Client Help!

Hey everyone,

Ok so I have run into a situation that I'm not sure how it will turn out. I've done a lot of SEO optimization for my own sites and on client as well. Nothing that is too major. I did some SEO work for him earlier in the year and now he wants to start again. Here is the situation.

He's launching the site with mybigcommerce now and it uses file paths that his old one does not. His site will keep the same url, but the product subpages is what I am worried about. So for instance this is what will happen.

client-site . com / product # 1

will now be

client-site . com / products / product # 1

However, as it is now, they are calling the file a completely different name. I know for sure that will ruin the established page rank and the SERPS... So in order to keep the page rank and backlinks, it must stay:

client-site . com / product # 1 .html

or will this work

client-site . com / products / product # 1
right?

Anybody else run into this?

Any advice? http://www.blackhatworld.com/blackhat-seo/editpost.php?do=editpost&p=3207100

Create a new page, 301 redirect until new page ranks.

Not exactly sure what you're asking, but can't you just do a 301 redirect?

Pretty much what oxonbeef said!

Don't complain to much as those changes will keep you in work for a bit longer

make sure the client understands whats happening. keep him educated.

this might even be an opportunity to charge more!

wannabie said:

Pretty much what oxonbeef said!

Don't complain to much as those changes will keep you in work for a bit longer

Click to expand...

Yeh! You got to charge big for that
What I don't understand is taking on clients without knowing basic SEO.

I had similar situation before so here some of my advises:

1. Try to use 301 redirect ( permenant ). It will help index the new links and gain some authority but not 100%

2. As soon as you change your Meta Tag, Content, Keywords in the web page, Google will recalculate the "Keyword Authority" and "Relevancy". It may end up loss or gain some ranking on SERP.

3. Pagerank will probably change. Even though we don't need to worry too much about pagerank rating but it is still very important. Once you redirect the page, your page rank will be effected because again Google will need to recalculate the in-bound links and overall structure of your website.

4. If your client's site is selling tangible products with having local backlinks from sites like yelp.com, yellowpages, 411, etc, then you don't need to worry too much for this kind of changes. What you need to do is

- Verify with Google Webmaster tools
- Submit a new sitemap
- click Diagnose Problems then click Fetch like Google Bot
- Put the new links one by one and click index all web pages

After that, Google should revisit your website in couple of hours and index all new pages in days.

Please also use
<link rel="canonical" href="your New Page" /> if you know how.

I know it is a pain in the ass for this kind of change but don't worry too much. Just start up a new campaign

to build more links.

This is also a great opportunity to charge a premium for a change like this. I did it and my client was very happy to pay me for this.

Good Luck

Ok, I would rather have the file structure setup as:

client website . com / product # 1

as it is on the original site. I can get them to change their file structure so that it mirrors the old site and that it how I would do it. It will just take going through each product. That is what I was going to recommend. I'd rather not do the 301 redirect because the site is older and has a high page rank even in the sub pages. If the redirect will work then that is fine, I will give them the option.


I am just used to doing more things like setting their keyword density, making sure they have their headings and title setup, making sure they have the basics such as a site map and building backlinks. They just kind of sprung this on me and their in house web guy was just going to change all the names of the pages and delete the old site.

tianya said:

I

Please also use
<link rel="canonical" href="your New Page" /> if you know how.

Click to expand...

Thanks for the advice Tianya. I'll make sure to do that if they do not want to just change the file names and structure to match. It sounds like the redirect and the "canonical" tag will be almost as good. I just didn't want them to lose everything as they were originally going to do.