Welcome to the Q&A Forum

Thanks again for the awesome help. I really appreciate your time and effort!!

Hi Paul, Bing is much less confused, and we'll sit tight - but many thanks for the change of address tool suggestion - we had missed that! Best, Richard

Stackoverflow is always your best friend: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/2345038/iis-404-custom-error-url-return-response-code-200-instead

Hi Tiffany, This looks like you're debating between two approaches to me. approach 1 - is it ok to delete a sitemap file and submit a new one once a month with product updates. approach 2 - Is it ok to resubmit the same existing sitemap with the updates included. also once a month. As Eric mentions below, stick to having your current sitemap file and just updating it rather than having to delete and submit a fresh one each time. Part 2 - Is updating once a month too much? no. Once a month updates are fine and you can still get away with more than just once a month depending on how much content you have available to update.

Hi there It sounds like you've got all the basis covered.  To avoid any form of duplication, it is important to redirect the old version to the new URL as soon as possible, preferably simultaneously when the new blog is published.  That will ensure the two won't be indexed together, plus it makes sense that an updated would be redirected. There are other methods as well - you could simply remove the old blog post page and return a 404 (which isn't a bad thing), update the canonicals like you say or add a robots instruction to prevent the page from being indexed.  But I think a 301 redirect here would be best, as it would pass on any link equity (no matter how small) the previous page did earn, it's one of the quickest methods to remove old pages from the Google index and for continuity's sake I think it makes sense too. The fact that you're changing the old post in a substantial way might mean that you could potentially keep both versions on your site, but only you'll be the judge of how unique it is.  I think, to remove any doubt, you should use the 301. Hope this helps.

I agree with the rel="canonical" that is the definitive way to solve the issue. The urls are not actually two different urls, they are using a query string. If you put a redirect into place, you might lose the functionality of the query string. Also, GA uses query strings for tracking, so you would also lose any GA tracking you are using on the main site page. Most people use rel="canonical" to solve this issue. I know when I blog and I link to a site I normally put a query string in the url I link to just to give them an idea of where the traffic is coming from and to make it easier to track.

opps, I had a total misunderstanding about it, sorry about that.

OK, thanks Dean. I'll update the sitemap and look into rectifying the errors identified by screamingfrog. Thanks for your assistance!

With a follow link the link juice on that page would get recycled (depreciated of course)  thought out the site via site Nav. If the link is nofollowed then all that link juice is lost.  Am I missing something?

Hi Andrew, The best practice would be to come up with search engine/user friendly new URLs each corresponding to the month/year blog posts and then redirect them via 301. Essentially, you will be implementing a one-to-one or page-to-page 301. Redirecting a whole bunch of old pages to the homepage via 301 is not recommended especially if these old pages have some organic or referral traffic coming in. This would have a negative impact from your user experience perspective as well as from an SEO standpoint. A blanket 301 approach (bunch of pages being redirected to a single page, in this case the homepage) is the last resort that you should think about. Please do not even think of letting those old pages giving up an HTTP head status code 404. This is a big NO, NO. If I were you, I would have come up with new pages (URLs) for each of those old pages and redirected those via 301 to the corresponding new ones. Best regards, Devanur Rafi

I wouldn't buy that answer either. I don't think they have some secret knowledge, or way of doing things with site structure that would be against best practice yet still work. I think the templates are just made poorly and they are trying to make an excuse that some people will believe.

I agree with EGOL, and my crystal ball is on the fritz it keeps fading in and out so I cannot tell you if you are going to lose your job in the future that is kind of a little bit out there are you being serious? EGOL did a top notch job answering your question and you should take everything he said to heart. It is only going to get more complex if you want to keep your job and do exactly as was stated keep up on everything join services like Moz this is one step closer to being able to understand what is going to occur in this industry. Attend conferences MozCon, SearchLove & SMX you will be able to network with fellow SEO's and learn far more than I ever thought I would by attending their truly worth the time. Join team treehouse if you not know how to code learn. Join distilled.net/U you will have some goals when you think about the time taking forever you will know that the continued to keep adding new modules so you could learn more about different events that have occurred in online marketing so they are always up to date. I suggest you stay up-to-date because as was referenced before if you do not you will fail to give your customers the best service possible and they will get angry the whole thing will not end well. I believe that the Internet is the biggest thing to happen to my generation I am 35 years of age and my great-grandmother lived from the time of the flight of the Wright brothers until the space shuttle that is a pretty big change in one area aviation. Do I think anyone at Kitty Hawk could have predicted what the future of flight would be probably not as well as one would have to in order to know if their point keep their job in search in 2014 considering you are old enough to read and write you most likely fall into the category of the Internet is the biggest thing that ever happened to your generation. No I do not think that search will live forever based on this I think our planet will not substantially life after a very long time a few billion years give or take 5 billion or could be over tomorrow I do not know, but I do know people are not helping things. Respectfully, Thomas

What about links that aren't going to the home page but to other pages on my old site  Can those also be redirected after the old site is taken down? The hostgator plan that I have puts the first site as the main domain and subsequent sites that I create and/ or host with them are subdomains. I read somewhere that for seo purposes it makes no difference. Paul

Thanks everyone for the help. This should def. help clean up some of the problems that I've been having with the website.

Hi Jane, Thanks for your input, your opinion is highly appreciated. You mentioned how doing a site: search isn't accurate, but rather the results of a submitted sitemap I'm assuming via Webmasters. We're not able to see specifically which URLs Google chose to place in the index and which they didn't, am I right? They simply show you the number of URLs submitted and the number that are indexed. Regarding Mandy's higher authority, that does make a lot of sense. I absolutely concur with your questions, and to a degree I have established that stance. I need to remain consistent so that the client can better understand the reasoning behind my concerns. Thanks for your help!

Hi there, I think what William is saying is that site B will receive the benefit of a new linking domain, but that linking domain (site A) is many times stronger than site B because of its extra backlinks. As a result, site B still gains a good amount from receiving the redirect. There are different opinions on this, i.e. on whether a redirect seems to help a lot more than this, and every case in which this takes place seems to have different results, largely because of all the other metrics affecting both sites. It's obviously hard to test this in a controlled environment. There is debate around how much of a boost a cross-domain redirect actually has on the destination website - certainly in days gone by, the site at which the redirect is pointed will receive the vast majority, if not all, of the redirected site's rankings. This can still happen if all of the content on site A's redirected pages is reflected on site B, or if site B's content is sufficiently the same. However, if you were just redirecting for the purpose of making site B stronger and there was no real cross-over between the content of either page / site, this process shouldn't have a hugely beneficial effect on site B.

Great !!! Thanks for help Caitlin. Downloaded the plugin.

I would not say I am convinced, but that is the only tested evidence I have seen. plenty of antidotal evidence, but the first test. Thanks

Hi Jane, Thanks for your clarification. Since a higher number of people have asked about META description and title tags changes I guess this is a Panda effect. I know what to do next, a lot of rewriting work. Marcel

Use a colon.   Requires one less space.