SaranacLake Posted January 14, 2021 Share Posted January 14, 2021 If I have a web page located here: www . company . com / how-to-repair-your-computer.html And I decide to re-structure my website like this www . company . com / articles / how-to-repair-your-computer.html How do I make sure that people don't search and end up at the old, now broken, link? It seem inevitable that as a website grows, that you will want to re-organize things. What is the best way to make sure that anyone who searches or clicks on an old link - say from an email from a friend - doesn't get a 404 error? Also, how do you avoid ruining a web pages rank on Google after you move things? (I think if the URL changes, Google makes you start all over as far as getting listed on page-1 and all of that? Is this something I have to hande on my end, or is it a Google issue, or something else? Quote Link to comment https://forums.phpfreaks.com/topic/312006-avoiding-broken-links/ Share on other sites More sharing options...
gw1500se Posted January 14, 2021 Share Posted January 14, 2021 Use .htaccess to redirect references to the old link to the new one. Quote Link to comment https://forums.phpfreaks.com/topic/312006-avoiding-broken-links/#findComment-1583789 Share on other sites More sharing options...
SaranacLake Posted January 14, 2021 Author Share Posted January 14, 2021 33 minutes ago, gw1500se said: Use .htaccess to redirect references to the old link to the new one. So if I re-organize things, then just create an entry in my .htaccess file and that will solve things? Will Google penalize me for changing things around? Quote Link to comment https://forums.phpfreaks.com/topic/312006-avoiding-broken-links/#findComment-1583790 Share on other sites More sharing options...
gw1500se Posted January 14, 2021 Share Posted January 14, 2021 Yes. No. Quote Link to comment https://forums.phpfreaks.com/topic/312006-avoiding-broken-links/#findComment-1583791 Share on other sites More sharing options...
SaranacLake Posted January 14, 2021 Author Share Posted January 14, 2021 4 minutes ago, gw1500se said: Yes. No. Do you know if the Google listing will remain the same (i.e. same search description) and the only thing that will change are the links that people are taken to? Or will Google treat the new page like an entirely new entry? I am trying to plan things out so they don't change, but you can't always make things entirely scalable. Quote Link to comment https://forums.phpfreaks.com/topic/312006-avoiding-broken-links/#findComment-1583792 Share on other sites More sharing options...
gw1500se Posted January 15, 2021 Share Posted January 15, 2021 Once you have the redirect in place, does it matter? Quote Link to comment https://forums.phpfreaks.com/topic/312006-avoiding-broken-links/#findComment-1583805 Share on other sites More sharing options...
SaranacLake Posted January 15, 2021 Author Share Posted January 15, 2021 6 hours ago, gw1500se said: Once you have the redirect in place, does it matter? Let me rephrase what I was asking. If this was my website being listed in Google.... And let's say that I changed where "History of Basketball" was physically listed in my public_html folder, and thus the URL would change, would that end up changing how the search results (like abive) looked, and would it hurt where my website or web page ranked in Google? If the example above wouldn't change, but when you clicked on "History of Basketball", then nothing lost. But if by re0organizing my site, if that hurt my website's page rank or even changed how the search results looked, then that would be good to know in advance. Hope that makes more sense? Quote Link to comment https://forums.phpfreaks.com/topic/312006-avoiding-broken-links/#findComment-1583808 Share on other sites More sharing options...
guymclarenza Posted January 17, 2021 Share Posted January 17, 2021 Google will redirect as per your htaccess and start pointing people at the new link once they have crawled the site and found the redirects. You should not be punished for making your pages more structured, if anything you should get plus points. Quote Link to comment https://forums.phpfreaks.com/topic/312006-avoiding-broken-links/#findComment-1583814 Share on other sites More sharing options...
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