Redesigning client website and will be losing a lot of landing pages. How to avoid tanking search traffic?

[KMofOutlier]

We are working with a client who is changing the direction of the company's marketing efforts. The current site includes many (approx 100) pages for each partner they work with (each partner has its own page). The new site will be losing many of these and we want to be sure we don't destroy organic traffic/rankings in the process. These landing pages don't directly garner the most traffic but it will definitely be a big change in the size of the site.

Any advice for how to best handle the redesign is appreciated, thanks!

[anthonydnelson]

Hi Kathleen,

Removing pages can be a scary thing, but if those pages don't garner much traffic in the first place and you 301 redirect any with external links pointing at them to the most relevant page on your new site, you'll be fine. Quite often removing low quality pages (not sure if you think yours fit this description) can actually lead to a nice improvement in organic traffic.

[Matt-Williamson]

I agree with Anthony on this one - make sure you 301 redirect the pages you are loosing to the most relevant pages in your new structure.

[KMofOutlier]

Thanks Anthony and Matt - we were definitely planning on the 301s, I just had concerns about the sheer volume of pages that would be going away. Sounds like we're on the right track! Appreciate your responses..