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Renaming URLs

  • 05-08-2009 1:50pm
    #1
    MOH
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 6,465 ✭✭✭


    I renamed some URLs to be more SEO friendly.

    I didn't want to take down the old ones in case anyone found them through google and got a 404. On the other hand, I didn't want google re-indexing them so I excluded them in robots.txt.

    Of course now both the old and new names are indexed in google.

    Am I right in thinking the correct way to do this would be to leave robots.txt alone, just delete the pages, and set up 301 redirects to the new names? And then in a month or so when google's recrawled the site I can remove the redirects?


Comments

  • #2
    TheWaterboy
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 379 ✭✭TheWaterboy


    There are a few way to do this but the most important thing is not to have two pages with the same content as you will be penalized for duplicate content.

    Dont take down the old ones - Put a 301 redirect to go to the new pages.

    Alternatively you could just have your new URL`s go directly to your old pages via your htaccess page.

    Finally im not sure how much Google actually uses these SEO friendly URLs anymore in its indexing of pages. I think they are slowly moving away from it.


  • #3
    Chardee MacDennis
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 9,225 ✭✭✭Chardee MacDennis


    TheWaterboy wrote: »
    Finally im not sure how much Google actually uses these SEO friendly URLs anymore in its indexing of pages. I think they are slowly moving away from it.

    do you mind me asking where you got that from?


  • #4
    TheWaterboy
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 379 ✭✭TheWaterboy


    BastardPrince wrote: »
    do you mind me asking where you got that from?

    I purchased the The Search Engine Marketing Kit from Sitepoint - Im nearly sure it was mentioned in here.
    http://www.sitepoint.com/kits/sem2/

    Here is an interesting debate on the sitepoint forums - Most people are claiming that Google dont use the SEO friendly URL`s for indexing pages anymore but that it can help with page rank.

    http://www.sitepoint.com/forums/showthread.php?threadid=624003


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