I appreciate your response. I do not need to permanently change the urls, as the domain is not changing in the redesign. I just need to see that all the images I have edited are in place correctly on example.mysite.com. There must be a temporary/test solution.

I'm redesigning example.com on a subdomain of my own site, so at example.mysite.com. As part of the redesign, I am optimizing the site's images. I used Wordpress Importer to get the content to the development site, but I did not import the images. Instead, I added the images to the development site by copying and moving over the contents of example.com's uploads folder. The posts at example.mysite.com are showing the images, but they are pulling them from the original location. I tried adding the following code to wp-config.php under the (misunderstood?) impression that the image URLs would use the development site's domain:

1 define('WP_HOME', 'http://example.mysite.com');
2 define('WP_SITEURL', 'http://example.mysite.com');

I am not seeing any change and the images are still pulling from the original site. How can I test the images on the current site without actually changing the URLs in the database. (If I understand correctly, I could search and replace, but that is not what I am trying to achieve.) The original domain is not changing with the redesign, so there is no need to actually change the URLs. I just need to test the images, as I will be removing those that are not being used as well as optimizing the remaining images before moving the redesigned site over to the original domain.

I should have mentioned that I don't have that option. The pages are dynamically added to the site via a plugin which pulls MLS data from the local real estate listing board. (The plugin is dsIDXpress by Diverse Solutions.)

I manage a real estate broker's site on which the individual MLS listing pages continually create 404 pages as properties are sold. So, on a site with 2200 pages indexed, roughly half are 404s at any given time. What can I do to mitigate any potential harm from this?

They definitely lead by example. I couldn't tell you how many times I've been converted by their landing pages;) Have you had a demo yet? That gave me a much better understanding of their product. Once you are on board, they train you (for a fee of course) and support you, and even provide you with content and materials to attract new clientele. I had demo use of an account so I could get a feel for myself. My main issue was that the landing pages do not exist on your own site, but on a subdomain of theirs (if I remember correctly?)

Another thing you could do is contact someone who is already using them and ask about their experience - I was referred to sparkreaction.com as an example.

I wish I could speak from experience using them myself - I am in the same position as you, but the expense is definitely worth considering. My qualm was having to increase my rates to cover it, which wouldn't be such an issue if you were attracting new clients with it.

There are definitely pros and cons.

Here is the situation: A site was moved from its original domain to its new domain, and at the same time, the external wordpress.com blog was moved to a subdirectory, making it an onsite blog. The two pages that rank the highest on the site have virtually no links from the blog and no external links, while all the other pages are linked extensively from the blog and have backlinks. Their targeted keywords are not so much easier to rank than the other pages for that to be the sole cause.

To confuse the matter even more, there was a manual penalty affecting incoming links which was removed last month. The old site, which has many backlinks to the new site, is still in Google's index. The old blog however, has been redirected page by page and is not in Google's index. Most of the blog posts are short 1-paragraph company updates and potentially considered low quality content because of that (?)

The common denominator among the two highest ranked pages (I'm talking top 3 in SERP v. page 3 or 4) seems to be either the lack of external backlinks or the lack of internal links from the blog. Could there be an issue with the blog such that internal links from it are detrimental rather than helpful?

It certainly does confuse my understanding. Thanks for your help at clarifying things:)

What got me started on this question is a situation I can't put my finger on. The pages that are bringing the most traffic right now, and ranking the best, aren't even linked from the header nav or the footer. Their only link from the homepage is in a Spry dropdown menu, which isn't showing in a screen reader emulator (Fangs - I was hoping this would duplicate Lynx text-only), so maybe that doesn't even count?

I know there are other factors, keyword difficulty etc. The two best ranking pages mentioned have no backlinks from other sites either. All their internal links are mostly from the other main pages on the site (which in turn are linked from the homepage). All the other pages, by contrast are linked A LOT from the blog subdirectory. So the best ranking two have roughly 15 internal links, while the others have 600+ and backlinks.

Can you see why I might be confused?

I have a decent understanding of site architecture and siloing, which I have used to build a site that ranks extremely well and is getting more traffic every day. Of course, I can always learn more. I am having a harder time applying the concepts to a site that was built a long time ago that has tables and Spry menus and a missing doctype and deprecated code all over, not to mention uses images for everything including the main navigation menu links (not the dropdown links). It's pushing me to the edge of my comfort zone, and that's where I take the opportunity to learn and get better.

I get that there are bigger issues here than nofollow - I'm just trying to sort it all it out and find the priority issues.

Per Page Speed recommendations I specified the Expires header in my .htaccess file. Do I need to add code for Last-Modified too? I thought I read somewhere that it will put the date next to the meta description in the SERPS, which might cause the result to seem outdated after a while.

Are there any problems that could crop up if these aren't implemented correctly.

I absolutely do appreciate the longer explanations Paul, so don't stop!;) I'm one of those people who HAS to know the why, not just the what. And, Andy, I laughed too.

So let me ask some specific advice: if the homepage has a header linking to pages we desire to rank well, and the footer also has links to those pages PLUS links to a bunch of area-specific pages (i.e. Town A Keyword, Town B Keyword, Town C Keyword) which aren't remotely as important to rank, should I remove the links to those area pages from the footer? Will that increase the link equity going to the more important pages?

The odd thing is that the two pages that rank better than the others are not linked to from the header or footer at all. I know competitiveness of the keywords plays into that but it can't be coincidental.

