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Avoiding broken links


SaranacLake

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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?

 

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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.

 

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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....

image.png.caf5f1fdf88d286d25d6951188d6d985.png

 

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?

 

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