4 replies to this topic

[smc_online]

I've been tasked with creating a quick and brief project plan listing the steps to a website URL rewrite project. Anyone have any suggestions on how this high level plan should look like?

[K.S. Katz]

Hey URL Rewrites are no longer necessary to get crawled, so you might want to scrub the whole idea. Here's the post on Google that talks about it:

googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com/2008/09/dynamic-urls-vs-static-urls.html

[MaKa]

Something along the lines of:

1) Analysing existing pages
2) Determining what to use for friendly URL names (What's used for URL title/menu names, which characters are allowed)
3) How to handle duplicated names
4) How the handle changes in URL names (What to do if the title of a page and thus URL changes, do you keep the old use the new? If you use the new will there be a redirect from the old to the new? How long will it remain)
5) Analyse impact of implementing URL changes? (Factor in temporary loss of rankings/traffic? Plan for during low seasonal trends)
6) Transferring to friendly URLs.

I wouldn't be surprised if you come to step 5) and decide not to go for friendly URLs as they will most likely have a bigger in pact on your site than initially expected. If you're redesigning the website anyway into a completely new structure you could consider changing to friendly URLs at the same time. From my experience just changing the whole URL naming convention for friendly URLs doesn't give you any rankings benefit. There may be a small usability benefit for expert users if they can cut bits of the end of the URL.

--just my 2 cents.

[Jill]

Don't forget a plan for the redirection of the old URLs to the new as much as possible.

[adibranch]

Hey URL Rewrites are no longer necessary to get crawled, so you might want to scrub the whole idea.

not needed doesnt necessarily mean they carry no benefit. keyterms in URL's are still used . Not only that but visitors prefer to see friendly and recogniseable word based URL's, as it makes them happy they're easily pleased...