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#7618 – Pre-sales question: using sh404SEF on new website version without losing Google ranking

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Tuesday, 02 February 2021 00:22 UTC

hectorbh

Hi! I am going to buy sh404SEF shortly and need some advice please on how to use it so that I don't lose the Google ranking of some pages. Let me explain: I have an existing website. Some of its pages are ranking fairly well on Google. This website uses a rather old builder / template, so I have built a new one separately (in a staging subdomain). Once I am finished, I will replace the old one with the new website. In the current site, one of the pages that is ranking well is this one: https://aprendemindfulness.org/taller-mindfulness-cdmx In the new website, that same page has this URL: https://staging.aprendemindfulness.org/aprende/cursos-mindfulness/cdmx So, I need to do two things: 1) Using your extension, I want to change the above address to: https://staging.aprendemindfulness.org/cursos-mindfulness/cdmx (Obviously the "staging." will go away once I replace the old website with the new one.) 2) And then tell Google that the old URL... https://aprendemindfulness.org/taller-mindfulness-cdmx is now... https://aprendemindfulness.org/cursos-mindfulness/cdmx ...so that I don't lose the ranking on that page I know how to change a SEF url to accomplish step (1). But for step (2), is this through a 301 redirect? Many thanks, Hector

Tuesday, 02 February 2021 09:35 UTC

wb_weeblr

So the 1st place where sh404SEF can help here is that each any URL is stored in the database. So you can just click on any URL listed there and change it to exactly whatever you want it to be. Of course, this can be tedious if you have thousands of URLs though.

Using your extension, I want to change the above address to: https://staging.aprendemindfulness.org/cursos-mindfulness/cdmx

Why don't you just keep the existing URL, /taller-mindfulness-cdmx? I would definitely advise against changing any URL if you don't have a really strong reason to change it.

2) And then tell Google that the old URL... https://aprendemindfulness.org/taller-mindfulness-cdmx is now... https://aprendemindfulness.org/cursos-mindfulness/cdmx ...so that I don't lose the ranking on that page I know how to change a SEF url to accomplish step (1). But for step (2), is this through a 301 redirect

Just keep the same URL really, there's no reason to change it. If you do change it, yes, a 301 is the way to go but just don't change it.

Also, when you install sh404SEF, you'll have several ways of configuring your URL structure. I'm not sure why the URL of the same page on the new site is /cursos-mindfulness... instead of /taller-mindfulness. Did you change the article alias? what happened?

Best regards

Yannick Gaultier

weeblr.com / @weeblr

Tuesday, 02 February 2021 12:26 UTC

hectorbh

Hi Yannick, Thank you for your advice. I could keep the old alias: /taller-mindfulness , which stands for mindfulness workshops. However, I realized that more people look for mindfulness courses (cursos in Spanish), hence I thought of changing the wording of the article as well as the article alias to /cursos-mindfulness/cdmx (CDMX is Mexico City). I will weigh in what you said and see if it is best to keep the old url structure. Regards, Hector

Tuesday, 02 February 2021 13:51 UTC

wb_weeblr

The words in the URL won't make a difference here, however actually changing the URL will have some negative impact. Using a 301 will help but considering changing taller to cursos definitely will NOT help ranking, I'd defintely suggest keep the old URL.

Best regards

Yannick Gaultier

weeblr.com / @weeblr

Tuesday, 02 February 2021 15:11 UTC

hectorbh

Thanks Yannick

I should clarify that I will be referring to my workshops as courses, and therefore the page name, content and alias are changing to reflect that.

I did some research and it looks like, from 2016 onwards, a 301 redirect does not affect page rank.

See https://ahrefs.com/blog/301-redirects/#do-301-redirects-affect-seo

This article mentions:

"However, Google changed its official stance on this matter in 2016:

30x redirects don’t lose PageRank anymore.

— Gary “鯨理” Illyes (@methode) July 26, 2016

So, in 2019, if you redirect domain.com/page1 to domain.com/page2, the redirected page should have just as much “power” as the original page.... "

So, as long as I do these changes carefully, I should be alright.

I have now bought sh404SEF and I am beginning to set it up =)

Hector

Tuesday, 02 February 2021 15:30 UTC

wb_weeblr

I should clarify that I will be referring to my workshops as courses, and therefore the page name, content and alias are changing to reflect that

Correct and understood. What I'm saying is that changing taller to cursos will make strictly no difference in rankings or even click-through rate and that's more a change for a change here.

Indeed 301 redirect will pass page rank but...not immediately. So you can expect to lose some traffic when you make the change and then recover it, in a few days or a few weeks. This is the currently agreed upon status in the industry and avoiding 301 when you don't have to use them is still very much the game.

In addition, with redirects you loose speed for your visitors coming from their bookmarks or from other referrals for instance (there are 2 page loads basically), so that's not very good either.

Best regards

Yannick Gaultier

weeblr.com / @weeblr

Friday, 05 March 2021 05:34 UTC

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