Do I need Redirects?

[iainmoran]

I've recently changed my old static website to a WordPress one. I'd like to know what do do (if anything) about my old links.

For example a page on my old site was: www.iainmoran.com/corporate-magician.html - now I'm using WordPress, the url is:
www.iainmoran.com/corporate-magician/

My question is, do I need to set up redirects on these old pages (which no longer exist  or will Google eventually re-crawl my site and update the links themselves?

I'm using the Yoast SEO Plugin for WP and it creates a sitemap, which of course will have my new pages on. But don't want Google to penalise me for having broken links, etc.

Many thanks,

Iain.

[Matt-Williamson]

If you have content that is indexed in Google and has moved to a new location due to a site change such as this then I would recommend that you place 301 redirects from your old pages to the new corresponding ones..

[iainmoran]

Thanks Matt,

These pages no longer exist  on my server so I should create the pages again - each page just having the redirect code that goes to the new version of each page?

Thank you,

Iain.

[KeriMorgret]

I'd suggest the redirection plugin for Wordpress. You can easily redirect the missing pages to the correct pages without having to create any pages. It also logs 404s for you, and you can create redirects from the 404 log

[Matt-Williamson]

Hi Iain

You don't need to create your old pages again just create 301 redirects in your .htaccess file which can be done using Yoast plugin - http://yoast.com/wordpress/seo/#files

Here is SEOMoz's guide to redirection - http://www.seomoz.org/learn-seo/redirection

Here is a redirection plugin for Wordpress just enter old url and new one you want it to point to and it will do the work for you - http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/redirection/

[Matt-Williamson]

Hi Keri - I agree so just added the link to redirection plugin to my reply - should make Iain's life easier..

[iainmoran]

Thanks so much, Matt & Keri,

I've just installed the plugin and looked in Google to check which of my old (html) pages were indexed and amazingly it appears that there are none. It was a few weeks ago since I launched the new site, but certainly a few of the old pages appeared in Google Search results a few days ago.

I guess it's still worth doing though as there will be other sites with the old links on?

I notice that in my first SEOMoz crawl report it mentions that I have a 301 Redirect (which I didn't set up) going from: http://www.iainmoran.com/close-up-table-magic

To this: http://www.iainmoran.com/close-up-table-magic/

Is this something that I should deal with and if so, how?

The support here is amazing and I'm very grateful to you all.

Iain.

[Matt-Williamson]

No problem Iain - firstly I would still create the redirects from your old html pages to their new locations as you rightly say there will be other sites with old links. You wouldn't want potential visitors/customers thinking your site is no longer there or down because they found it via a redundant link..

Secondly I wouldn't worry about doing anything regarding the current redirects - if you type any of your pages without a trailing slash you will see you are redirected to one with a trailing slash essentially reducing duplicate content for you.

Have a look at this article as to why it is something you don't need to worry about changing - http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.co.uk/2010/04/to-slash-or-not-to-slash.html

[iainmoran]

I've finished doing the redirects and they all seem to work

When setting them up, I've used the full url (including http://www.)  for both the "source" and "target" url's.

I originally had a page: http://www.iainmoran.com/mailing-list.html, but this is now:
http://www.iainmoran.com/newsletter/

Hope this was the right way to do it?

Thanks again - it's such a relief knowing there are kind people who are willing to help.

Iain.

[Matt-Williamson]

Hi Iain- that's what this community is all about isn't it great! I take it the specific urls you mention above you mean is it ok to redirect to a page with a completely different name? The answer is yes if that is the new location of that page then your redirect is absolutely fine.

I have had a quick check and your redirects are setup fine well done - happy seoing