The underscores that you currently have don't allow Google to view the words separately, so, for starters, you miss out on the advantage of having them recognized as keywords. Whereas, hyphens are word separators.

One thing you want to be sure of is that you create 301 redirects from the old pages individually to the new hyphenated pages if you decide to do that. Otherwise anybody who tries to visit the old page will get a 404 not found error, plus you will lose out on any link equity from backlinks pointing to those pages.

Is it a good idea? Hyphens are far better than underscores. A change to existing site architecture can have disastrous consequences though if done improperly.

Wow, you are very quickly and easily making me much better at what I do:) Thanks for that.

I actually just updated the code a couple days ago by adding the Expires code and fixing the redirect. Maybe the previous double 301 redirect could be the culprit? Or - something I mentioned in another question - there were a ton of 404s because of a blog that wasn't redirected to the /blog subdirectory correctly, which I fixed recently. Could something like that cause the server to work to hard and return a 500 server error?

I'll definitely check out the logs and Pingdom.

Great information and advice.

Paul - Thanks for a new way to check and understand all this.

So, if I was able to visit the page just fine normally, and after setting the user agent to Googlebot, then I should be good? I never saw a 500 server error while visiting the page, just in Webmaster Tools. It was dated 2 days ago, but there have been other server error warnings over the past month or two in GWT, so maybe it is a resolved issue.

Can you suggest a method to confirm the overall proper functioning of the .htaccess code? Is there a tool you use to validate your .htaccess code? I checked response headers in Firebug and found all 200 OKs and 304s for images (from the expires header I assume) so to my amateur viewpoint, it looks good. I just don't want to tank the site unwittingly. Obviously not.

Google Webmaster Tools is showing the following message:

_Googlebot couldn't access the contents of this URL because the server had an internal error when trying to process the request. These errors tend to be with the server itself, not with the request.  _

Before I contact the person who manages the server and hosting (essentially asking if the error is on his end) is there a chance I could have created an issue with an incorrect 301 redirect or other code added to .htaccess incorrectly?

Here is the 301 redirect code I am using in .htaccess:

RewriteEngine On

RewriteCond %{THE_REQUEST} ^[A-Z]{3,9}\ /([^/.]+/)*(index.html|default.asp)\ HTTP/

RewriteRule ^(([^/.]+/)*)(index|default) http://www.example.com/$1 [R=301,L]

RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} !^(www.example.com)?$ [NC]

RewriteRule (.*) http://www.example.com/$1 [R=301,L]

Could adding the following code after that in the .htaccess potentially cause any issues?

BEGIN EXPIRES

<ifmodule mod_expires.c="">ExpiresActive On
ExpiresDefault "access plus 10 days"
ExpiresByType text/css "access plus 1 week"
ExpiresByType text/plain "access plus 1 month"
ExpiresByType image/gif "access plus 1 month"
ExpiresByType image/png "access plus 1 month"
ExpiresByType image/jpeg "access plus 1 month"
ExpiresByType application/x-javascript "access plus 1 month"
ExpiresByType application/javascript "access plus 1 week"
ExpiresByType application/x-icon "access plus 1 year"</ifmodule>

END EXPIRES

(Edit) I'd like to add that there is a Wordpress blog on the site too at www.example.com/blog with the following code in it's .htaccess:

BEGIN WordPress

<ifmodule mod_rewrite.c="">RewriteEngine On
RewriteBase /blog/
RewriteRule ^index.php$ - [L]
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteRule . /blog/index.php [L]</ifmodule>

END WordPress

Thanks

Thanks everyone for setting me straight -it's amazing how old misinformation just won't die. So, should I just totally ignore the fact that Webmaster Tools is showing the most unimportant pages (rankwise) as the highest linked internally? It's really hard for me to accept that it's not giving the wrong signal.

In case this is helpful to anyone else reading this post, here is the code I am now using in the .htaccess, which seems to have eradicated the double redirect (thanks to help from phranque and lucy24 at webmasterworld):

RewriteEngine On

RewriteCond %{THE_REQUEST} ^[A-Z]{3,9}\ /([^/.]+/)*(index.html|default.asp)\ HTTP/

RewriteRule ^(([^/.]+/)*)(index|default) http://www.site.com/$1 [R=301,L]

RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} !^(www.site.com)?$ [NC]

RewriteRule (.*) http://www.site.com/$1 [R=301,L]

Cyrus - Thanks. A familiar face - I've seen it attached to many an article that I've read;)

While I have you here, maybe you can answer another question related to the situation that has me slightly nervous:

I've read warnings about creating a loop with a 301 redirect - and I keep being pointed to default.asp in Open Site Explorer (with the message that the url I entered - www.site.com- redirects to /default.asp) but any redirect checkers I've used don't show that. Would it be obvious if I didn't implement it correctly? It looks fine in the browser.

Would a rel canonical tag in addition to a 301 redirect be a good idea?

It's been a while since I used Dreamweaver but I remember the standard link format being relative. Is it possible if I change the relative urls throughout the 50 pages on the site, that the site administrator (not me) will accidentally revert everything if he updates the site? Wondering how to explain this as being more important than his ease of maintaining the site...

Do you have to wait for the scheduled crawl?

Is it worth the time to go through a site that was built in Dreamweaver and change the relative urls to absolute urls?