301 redirect question

[Cyle]

So I have an employer who owns a retail site and his category URLs are horrible.  So, I am suggesting to him to create a new page with a pretty URL and 301 redirect the old page to the new page.  I am suggesting this to him, because this will help increase CTR for the targeted keyword & help him rank higher for the term.  He is apprehensive about this cause he thinks this will cause him to drop in ranking.  Does anybody know any resources or have any past experiences that will back up my suggestion or his for that matter?

[A_Q]

From my experience...Initially, the site may drop in rankings - but over a period of time rankings should normalise and improve.

I think too often people forget that we are creating websites for users as well as search engines. I assume that currently the URLs are not optimised? Although optimising URLs doesn't have as much of an effect as it used to it should still help.

I think providing that you carry on with a link building campaign with links pointing directly to your new URLs you should be fine. It's important that the client is aware that rankings may drop in the short term so that they don't get a nasty shock!

Good luck!

[Cyle]

Thanks Elias for your fast response.  You are correct in assuming that the URLs are not optimized & i appreciate your feedback.  I totally agree with you about creating websites for both users and search engines, from my experience this is often overlooked.