Changing URL's for a website redesign

[Will_Craig]

Hi folks,

We're redesigning our website and looking for some advice on how changing our URL's would affected our rankings. If the page URLs are changing how can we carry out redirects to avoid losing any SEO rank?

Thanks,

Ross

[AndreVanKets]

Will the URL be the only change on the page?

If so, in the case of redirecting www.website.com/page1.html to www.website.com/page1/ then a simple redirect from URL A to URL B will be fine.

You may see fluctuations in rankings for a while, but it should settle down close to were you were previously.

If you are changing keywords in the URL, then you might see more fluctuation in ranking.

Also, spend some time contacting webmasters that are linking to your old URL and ask them to point to the new one. Google passes link juice via redirects, but it would be worth your wile to get as many links pointing directly to your pages without having to redirect.

Greg

[igor.pinchevskiy]

Hello Ross,

Here is a very good guide on 301 Redirects which you need to setup in order to keep your rankings, I think it will explain everything you need to know...

http://www.seomoz.org/learn-seo/redirection

Hope this helps!