After blog URL structure change, should you wait to optimize old posts?

[rwhite1]

Hi all,

I'm changing the URL structure on my site's blog (getting rid of dates) soon, but I'm also working on updating/optimizing a bunch of old posts. Some of these old posts have a good amount of traffic, which I don't want to lose when I redirect the old URLs to the new URLs after restructure. I know that you are more likely to maintain your rank and traffic after a redirect if you keep the page content the exact same.

So my question is -- should I leave the old posts alone (not making any changes) for a couple of weeks after the URL restructure/redirects for Google to index the new URLs and see that the content is the exact same so the pages don't lose any traffic, OR does it not really matter because I am optimizing these posts, meaning that the content will be better and hopefully get ranked higher?

I haven't been able to find a consensus on this, so I'd really appreciate the advice!

Many thanks,

Rebecca

[Tymen]

Hi Rebecca,

I would say it doesn't matter. The optimised posts will most likely get higher rankings. I very regularly edit and extend posts with up to date info and this is only resulting in better rankings because of the "fresh" content I provide. Best wishes to you too!

Regards, Tymen