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There's some good news about 301 redirects that you may have missed: Since early/mid 2016, changing the directory structure (alone) and creating 301 redirects isn't going to (or shouldn't) cause any loss in PageRank. The fact that 301s generally resulted in a loss of around 15% of PageRank (which was confirmed by Matt Cutts in 2013: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Filv4pP-1nw) is simply no longer the case. Sceptical? So was I. Read on... In February 2016, Google Web Trend Analyst, John Mueller confirmed this: Q. Do I lose "link juice" from the redirects? A. No, for 301 or 302 redirects from HTTP to HTTPS no PageRank is lost. (Source: https://plus.google.com/+JohnMueller/posts/PY1xCWbeDVC) Further, Google's Gary Illyes confirmed this in July 2016, on twitter:  "30x redirects don't lose PageRank anymore." (Source: https://twitter.com/methode/status/757923179641839616?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw) (Bear in mind, PR is not the only ranking signal.) So, changing URLs for SEO purposes, including "Improving directory/subfolder structure" is considered less risky now that 301 redirects preserve PageRank (as long as the content and structure remains the same). There's a great article on the subject of 301 redirect rules: "301 Redirects Rules Change: What You Need to Know for SEO" here: https://moz.com/blog/301-redirection-rules-for-seo Remember: For this to work out for you, the content of the page at the receiving end of the 301 needs to match the original source as closely as possible. Good luck!