Reducing multi-page website to one page & SEO ramifications?

[lulu71]

Hello there!

I just want to check in before I do this. I am reducing a multi-page website to one page (temporarily, but for at least 4-6 months). I will be 301 redirecting all old pages to the one, new home page. The new home page has a lot more content, long and short keyword phrases.

Aside from losing the benefit of internal links, will reducing the number of website pages hurt a ranking? Does having associated keywords on other website pages provide benefit to another (in this case Home) page?

Thanks so much for your invaluable advice!

[JordanLowry]

You could see a drop in ranking. It is difficult for a single web page to be relevant for a large set of keywords for searchers.

[lulu71]

Hi Jordan, and thanks.

So to go a little more deeply into your answer, are you saying that associated keywords on other pages of a website contribute to the ranking of, for example, the home page? So even though Google doesn't rank a website, it ranks a page, the rest of the website does count towards the page ranking?

[TheSymmetran]

Generally this is a bad idea. Single page sites  face more issues for ranking properly for the right keywords than separate pages topically speaking. Jordan is right to say you could see a drop in ranking and ?I add perhaps traffic as well.

[lulu71]

Thanks sym-admin. Appreciate your response. What I'd really love to know is why? What are the technical SEO reasons for why a single page faces more issues for ranking properly if one is only targeting one keyword phrase? This infers that keywords on other pages of a website contribute to the overall ranking of one page of the site. Is this correct, or is it for another reason (aside from internal links to other pages).?

[richardbaxter]

If it's temporary you might want to consider 302 redirecting instead. For a time (at least) the redirected-to URL (homepage) will appear for the original ranking queries. If you're not satisfying the query on the single page you may see a big increase in bounce rate.

[TheSymmetran]

simple, you have 1 logical URL with a bunch of anchors around the page that scrolls to different "subpages", but again, you are still on that one URL for ranking and optimization purposes. Google does not consider your different sections of the same page (despite the change in /pagepart or # part of the web address) as separate pages.

Now, imagine you sell SEO & web design in Austin, TX.

If you had a single page to try and optimize and rank for two sets of keywords related to each service, the page will not be focused on either one specifically. This means a competitor who decided to separate out their pages topically with unique URLs for each can also separate their anchor text profile for each page, using proper and old school meta tags in the right places instead of having a bunch of H1s all over one page, among a bunch of other things that they can segregate and focus to optimize better, will have a much easier time getting their independent subpages rank better than your catch all page.

I guess the best way I can describe it is: do you like to go to a long ass page and scroll down scroll down to find what you are looking for.... or do you like to land on a precisely relevant page with what you are looking for right up top and also all over that page with all the juicy details?

I guarantee you most users will answer for the latter.

For these reasons, it is a much tougher task to make a 1-pager win from an SEO-standpoint when compared to multi-page competition (assuming everyone involved is doing a fine job on both sides), but more importantly you must think more of UX than UI. You must think of the experience than the trend. Trends die off. One-pagers are a limited application trend that does not apply to a lot of sites and businesses out there.