When to re-write and redirect a blog url?
-
What are best practices for rewriting (and then redirecting) blog URLs? I refresh old blog posts on our blog every month and many of them have URLs that are too long or could be improved. However, many of them also already get decent organic traffic and I don't want to lose traffic due to a URL redirect. Are there any best practices or "rules" I can follow when deciding whether to re-write and redirect blog URLs?
Thanks! -
Redirect rules are typically used for old paths that you'd like to redirect to new ones. In contrast, a Rewrite rule does not change the original URL; it simply serves the content of the rule destination at the original path.
-
Dear Emily:
For me these are the main reasons why i've decised to redirect an url:
-
If it´s a website when the product is discontinued and exists another similar product.
-
If it´s a blog if there's an important problem of cannibalization and i decide the final article will be a very best version of the original,
I hope this can clarified you.
Victoria
-
-
Hi, there are no "best practices" besides setting the 301 redirect (just make sure not to delete the "old" post). You'll probably lose traffic for some weeks until Google fully processes the redirect, but eventually you'll end up recovering the lost rankings (I have redirected many posts and websites and that has always been the case).
Hope that helps!
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
Chat GPT
I want to get your thoughts on Chat GPT for creating articles on my site to drive SEO. Does Google approve of this type of content or not? I seems quite good quality - I suppose a key question also is: is it duplicate content? I have used on Propress website and also on blog sites so need to understand if this will reduce my rankings. Thanks
Content Development | | Katie231
Matthew1 -
Page Authority
I feel like I'm wasting time by going out and creating backlinks for a new page to increase page authority, especially when I've already got the domain link for domain authority. In your opinion, how important is it to go out and create back links for a page? - am I wasting time I could be using towards creating more great content? Shannon Peel
Content Development | | MarketAPeel
Telling Stories about Women
MarketAPeel1 -
Unsolved SEO And Digital Marketing Training
Hi Everyone, I have a basic SEO and Digital Marketing knowledge and looking for a course /training which will teach me step by step SEO and tools need to use with hand on training. I have a website (https://gemslearninginstitute.com/) which I need bring in Google Packs and on the first page of Google. I have attended a few courses but none of them offered in depth knowledge with hands on training so whatever I do it is not producing results. Thanks
SEO Tactics | | fslpso0 -
Authorship showing in SERPs for non-blog pages
Hi, A few months ago we set up authorship for on our blog articles for multiple authors, which has helped driving extra traffic to our blog posts. Today, I did a search for one of most important search terms and one of our non-blog pages is showing in the first page of the results with one of our authors headshot next to it. Technically we have not not set it up to do this, the page is on a different CMS to our blog (which is wordpress). I'm not complaining because I think this is a positive outcome, but does anyone have an idea why it has done this? I was under the impression that only blog article pages could have authorship set up. Thanks, Stu
Content Development | | Stuart260 -
Lost in the blog world
I want to start a blog, but honestly I have no idea where to start as I've got so many questions so I hope someone can help me out. I have a Magento e-commerce website so I've got the possibility to integrate the WP extension. Would that be a good idea or is it better to have a separate blog and separate server? Which blog platform is considered to be the best and what are the main differences between the big blog platforms? Should I use my business (domain) name for my blog or have a separate (domain) name? How often are you 'supposed' to blog per week/month to build a strong blog? Many thanks in advance!
Content Development | | BridalHotspot0 -
Typepad.com blog migration & duplicate content
I've migrated a typepad.com blog with a bunch of content (but little traffic) onto a hosted WordPress site under my own domain name (the way I should've done it in the first place). Now I don't want to confuse Google that the new site is duplicating content from the other site, so would I be better off with: 1) meta-refresh redirecting each typepad.com post to the same post on the new blog, or 2) just killing the typepad.com blog entirely so Google will not find duplicate posts anywhere. In favor of #2 is the fact that these posts get very little traffic today. I figure I will lose more traffic from duplicate content ranking penalties than from losing the posts themselves in the original blog. What do you think?
Content Development | | chriscrabtree0 -
Guest Blogging Question!
Hi, The anchor text link connected with an article used for guest blogging, say the anchor text has 3 words and the link is in the byline, do these 3 words need to be used within the article content? For example if the article is 500 words long and the anchor text from the link is not used at all in the article content will this have a massive negative effect against using the anchor text in the article a few times? Cheers
Content Development | | activitysuper0 -
Personal and Company Blog
What are the correct methods for showcasing articles on your Companies blog as well as your own personal blog to avoid the content to be flagged up as duplicate content?
Content Development | | sat130
