Know-How Exchange : SEO/SEM

Actually very good questions.

Yes, you need to 301 redirect all of the old content to new locations. Top reason? You may have rankings and/or inbound links for those pages. Don't lose that!

301 redirects are different than 302 (two types) because 301s are permanent redirects, and 302 are temporary. Search engines only follow 301s.

Good news is that you can do these "server-side" instead of on every page. For instance, if you have a PHP site, you can do all of the redirects in the .htaccess file. Here's a page with various instructions based on your server type: https://www.webconfs.com/how-to-redirect-a-webpage.php

Lastly, keywords in URLs can be helpful, but for instance, if your keyword is "SEO" and you're considering making your URL https://www.abccompany.com/seo/seo-category/seo.html, that may be a bit much. Keywords in the URL are helpful, but likely they will not be the difference to boost you too much higher. Good to have, but not required to rank.

Before removing content please review your analytics to determine the sources and entry points of your traffic as well as the actions those visitors take (were they more likely to convert when entering from specific pages). Removing key pages has an obvious and negative effect on the success of a site.

Generally, removing pages should be done for two reasons:
1. The business strategy/position has changed
2. The old pages are performing poorly and are competing with newer, more relevant pages or causing crawling/indexation issues (essentially, the same issue).

If the above criteria are not valid, then there is likely no reason to remove the pages. Leave them.

Clearly if the pages are ranking well and are generating qualified traffic, the pages should remain.

If you decide to remove the pages and replace them with new pages, then yes, a 301 redirect is recommended. The search engines will follow a 302 (a default redirect) but it is great way to kill rankings (I learned that the hard way years ago ;-). A 301 can be implemented on most servers regardless of OS (Win, Linux, Unix, Mac).

A 301 redirect is a server-side "forwarding order" akin to what you would request from the US Postal
service. If you move to a new house you inform the post office that you've moved from the old house to the new house. Any mail sent to your old address will be forwarded to your new address. Same thing for web pages.

Lastly, keyword stuffing is a spam tactic. However, adding your keywords in your URI is an acceptable and potentially helpful tactic though the benefit is not significant. SEO is a battle of inches so every little bit helps. Also, from a user experience perspective the keyword in the URI helps the user to determine the content of the page.

example.com/keyword-keyword-keyword/keyword = spam (keyword stuffing)
example.com/keyword-other-usefulinfo = better

Finally, if you're not currently using a CMS (content management system) you will find switching to one will help simplify the management of larger or more complex sites. For example, we develop sites in Drupal which is an excellent tool for this application.

Kathy

There is some excellent advice above about little of which I would disagree with.

I’m involved with 6 clients at the moment where we are looking to bring their sites up to date, institute best practice SEO and harvest contact detail by making it easier to enquire. I also can’t see why the clients should be copying and pasting enquiries into their CRM system. That is annoying but tolerable at 1 or 2 a day, but not at 100 or 200 a day from all over Europe. I handle the marketing, sales and client side, whilst a pro web designer company Digital Paint in Northampton (We are not connected they are one of the Client’s choice of provider and are also one of the most professional teams I have ever worked with) There’s no point in looking for them on this site as they are not (yet) members!

Unless you intend to become an SEO expert, rather than continue in your present role for the next 3 months and still make serious mistakes, get some advice, if necessary professional paid for advice.

Here’s the problem though. The world of SEO is populated by every kind of shark and charlatan you can imagine trying to take some cash from you for either no results, no measurable results or the disaster of the opposite of the intended results.

I would venture that few who post here would be in that category. The downside would be too terrible. You contact them through KHE profiles, you agree on some work and they screw it up. Unless they are total idiot’s they will realise that all that is going to happen is that you’ll inform MP’s and the KHE and MP’s will inform 340,000 people that “so and so” might not be quite what they pretend to be. OK it will have a few caveats and so on from the lawyers but the result will be the same – a commercial disaster for whoever screwed you.

I’d like to think of somewhere else where you could get similar peer-reviewed advice but I can’t

Good Luck


Steve Alker
Xspirt

While there is always room for improvement in every industry I fortunately don't see the SEO world as gloomily as Steve does.

Ask about the deliverables. If they aren't transparent about what they are doing and can't define them, move on.

I think -- I hope? -- that Steve meant that the few SEO experts who post here do NOT fall into that category.

My personal experience with Excellira (Greg) has been first-rate, and I recommend them whenever possible.