Website Redesign Danger
June 28th, 2007 • Posted by Andrea Feucht • Permalink
A lot of website design work these days (ok, most) is redesigning existing websites. Not exactly a bad way to spend your time, since the traditional way of building websites is a manual process. Even if the website was at one time search engine optimized, is unlikely to be any longer. But there is a critical step in a website redesign for which you'll pay a big price if you miss it.
Older websites, even when not search engine friendly, bring with them something very valuable: link equity. That's all the incoming links from other websites and all the links from search engines that have crawled your old website. That includes a lot of deep links — links which point from one page to another within your website.
It's very common — if not almost every time — to rename internal pages in a website redesign. Previously, Google or another website may have known your services page as services.html, but in your new website it's called menu, and Google "loses" that data. The value of all those links has just disappeared.
To sidestep the issue completely, do not change the filenames of your internal pages if you can avoid it. But if it can't be helped, here's the critical step: make sure your webmaster does a redirect from the old page to the new. You keep all that link equity, and it's valuable stuff! (Technical note: the redirect should be a 301, not a 302).
It's something we do automatically for Dynamic Websites (and one great reason to upgrade your SpaBoom Linked-in account to a Dynamic). Because of the Google Sandbox, you've got a big advantage with an exisiting website — make sure you keep it!
Posted in Spa Search Engine Optimization (SEO), Spa Website Design • Share • Trackback
June 28th, 2007 at 4:26 pm
Okay, I have a few questions for you guys about your dynamic websites. I currently have my site hosted through godaddy. I built it myself with their 'website tonight' software.
How do I go about handing it over to you guys? What are the steps involved? Would you keep all my pages named the same so visitors dont get an error page?
Do you guys host a site as well as design it?
What about email? I use the email system through godaddy for my email. Would this need to change?
If the hosting is included in your price for a dynamic website, then I would concider handing my site over to you guys when my time with godaddy is up, but if hosting isnt included, well then I think $20 or $40 over and above what I am paying now for my domain and website is quite a bit more than I want to spend on my domain and website.
June 29th, 2007 at 1:12 am
Christine… Like yourself, I was somewhat skeptic. I had been doing OK with my past website, it looked OK, was pretty cheap and worked OK. A SpaBoom site does include the hosting, first of all. Personally, I have been very happy with the service and have found it to be a great asset. Now… I constantly get compliments on the site. I have worked hard and used some paid advertising to bring in traffic… but I am happy to say… we just recently went over our ten thousand hit mark last month. We converted to SpaBoom in November and we are a small spa, who has only been open a year. $20 or $40 might seem like a lot if your not getting any results… but if your established clients love it… and it brings you in even one new client a month… I'd say its worth it. These guys are a great source of info and have really given me some valuable insight into what works from an internet marketing stand point… while letting me customize and manage my site myself, without a full time tech guy on the payroll.
June 29th, 2007 at 1:25 am
Question about the "deep links": I just recently renewed my domain with GoDaddy, the domain which is hosted by you here at Spa boom. I thought Id try their search engine optimizer program for the extra $20 or so. It did get me submitted to a few places that I hadn't been on before, which I'm sure helps… but it also mentioned a few things that are of concern to me. It told me that all of my internal links were broken, or had problems, and that this was very bad for the search engines. Are they broken? Is there a fix? Have I done something wrong? Additionally… what is the easiest way of getting the benefits of having a blog on my site? Can I add one with SpaBoom, or do I have to start one on another URL and point to it? If I do that… do I still get the "brownie points" with Google and the search engines? Thanks, Mark
June 29th, 2007 at 12:40 pm
Christine and Mark — thanks for your comments. Let me address some of your questions and give you some things to ponder regarding your websites.
First, take a look at Mark's website to see a great example of one of our Dynamic templates and how clean the look & feel is: Planet Massage
All of our templates are simple and straightforward, and customizable with any colors that you choose. You control the design and the content through your usual SpaBoom control panel, but the value of the Dynamic Website fees comes from how we structure the pages for Search Engine Optimization and give you new access to internal tools such as website stats for all of your pages (not just your GC page). Overall, it's the simplicity that is a draw for many of our Dynamic clients.
Let us know if you have further questions, as always!
June 29th, 2007 at 1:50 pm
Interesting - I recently changed the url of my services page. Apparently I lost my equity! If I change it back, does it reappear or is all lost?
Jessica
June 29th, 2007 at 3:29 pm
Jessica,
If you've changed the page name in the last day or so, you can change it back and shouldn't have any negative SEO effects. If it's been more than that, set up a 301 redirect (see the post above for details).
If you have a Dynamic Website in SpaBoom, you can add redirects with just a few mouse clicks by going into your website editor screen and clicking on "Redirects," then typing in the old and new address URLs. Simple and quick!