Changing old style WP menu built with child pages or not?
-
Hi Mozzers,
the very old theme of my client's site doesn't support the new WP menus, so the menu structure is built in the old way, with parent and child pages.
For example the page whose url is www.site.com/rent/ is top level and the sub pages are like www.site.com/rent/cars/ or www.site.com/rent/trucks/
Also there are third generation pages like www.site.com/rent/cars/fiat500/
Since I am changing the theme, I am going to use the new WP menu system and I'd like to know if this parent/child url structure may hurt link equity propagation.
My question is: should I detach the child pages from the parents and, according to that, change the urls of the child pages from:
www.site.com/rent/cars/to
www.site.com/rent-cars/ (and of course 301 redirect them) ?
Or is it ok to leave the pages' url in the old parenting way?
What is the best practice?
Thank you very much!
DoMiSoL Rossini
-
How big is the site? If it's say, under a few hundred pages then you can just leave the structured URLs, and I usually prefer this for good UX and architecture. If the site is much bigger, it might be a little more complex and the specifics could affect things a little.
-
Thank you Robert,
I am sorry I think I didn't explain it well.
I am not changing domain, I am only changing the theme, so that I can use the "new" WP menu feature and do submenus with drag and drop in the menu editor rather than using child pages
Now, with a new theme I have the choice, so I rephrase the question:
isn't a normal sub page (www.site.com/rent-cars/) closer to the home page than a child page (www.site.com/rent/cars/)?
This second url implies in some sense more distance from the home, isn't it?
To make it simpler: let's say my home page has Page Authority 20: which one of the 2 pages will get more of this page authority? The child page (with "/" separator) or the subpage (with "-" separator)?
Usability and keyword presence in the urls won't change much (let's say the keyword is "rent cars") so here I am only focusing on link equity.
I know I might be overlooking, but if this is the case I'd like to hear from you
Thank you again!
DR
-
Hello DoMiSol,
In this case, link equity will not be affected if you retain the same domains. Breaking them up and creating new routes may actually cause you some harm from a link-equity perspective so I would suggest you retain the old structure and ensure proper 301 redirect practices.
Being honest, either way works fine. It is predominantly a matter of preference and what your traffic flow is like. If you are attaining good rankings with your current propagation system, I would keep it. If you are not attaining rankings you are looking for, it might be worth shaking it up and seeing what a new domain setup does for you - however, I think this is probably the less-attractive option.
One other factor to consider is user experience - if you feel that a new setup would greatly influence customer interaction with your site (and thereby lead to greater conversions, brand awareness or reviews), then by all means, try it out.
However, all things being equal, I would retain the previous set up and make sure I crossed my T's and dotted my I's on the 301's.
Hope this helps and feel free to fire me any follow-up questions.
Rob
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
-
Duplicate Pages #!
Hi guys, Currently have duplicate pages accross a website e.g. https://archierose.com.au/shop/cart**#!** https://archierose.com.au/shop/cart The only difference is the URL 1 has a hashtag and exclamation tag. Everything else is the same. We were thinking of adding rel canonical tags on the #! versions of the page to the correct URLs. But Google doens't seem to be indexing the #! versions anyway. Does anyone know why this is the case? If Google is not indexing them, is there any point adding rel canonical tags? Cheers, Chris https://archierose.com.au/shop/cart#!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | jayoliverwright0 -
301 redirect for page 2, page 3 etc of an article or feed
Hey guys, We're looking to move a blog feed we have to a new static URL page. We are using 301 redirects but I'm unsure of what to regarding page 2, page 3 etc. of the feed. How do I make sure those urls are being redirected as well? For example: Moving FloridaDentist.com/blog/dental-tips/ to a new page url FloridaDentist.com/dental-tips. So, we are using a 301 on that old url to the new one. My questions is what to do with the other pages like FloridaDentist.com/blog/dental-tips/page/3. How do we make sure that page is also 301'd to the new main url?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | RickyShockley0 -
Tips for improving this page
I have made a content placeholder for a keyword that will gain significant search volume in the future. Until then I am trying to optimize the page to rank when the game launches and the keyword gains volume. http://hiddentriforce.com/a-link-between-worlds/walkthrough/ Is there anything I can do to improve the optimization for the phrase 'a link between worlds walkthrough' A lot of my competitors are already setting up similar placeholder pages and doing the same thing. I have 2 fairly large gaming sites that will place a banner for my walkthrough on their site. I did not pay for the links. I do free writing/ other services in exchange for this. I have been sharing the link socially. It has almost 200 likes and a handful of shares, tweets, g+ votes
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Atomicx0 -
Create different pages with keyword variations VS. Add keyword variations in 1 page
For searches involving keywords like "lessons", "courses", "classes" I see frequently pages in the top rankings which do not contain the search term in the title tag, despite these terms being quite competitive. It seems that when searching for "classes", google detects that pages about "courses" may be just as relevant. What do you recommend? option 1: creating 10 pages optimized on 10 different keyword variations, each with a significant part of unique content or option 2: one page and dropping throughout the page 10 keyword variations in body and headlines Given that keywords are all synonyms and website has already high domain authority in the niche. thanks
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | lcourse0 -
Removing old versions of a page.
Recently one of my good friends updated his iweb based screen printing site to wordpress per my recommendation. This update has helped dramatically boost his rankings to #3 for most local keywords. This new site is now V5 of his site, but all older iweb versions are still on the ftp. There are a total of 209 pages on the ftp, as versions of about 30 actual pages. The pages have changed significantly with each update, leaving very little duplicate content, but the old ones are still on the google index. Would it hurt the rankings to clean up these older versions & 301 redirect to the new versions, or should we leave them? The site for reference is: http://takeholdprinting.com
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | GoogleMcDougald0 -
Redirect old broken link or ask for HREF change?
found some broken links from 2007 to our site pointing to a url that needs a redirect. Obviously I am going to set that up (in-case there are others out there i don't find pointing to the same URL) but should i also reach out to the webmaster and ask him to update the link, or will the redirect suffice? I don't want it to look like a paid link when in fact it is completely natural 🙂
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | imageworks-2612900 -
Stuck on Page 2 - What Would You Do?!?
My site is : http://goo.gl/JgK1e My main keyword is : Plastic Bins i have been going back and forth between page 1 and 2 for this keyword and i was wondering if any of you could provide any guidance as to why i can't get on the top of page 1, and stay there... My site has been around for a while, we believe we have a great user experience, all unique, fresh content, and the lowest prices... I must be missing out on something major if I cannot get a steady page 1 ranking... Any thoughts? Thanks in advance...
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Prime850 -
Are there any negative effects to using a 301 redirect from a page to another internal page?
For example, from http://www.dog.com/toys to http://www.dog.com/chew-toys. In my situation, the main purpose of the 301 redirect is to replace the page with a new internal page that has a better optimized URL. This will be executed across multiple pages (about 20). None of these pages hold any search rankings but do carry a decent amount of page authority.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Visually0