Welcome to the Q&A Forum

Hi,

I'm monitoring a site thats had a new design relaunch and new robots.txt added.

Over the period of a week (since launch) webmaster tools has shown a steadily increasing number of blocked urls (now at 14).

In the robots.txt file though theres only 12 lines with the disallow command, could this be occurring because a line in the command could refer to more than one page/url ? They all look like single urls for example:

Disallow: /wp-content/plugins
Disallow: /wp-content/cache
Disallow: /wp-content/themes

etc, etc

And is it normal for webmaster tools reporting of robots.txt blocked urls to steadily increase in number over time, as opposed to being identified straight away ?

Thanks in advance for any help/advice/clarity why this may be happening ?

Cheers

Dan

Many Thanks Kevin but im really looking to add to csv and upload to wordpress plugin so looking into what properies need to be on the csv i.e. will just 2 columns of old and new urls do which i then convert to spreadsheet or do i need to put any other info in etc like adding headers to the columns etc

many thanks

dan

i cant open it

many thanks

no the overview pages never had any content and have always been 302' which is why im changing to 301 as well as the url structure

its wordpress and just needs a csv file but i just want to know how to set up the csv file, i.e. is it just 2 columns old and new urls or do i need to add column headers etc etc ?

any advice much appreciated ?

cheers

dan

Thanks for your comments Akhil !

Im 301'ing all content pages (yes all indexed previously)

The empty 'overview' pages had no content and were temporarily redirected to a sub page.  The sub-page i have 301'd to the new url so i take it i can just leave the old 'overview' pages alone ?

Yes site has authority and is ranking pretty well for all target keywords hence why im concerned about doing the 301's correctly.

What about the csv file for bulk uploading 301's , is it as easy as i have mentioned above or do i need to do more/add more info to the file ?

All Best

Dan

Hi

if i'm bulk uploading 301 redirects whats needed to create a csv file?

is it just a case of creating an excel spreadsheet & have the old urls in column A and new urls in column B and then just convert to csv and upload ? or do i need to put in other details or paremeters etc etc ?

Cheers

Dan

Many Thanks Stefan

the overview page is the empty one and is 302 so presume then i can just leave it/not redirect

also if im bulk uploading 301 redirects what does one need ot do to create a csv file is it just a case of creating an excel spreadsheet & have old urls in colunm A and new in column B and then just convert to csv and upload ? or do i need to put in other details or paremeters etc etc ?

many thanks

dan

Hi

I'm just setting up some 301 redirects for a new site design about to go live.

The old site structure had some 'overview' pages in the urls (without any content) that just 302'd to a sub page.

Do i need 301 redirect these overview page urls or since they had no content theres no need and I probably shouldn't or should i ?

Also for pages that have no direct equivalent replacement is it still best to 301 to nearest relevant page or just leave it.  For example a thank you page that currently shows after user submits email form wont be on new site (since message shows on form page after submission rather than new page). Should i 301 to form page or just leave it ?

Cheers

Dan

Hi

I'm about to launch a redesigned site and worried about overdoing kw presence on-page, primarily using in url's since will already be using kw in titles as well as page content.

What's current thinking re over optimisation:  If kw is in titles and page content is it best not to repeat again in url structure i.e. less is more, even though this will cause things like SeoMoz on-page grade score to fall, or better to keep them/add them ?

Personally i think it makes sense to include kw in url again since helps make the page relevant, and so long as matches the content should help as opposed to hinder rankings for the pages target keyword.  However when i look into this some say don't do this since is over-optimisation

The sites generally ranking quite well for its target kw which i obviously don't want to lose after re-launch & hopefully improve further, in the case of this example they are 'Sports Centre Services' & 'Sports Centre Equipment Rental').

The sites current url structure is similar to this below example:

frankssportscentres.com/services/sports-centre-equipment-rental

Would it be better to keep following existing/above format or to go with either of the below options i.e. more kw rich urls or less:

1. frankssportscentres.com/sports-centre-services/sports-centre-equipment-rental

Or

2. frankssportscentres.com/sports-centre-services/equipment-rental

Or even less

3. frankssportscentres.com/services/equipment-rental

Many Thanks in advance for any helpful comments

Cheers

Dan

Good stuff ! thanks for all your help Aleyda

Thanks Aleyda

yes have done this already

Im just trying to establish if this acts like a 301 still in regard to the passing of old domains authority to the new url being fwd'd to ?

Thanks

Dan

Thanks Aleyda

Its going to redirect/forwarding to a specific landing page on the new domain, not the domain itself

Many Thanks

Dan

Hi Aleyda

Thanks so much for spending the time to write such a detailed and informative reply

However its the domain being redirected not the pages, since all the old pages have been removed from the web & hosting shut down (due it being an acquisition & not a migration). This means no opportunity for a .htaccess file as far as i understand since that requires a server to sit on doesnt it? and there isnt one anymore.

So we have just redirected the old domain to a landing page on the acquiring companies website via standard domain forwarding within the dns control panel.  Do you know if this will act like a 301 i.e. transfer the old domains authority to the landing page ?

Many Thanks

Dan

Many Thanks Sorina !!

I thought 301 redirects are on the .htaccess file which requires a file lstill to be on a server containing the 301 instruction.  Since the server/hosting is being deleted then i cant see how its possible to leave a 301 redirect on there and the redirect hence must take place in/on the dns record ?

Hi

Is there anything wrong/dangerous forwarding a clutch of domains to a sub page (landing page) on a different domain ?

Say Brand X buys Brand Z and wants to close down Brand Z site but have Brand Z domain fwd to a landing page (explaining the company acquisition) on  Brand X site.  In addition Brand Z had a few related but unused domains forwarding to Brand Z doman & now also wants those fwd'd to the new landing page on brand X

Since the reasons for doing this forwarding are legitimate company reasons relating to an acquisition i would have thought it should be ok but  can anyone think of a reason why could be bad since i remember in the old days peeps used to redirect domains for seo reasons so worried fwd'ing a load of domains could cause some sort of negative flag with big G ?

Also do domain redirects transfer the authority/juice from the old site/domain to the new destination page (new landing page on brand x site) similar to how a 301 redirect works ?

Many Thanks

Dan

hi

Are the organic search visit figures in SEOMoz traffic reporting unique or total visits ?

cheers

dan