Moz Q&A is closed.
After more than 13 years, and tens of thousands of questions, Moz Q&A closed on 12th December 2024. Whilst we’re not completely removing the content - many posts will still be possible to view - we have locked both new posts and new replies. More details here.
Should we rename and update a page or create a new page entirely?
-
Hi Moz Peoples!
We have a small site with a simple site navigation, with only a few links on the nav bar. We have been doing some work to create a new page, which will eventually replace one of the links on the nav bar.
The question we are having is, is it better to rename the existing page and replace its content and then wait for the great indexer to do its thing, or perm delete the page and replace it with the new page and content? Or is this a case where it really makes no difference as long as the redirects are set up correctly?
-
Thanks for the information!
I think at this point, we are going to leave the page as is and just change the site nav to link to the new page. We'll leave the other page there to keep doing what its been doing, but without the new traffic from the main site.
-
How similar is the content/subject of the page? For example, if the page used to be about Cats and the URL was website.com/cats, then if you needed to replace it to be about Dogs then obviously you'll have to change the URL to website.com/dogs. Even a 301 redirect from /cats to /dogs doesn't really make much sense, as they're both completely different subjects. You'd be better off 301ing the old /cats to the homepage instead.
However, if the two subjects are similar or related at all, ideally you don't want to change the URL at all. You can change all the content on the page and replace everything if you need to, but the best solution would be to keep the existing URL. Especially if the page has value in terms of page authority/traffic/backlinks. For example, if the page isn't about Cats anymore but specifically Cats' Accessories. You have to ask yourself whether /cats still makes sense in context, and you can optimise everything else on the page for "cats accessories".
Otherwise, go ahead and 301 that bad boy.
Edit: I should note that the decision you make on this will heavily depend on the subjects of the two pages and your existing URL and site structure. Without seeing your site and having some idea on the replacement page, it's hard to give specific advice. Hopefully this response is helpful in that it will give you something to think about though.
-
Hello,
First off - does your old page have value? this could be via links to it, or via the content etc. you may find it its adding value to your site removing it can change how your site works but that is all down to perspective and if you are improving the content aka. value the point is null. realistically is you set up correct 301 any old links etc. will resolve the issue. The problem you may have with 301 if the old page is about e.g. cars and the new page is about bikes the old link profile wont make sense, so be aware of that.
TL:DR
It's preference the short one is as long as you correctly 301 and structure it correctly on the site you'll be fine.
Hope this helps.
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
-
Pages Competing With One Another
Hello, We are ranking for an acronym, which I understand can lead to fickle rankings. However, we have two pages ranking page one - two for the same keyword, but they do so in spite of each other. By this I mean, one page will rank, while the other is nowhere to be found. It seems that the one page (a blog post) is more likely to rank on the weekends while the product page is more likely to rank on the weekdays. I would like the product page to rank all the time, and to target another keyword with the blog post. Would removing the keyword from the blog post allow the product page to rank all the time - or would it lead to no pages ranking during times when the blog post would otherwise be ranking? I should note the blog post has more external links and is not exactly optimized for the keyword, while the product page has more internal links and is optimized for the keyword.
On-Page Optimization | | Tom3_152 -
FAQ page structure
I have read in other discussions that having all questions on an FAQ page is the way to go and then if the question has an answer worthy of its own page, you should abbreviate the answer and link to the page with more content. My question is when using some templates in WP, they have a little + button you can click and it reveal the answer to the question. Does this hurt SEO versus having all text visible and then using headers/subheaders? An example of the + button https://fyrfyret.dk/faq/
On-Page Optimization | | OrlandSEO1 -
New site pages are indexed but not ranking for anything
I just built this site for a client http://primedraftarchitecture.com. It went live 3 weeks ago and the pages are getting indexed as per Webmaster Tools. But I'm not seeing it rank for anything. We're adding blog articles regularly and used Moz Local for local links and have been building links in other local directories (probably about 15 so far). Usually I get some rankings, although very low, after just a week or two for new sites. Does anyone see anything glaring that may be causing a problem?
On-Page Optimization | | DonaldS1 -
Page content length...does it matter?
As I begin developing my website's content, does it matter how long or short the actual text found in the is? I heard someone say before "a minimum of 250 words", but is that true? If so, what is the maximum length I should use?
On-Page Optimization | | wlw20090 -
How to force a refresh after on-page optimisation update
After updating areas highlighted in the On-Page Optimization report even after clicking the [Grade My On-page Optimization] the results don't refresh or reflect the changes eg The h1 tag does include the exact search term and there is bolded examples of the keyword phrase but report says not! Is there a way to force an update or is it a time related issue?
On-Page Optimization | | RobWillox0 -
URL for location pages
Hello all We would like to create clean, easy URLs for our large list of Location pages. If there are a few URLs for each of the pages, am I right when I'm saying we would like this to be the canonical? Right now we would like the URL to be: For example
On-Page Optimization | | Ferguson
Domain.com/locations/Columbus I have found some instances where there might be 2,3 or more locations in the same city,zip. My conclusion for these would be: adding their Branch id's on to the URL
Domain.com/locations/Columbus/0304 Is this an okay approach? We are unsure if the URL should have city,State,zip for SEO purposes?
The pages will have all of this info in it's content
BUT what would be best for SEO and ranking for a given location? Thank you for any info!0 -
Creating New Pages Versus Improving Existing Pages
What are some things to consider or things to evaluate when deciding whether you should focus resources on creating new pages (to cover more related topics) versus improving existing pages (adding more useful information, etc.)?
On-Page Optimization | | SparkplugDigital0 -
E-Commerce product pages that have multiple skus with unique pages.
Hey Guys, With the recent farm/panda update from google i'm at a cross roads as to how I should optimize product pages for a project i'm working on for a client. My client sells tires and one particular tire brand can have up to 15 models and each model can have up to 30 sizes. IE: 'Michelin Pilot Sport Cup' comes in 15 different sizes. Each size will have it's unique product page and description bringing me to my question. Should I use the same description on every size? I do plan on writting unique content for each tire model however i'm not sure if I should do it for every size. After all the tire model description is the same for every size, each size doesn't carry any unique characteristics that I can describe. Thanks in advance!
On-Page Optimization | | MikeDelaCruz770