Domain.com/old-url to domain.com/new-url

[Edzjus333]

HI,

I have to change old url`s to new one, for the same domain and all landing pages will be the same:

domain.com/old-url

I have to change to:

domain.com/new-url

All together more than 70.000 url.

What is best way to do that? should I use 301st redirect? is it possible to do in code or how? what could you please suggest?

Thank you, Edgars

[DirkC]

If you're on Linux  - probably the best way it to change the htaccess file on the old domain:

The .htaccess file needs to be placed in the root directory of your old website (i.e the same directory where your index file is placed)

Options +FollowSymLinks
RewriteEngine on
RewriteRule (.*) http://www.newdomain.com/$1 [R=301,L]

Please REPLACE www.newdomain.com in the above code with your actual domain name.

In addition to the redirect I would suggest that you contact every backlinking site to modify their backlink to point to your new website.

Note* This .htaccess method of redirection works ONLY on Linux servers having the Apache Mod-Rewrite moduled enabled.

Disclosure - I didn't invent this myself - source can be found here: http://www.webconfs.com/how-to-redirect-a-webpage.php (this page give all the different options on how to redirect)

rgds,

Dirk

[DirkC]

Forgot to mention - there is also a topic on moz on redirects: http://moz.com/learn/seo/redirection - and I also was a bit to fast with my first answer - the rule I gave was if you only change the domain & keep the remainder of the url.

If you also change the directory and the article name, than I hope there is a certain logic between your old structure and the new one. Redirections in htaccess can get quite messy if you have to use many rules inside (they can be in conflict and have an impact on performance).

In each case - you should test all the url's of your old site on the new one (before launch) to be sure that they are all properly redirected. A crawl tool like Screaming Frog can do miracles for testing.

[Edzjus333]

Thank you! I had recomendation to make like this:

domain.com/old-url

301 redirect to

domain.com/index... all old urls redirected to index page. that was some thing new for me and wanted to know, that this is wrong way.

thanks

E

[Edzjus333]

thanks, we change like this:

domain.com/old-url-1 .... to domain.com/new-url1

domain.com/old-url-2  ... to domain.com/new-url-2

etc...

so, we have to use 301st, correct?

[DirkC]

That was the worst advice somebody could give you... redirecting all old url's to home is the best way for SEO disasters. Glad you double checked!

[Edzjus333]

and one more questions, should we do some changes for site map, if we make 301st redirects? thanks!

[DirkC]

That's correct. If possible - try to do the change on a test server - and try all your existing url's on this test url to be sure that everything is properly redirected (while testing - make sure that the test server doesn't get indexed)

So for domain.com/old-url1 you check if test-server.com/new-url1 is accessible & working - idem for the remainder (screaming frog can do this for you). If everything is properly redirected - you do the change on the production server.

Dirk

[DirkC]

Yes - you have to update the sitemap with the new url's.

If you don't do it - you'll see that Webmaster tools will generate warnings for every url that is redirected.

Dirk

[Edzjus333]

Great, thanks a lot for your help!!! If you are in Latvia, beer from me ciao and thanks a lot!