Ranking Implications due to Altering Page Names

[Bartell]

I'm working on a very large (over 2500 pages), very old website (with pages created in the late 90s). The structure of the site is a mess (it still shows subtle sings of Frontpage!). We are trying to move to a more uniform, dynamic solution.

My question is: what sort of implication will there be on search rankings if we implement 301 redirects from the very old pages (that are poorly named) to new pages which follow a uniform pattern.

Some of these pages have external links pointing to them and others (most) just have internal links pointing to them which will be adjusted to the new urls.

Does the age of the page have a significant implication on rankings? Is there a better way to this than 301 redirects?

Thanks for the help

[NaHoku]

We went through almost exactly the same thing a little over a year ago (although the pages were not created in FrontPage).  When we switched to a more dynamic solution, we did not use 301 redirects and we suffered as a result.  With a little bit of elbow grease in the form of optimizing page titles, URLS, on page text, etc. we are ranking even better than we ever have in the past.  We did notice a huge increase in branded keyword search and a huge drop in direct traffic (I am attributing this to not having done 301's).  Do 301's no matter what!

I've heard of the age of a domain being used a signal by Google, but not the age of a page (I don't have information on this if it is true).  I can't imagine that Google would reward an old page as opposed to a page that is optimized and current with valuable content.

It is true that the pendulum could swing either way, so make sure you create a baseline of where you are at in terms of SERPS now and be straight-forward with the stake-holders.  Don't panic if you drop.  Just work your way methodically back to the top using ethical practices.  In short, the ramifications could be good or they could be bad.  Good luck! That's quite an endeavor!

[Bartell]

Thanks for the post. Good to hear that someone else went through a similar situation!

Did you do anything about any external links that might have been pointing to some of the pages that went away? Is there anything else that you could suggest that I might have not thought of?

Thanks again,

Scott