404 and re directs from an old design to a new one
-
I have a directory that I am redesigning. Currently, the old directory is all 404 pages. I need to use the URL's in the old directory for the new one. Should I redirect all the old pages to the new pages? Or is it better to delete the old pages, let them de index - so that I can use those same URLs? I really need help with this.
-
It sounds like you are just moving the content to a new directory and not changing the filename, correct? If so you can handle that with a single line of code in your htaccess file assuming you are on a Linux server and have access to that file. Most content management systems will probably have some sort of plugin/module for that too.
Yes, redirect them so the pagerank earned from external links into the old URL will move on to the new URL. It is a simple thing to fix that could have a profound impact on rankings if those old pages had external links.
By the way, update all internal links so you are linking to the new URL instead of relying on the redirects to do that for you. This is just best practice and good housekeeping.
-
so all the link juice will go to the new URL's? Man that's going to be a lot of redirects. lol
-
Hi Tim,
If the pages you are going to replace are still content rich on a similar vertical (old blue widget to new blew widget) you can do a 301 redirect which will let the search engine know that the page has moved and it will also transfer any of the authority the old page(s) has.
Hope this helps.
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 content and 404 errors
I apologize in advance, but I am an SEO novice and my understanding of code is very limited. Moz has issued a lot (several hundred) of duplicate content and 404 error flags on the ecommerce site my company takes care of. For the duplicate content, some of the pages it says are duplicates don't even seem similar to me. additionally, a lot of them are static pages we embed images of size charts that we use as popups on item pages. it says these issues are high priority but how bad is this? Is this just an issue because if a page has similar content the engine spider won't know which one to index? also, what is the best way to handle these urls bringing back 404 errors? I should probably have a developer look at these issues but I wanted to ask the extremely knowledgeable Moz community before I do 🙂
Technical SEO | | AliMac260 -
Old pages - should I remove them from serps?
Hi guys, I need an advice from you, a recommendation. I have some old LPs from old campaigns, around 70 pages indexed on Google, campaigns that are not available anymore. I have removed them from my DB, but they still remained on server so Google still sees them as URLs on my site, witch I totally agree. What should I do with this pages? Should I remove them completely? (url removal tool) or use rel=canonical? How will this affect my domain authority and rankings? This pages doesn't bring traffic any more, maybe a view now and then, but overall this pages don't bring traffic.
Technical SEO | | catalinmoraru0 -
Moving multiple domains into one domain
Hi, We're currently moving a group of websites (approximately 12) under one domain so we've moved from www.example.de , www.example.co.uk , www.example.com to www.example.com/de www.example.com/uk and so on. However I have read an article online today saying that this can lead to crawling complications. Has anyone done something similar and if there were any issues how did you overcome them? Many thanks
Technical SEO | | Creditsafe0 -
What is the difference between 301 redirect to 404 vs just 404.
A bunch of pages on my site are set to 301 redirect to our 404 page. Intuitively, I feel like they should all just 404 from the page's url and not redirect to the 404 page. How do I explain to my developer that they should not redirects but should just 404? Is there much of a difference between the redirect first vs 404 first? Thanks!
Technical SEO | | gaytravel0 -
Should I worry about these 404's?
Just wondering what the thought was on this. We have a site that lets people generate user profiles and once they delete the profile the page then 404's. I was told there is nothing we can do about those from our developers, but I was wondering if I should worry about these...I don't think they will affect any of our rankings, but you never know so I thought I would ask. Thanks
Technical SEO | | KateGMaker1 -
404 error
Both SEOmoz and Google webmaster tools are returning over 4000 error 404.The majority or returned error URLs are for images, and all URLs end up with %20target=as shown belowimages/products/detail/AD9058RoundGlassTableChairs.jpg%20target=images/products/detail/BM921ModernRoundDiningTable.jpg%20target=images/products/detail/CR701506CappuccinoCoffeeTableSet.jpg%20target=any suggestions?RegardsTony
Technical SEO | | OCFurniture0 -
If multiple links on a page point to the same URL, and one of them is no-followed, does that impact the one that isn't?
Page A has two links on it that both point to Page B. Link 1 isn't no-follow, but Link 2 is. Will Page A pass any juice to Page B?
Technical SEO | | Jay.Neely0 -
404 Errors
Hello Team, I noticed that my site has 1,000s of 404 errors. Not sure how this happened, maybe when I updated our CMS. My question is, should I worry about them. Should I delete them or just leave them alone. Thank you for your feedback!
Technical SEO | | Dallas0