Re-naming pages without affecting SEO

[maxweb]

Due to the management software used for a lot of our websites, the URLs for specific pages appears as:

brand.com/page/pagename/number

I want to add slug URLs so that they appear as:

brand.com/pagename

First of all, do you think this is an effective use of my time and will it significantly benefit SEO in the long run. Secondly, these pages have developed a decent PA over time and I don't want to lose that. Will adding 301s for all the renamed pages be enough to not have a negative effect?

[dotfly]

Your plan ist definitely a good thing!

A short and precise URL is a relevant ranking factor, a significant factor from which your site can benefit a lot...

I would recommend that every time someone asks about that issue.

A 301 redirection will pass the linkjuice to the new URL, I don`t think that you have to consider about loosing PA.

[Dubs]

Totally agree that the plan is a good move!  Keep the URLs short and sweet.  301's will pass along any linkjuice and forward visitors to the new URLs.

[KristinaKledzik]

I disagree with mrcensorious and Dubs: I highly doubt that taking the time to change all of your URLs will be much of an SEO benefit, plus, changing URLs always brings a dip in traffic.

Your current URLs are not so incredibly long that they're difficult to understand or share, and you already have keywords in them (I'm assuming they're in the "page" and/or "pagename" subfolder). As Google has been getting smarter, we've seen it place less and less emphasis on keywords in URLs and their structures, so my guess is, this would minimally help SEO right now (if at all), and probably wouldn't help in the future.

Add on to that, whenever you make URL changes, you will always see two things:

• A temporary dip in organic traffic, as search engines see the new URL as an entirely new page and haven't attributed all of the links from the old URL to the new URL yet.
• A permanent dip in organic traffic, because 301 redirects don't seem to pass as much authority as a direct link.

We never advise that our clients change their URLs unless they're going through a site redesign anyway and have to change them. So, I recommend you leave things the way they are!