to the new one.
How can I get rid of the 301 redirects so I don't lose link juice?
-
Firstly, 404s are a natural part of the web and don't think it will kill your site. It won't. When you get a 404 error iit can mean that something is pointing to that page or that Google has seen the page before but now it's not there. Google wants to make sure that that page is completely gone and not an accident to the 404. Technically if you have nothing pointing to the old post (no external links coming in and no internal links either, including sitemaps) then it will go away after a few crawls. If you do however have off-page links coming into that page a 301 would definitely be a good idea (best idea would be to get those sources to change the link to the new page url but that's not always possible. Remember, when you 301 you do loose some link juice)
If you are on Wordpress there are some great plugins to do this like the 301 redirect option on Wordpress SEO by Yoast
If you need to do this manually then let us know and we'll give you the actual code to do it in your .htaccess
-
what CMS are you using, usually there are plugins to help you do this. Another alternative is to change the URL back to the old URL but the name stays as the new one - this is a common thing that can happen. But it all depends on your CMS - search its name and 301 redirect, you will get there
-
Just create a redirect in your htaccess file with the old URL to the new URL. There are multiple plugins that support this feature on WordPress such as "simple redirect" etc.
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
-
Traffic to blog home page is going down after changing my WordPress Theme
I recently changed my wordpress theme from a standard free theme to a newer theme. The home page I switched up a bit adding more calls to action to some of our top posts and leading people to popular categories and so on. This greatly improved the usability of our site as it allowed us to highlight new posts. The previous free template simply listed 10 of our most recent posts on a page with small snippets and then you had to move to the next page to keep reading. Since switching my theme the blog traffic has stayed relatively level. That being said, the specific posts traffic is going up a lot whereas the organic traffic to the blog homepage is now nearly depleted. Is this a common thing to happen or is there anything I can do to fix this issue?
Content Development | | saultienut0 -
How do I split page content?
So I offer two services for which each has an FAQ page (let's call them S1 and S2). The problem is that I also have a longer FAQ page that covers both services (S1-2). I would like to eliminate the longer one and attach the relevant content to each of the shorter pages but i'm concerned that deleting pages with a lot of content might be a bad idea. I could redirect I suppose but I wouldn't know which page S1 or S2 to point redirect to. Any advice on this?
Content Development | | NationalPardon0 -
How to optimize content pages with ecommerce?
Some content pages act as buyers guides for certain products for example Used Paddle Boards for Sale - http://www.islesurfboards.com/used-paddle-boards-for-sale.aspx this is a content page that gets huge amount of traffic and is pure content with no products on the page, but we also have a ecommerce section of the site that is Used Paddle Boards for Sale -http://www.islesurfboards.com/buy-used-paddle-boards-for-sale.aspx however this page just has a small paragraph and all the ecommerce product related to this section on the page. The content only page above gets all the traffic and rank and then they click over to the actual ecomm section wiht the products from a link on that page. Should i merge these two together so its just one page and put the content on the ecom page? If i do all the content with push the ecommerce products down which is not good so what does anyone recommend as a best practice? Also will this mess up the content pages rank is i merge them assuming i redirect? or Keep them seperate like i have with a content page regarding "used paddle boards for sale" and an ecommerce page that sells acutal "used paddle boards for sale"
Content Development | | isle_surf0 -
The same phrase in many different pages of one site
Hi,
Content Development | | webg
Recently, I had to add the same phrase, with 15 words, nearly, in 700 posts in a same blog. In this phrase is written about the site ownership and eventually some links showing the posts sources. I thought in create a image, but it will be some variations in the source words (2 or 3), therefore I chose to use text format. I'd like to read some comments and opinions about this kind of insertion (the same phrase in many different pages of one site). For exemple, did you handle this in your site? Problems or benefits (mainly with indexing)? Special code to indicate in this case? Any threat?0 -
Can you have too many words on a page for SEO?
One line of thinking is that you can not have too many words on a page because the more words you have the higher the chances that a long tail phrase will attract traffic. But can you go overboard with this? Is there a limit to the number of words on a page in terms of SEO?
Content Development | | ProjectLabs0 -
What are tier 1, tier 2, tier 3 keywords (pages)?
I am seeing these terms, but for the life of mine I can't understand what they are. Could anybody explain that in layman's terms? Thanks.
Content Development | | VinceWicks0 -
Displaying archive content articles in a writers bio page
My site has writers, and each has their own profile page (accessible when you click their name inside an article). We set up the code in a way that the bios, in addition to the actual writer photo/bio, would dynamically generate links to each article he/she produces. Figured that someone reading something by Bob Smith, might want to read other stuff by him. Which was fine, initially. Fast forward, and some of these writers have 3,4, even 15 pages of archives, as the archive system paginates every 10 articles (so www.example.com/bob-smith/archive-page3, etc) My thinking is that this is a bad thing. The articles are likely already found elsewhere in the site (under the content landing page it was written for, for example) and I visualize spiders getting sucked into these archive black holes, never to return. I also assume that it is just more internal mass linking (yech) and probably doesnt help the overall TOS/bounce/exit, etc. Thoughts?
Content Development | | EricPacifico0 -
My Blog pages are out ranking my main website
My blog was on wordpress.com for over 18mnths and I have just moved it to my domain - rankings are charging as a result - up and down! My current concern is my google.co.uk search position for garden art - my home page http://www.gardenbeet.com has been number 2 for over 12 mnths - now my blog is number 2 http://www.gardenbeet.com/garden_design_blog/garden-art/ this is not the best landing page to generate sales from my shop - any suggestions?
Content Development | | GardenBeet0