URL re-write effect on SERPS for an established website

Johan007 · 09-18-2006, 06:42 AM

I am dealing with a successful website with about 12,000 back links to deep pages and about only 6,000 links to the non static homepage url. What would be the effect of server re-writing the URL? The site relies heavily on SE traffic (bad).

justtupeu · 09-19-2006, 06:41 AM

I'd have to say : Don't do it.
If your website ranks good and you rely on the search engines for most of your traffic, why risk loosing it ?

Johan007 · 09-19-2006, 07:01 AM

If it’s not a risk then I would do it. I just want neater looking URL’s than the ones I have.

vistadivine.com · 09-19-2006, 10:26 AM

Just two words for ya, dont do it because rewritting the URL means loss of all the links.

Akash Kumar

Johan007 · 09-20-2006, 01:14 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by vistadivine.com

Just two words for ya, dont do it because rewritting the URL means loss of all the links.

Akash Kumar

Agreed. I spoke to my programmer and he said unless I can prove the QueryString identifier is a problem then don’t do it. So far it has not been a problem for this site.

vistadivine.com · 09-20-2006, 04:46 AM

ya because the old domain would be having lots of links and if you change your URL means all the links will be lost.

Akash Kumar

Johan007 · 09-20-2006, 07:27 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by vistadivine.com

ya because the old domain would be having lots of links and if you change your URL means all the links will be lost.

That’s what I think however others claim 301 redirects would mean no back links are lost as Google can understand this.

vistadivine.com · 09-20-2006, 11:05 AM

Well I dont think that this works but you can take the risk to try this out.

Akash Kumar

Notorious · 09-24-2006, 03:04 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Johan007

That’s what I think however others claim 301 redirects would mean no back links are lost as Google can understand this.

yes but that takes time,six months and counting in my case.

KevinJB · 09-24-2006, 08:11 PM

Quote:

That’s what I think however others claim 301 redirects would mean no back links are lost as Google can understand this.

I used to think this; but not anymore (until Matt Cutts confirms), because Google reccomends on their webmaster guidelines you actually attempt to change all links to the new address. Why would they do that if 301 redirect works?

Johan007 · 09-25-2006, 12:44 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by KevinJB

I used to think this; but not anymore (until Matt Cutts confirms), because Google reccomends on their webmaster guidelines you actually attempt to change all links to the new address. Why would they do that if 301 redirect works?

I like your logical thinking Kevin and must agree. We know Google has no problem with established sites using a query string “?ID=12345” however we don’t know for sure if 301 redirects work at counting back links to the new pages.