Advice needed on moving pages but keeping PR

[lee_sufc]

I want to move a few pages on my site under a new folder to make things simpler on my site.

How is the best way to move from

www.mydomain.com/widget1.html

www.mydomain.com/advice/widget1.html

...without losing my rankings on those pages?

Thanks in advance for any advice!

[hmatisse]

lee_sufc,

To my knowledge, the proper way to do that is to implement a permanent redirect (301) from the old page to the new page. Otherwise, if you are planning to move the same content to the new pages, you may end up with a duplicate content situation.

[MHes]

I wouldn't move them. If urls are ranking well don't risk it.

You can reorganise your site without changing urls, so I assume this is just an admin reason.... I would rather have the admin problem than a potential ranking one.

[arran]

Totally agree with MHes. Why risk your rankings for the sake of tidiness?
Search engines are not yet consistently handling URL changes in the correct manner.

arran.

[lee_sufc]

thanks for the advice...

would it be better for me just to create a new page (ie: www.site.com/redwidgetadvice - redwidget being my specialist area and then move the links to this new page) - would just moving the links to a new page harm my rankings at all?

also - one other question while I'm here...I am in the process of adding about 20-30 new pages of content (a lot of work :-)) is this a good idea? will all these new pages coming up so quickly harm my site's PR or ranking at all?

[arran]

Would just moving the links to a new page harm my rankings at all?

Yes - you are effectively creating an orphan. Also, the anchor text pointing to your existing page is important.

Is this a good idea?

Yes - adding 30 pages will never be a problem.

Will all these new pages coming up so quickly harm my site's PR or ranking at all?

PR is based on the quality and quantity of inbound links only and therefore will be unaffected. The rankings of your old content should be preserved.

arran.

[lee_sufc]

Thanks Arran!

One more question - what I might do then, is keep the advice that is on there at present, then add "click here for more advice" - which will then display the newer articles (ones with no PR / rankings yet) - this will prevent the original page looking so cluttered with lists of articles.

does this sound like a better idea?

[hmatisse]

Leaving an orphan page live on the server doesn't really make things any "simpler" - you end up maintaining two copies of the page. You might as well leave things as they currently are.

I guess the question here is what do you really want to do -
a). make sure your positions don't change (because they probably will if you remove or redirect the page), or
b). make things simpler by creating the new page structure and getting rid of the old pages using a redirect.

[lee_sufc]

I am busy tonight aren't I... :-)

I have one page on my site that I would love to rename so it makes more sense to my customers...at present it is www.site.com/greenwidget but ideally I'd like to change it to www.site.com/blackwidget

Is there a method of changing the URL without harming my PR / rankings for that page, and if there is a way, could someone provide details?

Thanks in advance!

[texasville]

>>>I have one page on my site that I would love to rename so it makes more sense to my customers...at present it is www.site.com/greenwidget but ideally I'd like to change it to www.site.com/blackwidget <<<

Spiders do NOT understand your intentions. Changing url's just means that. New page. Old page gone. No pr. No rank.
Sounds like you need to create a new sub index. Then start creating new pages and content. Leave the rest alone.

[rkhare]

million dollar question for me too ...... as I plan to move my site from static to dynamic. in this case it will change the whole game.
also I want to put my site on somesort of CMS like plone but scared of consequence

[Jalinder]

I am also planning to move my urls forum.asp?catid=2&id=123 to forum/123.html with a 301 redirect from the old urls to new. I need to do this because changing categoryId changes the url.

Do I risk my rankings and PR even with 301 redirect?

[Eazygoin]

You may want to read Matt Cutts latest post on 301's,as a co-worker explains it well, in his own blog.