how to change files to new directory without duplicating content

what will google do? am i too late?

[chrisandsarah]

Hi
I have a few hundred pages in a keyword directory, but wish to move these files to a new directory named with a keyword i wish to target. How is the best way to achieve this?

if for example i copy the index files from olddirectory/folder1/ to newdirectory/folder1/ then change links throughout the site to the new directory, i will have duplicate content. How can i get round this? Do i use redirects and keep the old index files in olddirectory which are listed in google, but dump the content on these pages so i dont get into trouble? Is there some meta tag i can use in the olddirectory files to instruct google that the files have moved and not to reindex?

i want to do it tonight before google reindexes my site so that it will list the files in the newdirectory, or is too late for that?

Thanks for any help,
Chris

[lazerzubb]

Welcome to Webmaster World [webmasterworld.com]

First ask yourself, is it valuable to the user, it seems like you are doing this only for the sake of the search engines, i would seriously consider if this is worth it, i think the amount of time you would have to spend changing all the links putting up redirects (I guess you would be using a server redirect) would take quite a bit of time if we are talking about many pages.

Use that time to go out and hunt for more inbound links. There is some amazing posts in the Link development forum [webmasterworld.com] take a look there, and don't forget Successful Site in 12 Months with Google Alone [webmasterworld.com]

[chrisandsarah]

thanks lazerzub. I will be trying to get a lot more inbound links, i just wanted to make sure my directory structure was optimized before i go ahead with anything else.
I've been doing alot of research lately on other sites targeting the same keywords as me, and the top sites seem to have the keywords in their directory or file names.
I know that inbound links (especially from quality sites)is vital, but so is search engine optimization. and if keywords in my directories helps by a tiny fraction, i would prefer to make some drastic changes now that will pay off in the future.
After further research though (tonight) i have found that some of my pages that dont have keywords in the directory, out perform other sites that have. even though these same sites are above me for some of my other targeted keywords.

Anyway, i'm leaving it as it is for now and off to add some quality content :)
Thanks for the advice,
Chris