Is it OK to Delete a Page and Move Content to a Another Page without 301 re-direct
-
I have a page "A" that I want to completely delete and move the written content from A" to page "B". Since I am deleting "A" (not keeping page) is it OK to upload the content from "A" to page "B" and search engines will give "B" credit for the unique content? Or, since the content has already once been indexed on "A", "B" may struggle to get full credit for this new unique content, even though page "A" is deleted?
-
I've tried this. I moved content from page 'A' to page 'B'.
I did not even delete page 'A', and google re-indexed both the updated pages correctly.
In webmaster tools, I submitted page B first, and then page A immediately after.
Note: There were a few scraper sites that were scraping the content in question.
Performing a 'site: <domainname.com><"string of text in quotations here">' in Google showed page B for the content first, above the scrapers. I know this is not a scientific way of determining if you are the owner of content, but it seems to me that Google still gave our site, and page B, the ownership of the content in question.</domainname.com>
-
Totally fine to delete page A and put new content on page B. Google will have no problems with that even if is the exact same content.
Will page B get the same ranking results as page A? That is a question that depends on a lot of variables, the key one being have a lot of links gone to page A from other sites? I would use Moz's Open Site Explorer to check that one and see what links have in fact gone to page A.
In any case, if you're set on transferring to page B, a 301 redirect has alluded to would be a good move that wouldn't do any harm at very least, and offer some SEO to the new page otherwise.
-
yes, I would certainly recommend 301'ing the link - or better could you just simply overwrite the old page (A) with the new page you are intending to create (B) - unless of course B already exists?
If you struggling with managing the 301, then I would first check if there are any external backlinks going to page A. If there are, then I would certainly try and find a way to 301. If not, then it will not effect things to much as there is no external link equity going to the page to loose.
A further option if you are unable to 301, and copying the content from page A to page B is to rel=canonical A to B, which should pass the link equity across in a similar way to a 301.
-
I would definitely 301 re-direct to the new page, this way you'll make sure any links that were coming to page "A" are counted for your new page "B". After all, 301 is such a quick thing to do, it's worth it to be sure.
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
-
After Server Migration - Crawling Gets slow and Dynamic Pages wherein Content changes are not getting Updated
Hello, I have just performed doing server migration 2 days back All's well with traffic moved to new servers But somehow - it seems that w.r.t previous host that on submitting a new article - it was getting indexed in minutes. Now even after submitting page for indexing - its taking bit of time in coming to Search Engines and some pages wherein content is daily updated - despite submitting for indexing - changes are not getting reflected Site name is - http://www.mycarhelpline.com Have checked in robots, meta tags, url structure - all remains well intact. No unknown errors reports through Google webmaster Could someone advise - is it normal - due to name server and ip address change and expect to correct it automatically or am i missing something Kindly advise in . Thanks
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Modi0 -
Removing Blogs and 301 redirect to blog home page?
Hi, I was at the MozCon conference in Seattle this Summer and heard great concepts about deleting a lot of pages on your site that are deemed excess. It got me thinking to remove all of our old blogs that were: Sales(ee) less than 400 words Flat out bad blogs When i begin removing these links, i know i will get a lot of 404 errors because of previous social links. So in your opinion, what would you do? Do i just 301 those blogs to my main /blog page? Thanks
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Shawn1240 -
Handling 301 Redirects when Moving from IIS to Apache Linux
I am moving a blog from domain A on IIS to domain B on Linux. Same posts and pages - different domain. I'm looking for a guide, article or steps on what needs to be done on the IIS side to make sure we do this correctly. Thanks !
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | GlennFerrell0 -
How would I be able to move content from one domain to another?
I have a client that wants to migrate some of his site's content to a new domain, not all of the content, just some of it. This is not an address change. He wants to continue actively using the domain name where all this content currently resides, so it's not a matter of notifying search engines of an address change. The first thing that comes to mind is the use of the canonical tag, but it's not making sense. Any recommendations? Thanks in advance.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | UplinkSpyder0 -
Better to re-direct to a completely un-related page or 404?
We have about 1000 pages we need to eliminate from our site (of about 18000 URLs). these URLs don't see a ton of traffic, but may have some valuable links. Would we be better to 404 these or re-direct them to our homepage? Could re-directing to our homepage hurt us?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | nicole.healthline0 -
Embed Same Video On Multiple Pages or 301 Redirect Into 1?
I have 3 pages that rank VERY well for related terms such as: -How to get widgets -How to become a widget -Getting widgets -etc. I am incorporating a video on the topic and rewriting much of the content on the site. I am wondering if it is wise to 301 redirect all 3 pages to 1 page that has the new/better video content or if I should leave the old content that is ranking well and embed the video on the top of each. The anal retentive side of me wants a nice new site structure and 1 powerful page. However, if the 3 pages are currently ranking (sometimes 2 pages in the same top 10 results), should I mess with what is working? Ultimately my goal is to increase the avg time on site as these 3 pages are top traffic pages for the site. However, they do not convert at all, as they are for a product we don't offer. Thoughts?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | TheDude0 -
Getting 260,000 pages re-indexed?
Hey there guys, I was recently hired to do SEO for a big forum to move the site to a new domain and to get them back up to their ranks after this move. This all went quite well, except for the fact that we lost about 1/3rd of our traffic. Although I expected some traffic to drop, this is quite a lot and I'm wondering what it is. The big keywords are still pulling the same traffic but I feel that a lot of the small threads on the forums have been de-indexed. Now, with a site with 260,000 threads, do I just take my loss and focus on new keywords? Or is there something I can do to get all these threads re-indexed? Thanks!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | StefanJDorresteijn0 -
Link anchor text: only useful for pages linked to directly or distributed across site?
As a SEO I understand that link anchor text for the focus keyword on the page linked to is very important, but I have a question which I can not find the answer to in any books or blogs, namely: does inbound anchor text 'carry over' to other pages in your site, like linkjuice? For instance, if I have a homepage focusing on keyword X and a subpage (with internal links to it) focusing on keyword Y. Does is then help to link to the homepage with keyword Y anchor texts? Will this keyword thematically 'flow through' the internal link structure and help the subpage's ranking? In a broader sense: will a diverse link anchor text profile to your homepage help all other pages in your domain rank thematically? Or is link anchor text just useful for the direct page that is linked to? All views and experiences are welcome! Kind regards, Joost van Vught
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | JoostvanVught0