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Am just redesigning our site for which has existed for 8 years & we currently are number 1 on all major search engines for our targeted niche product information.
with the site redesign do you think it's better to keep the existing urls - eg .hmtl page names as is .. or create new ones ..?
I am concerned that by creating new page names (which would be more keyword related) we will lose our existing hits of 500 + unique visitors everyday .. not to mention pages that have been bookmarked resulting in reciprocal links. The other thing is I don't want to change all the page names just some .
Your suggestions would be greatly appreciated :)
thanks
You should never rename pages on a site unless absolutely neccessary - especially on a successful one like yours! Not only would you risk your position in the SERPS, but long-time users will have bookmarked existing pages, and your backlinks will be pointing to the old pages too.
If you absolutely have to rename pages, then you need to use mod_rewrite on Apache or an equivalent in you're using a Windows server to serve a 301 Permanent Redirect to the appropriate new page. However, it is rarely necessary to rename in the first place.
You'd be much better-off creating new content with the more keyword-rich file names in addition to your existing pages. More content never does any harm!
your comments are much appreciated.
& it also saves me lots of time! will look at adding new content with new pages. - A great idea.
was worried about changing them in the first place & then i did a search through google with the link: algorithim & found quite a few sites pointing specifically to the page url.
have worked hard for those incoming links - would have hated to lose them all!
thanks for your prompt response & have a great day / night!
