how to change my webpages without effecting my indexing

I created my whole website page structure incorrectly. Right now all my backpages 49 of them are like this

mysite.com/longtailkeyword.php
mysite.com/longtailkeyword2.php etc

my index links to all of them in the footer eg..

longtailkeyword1 | longtailkeyword2 | etc etc

and I have some ranking and traffic...

I believe id have better ranking and traffic with this format..

mysite.com/long-tail-keyword.php
mysite.com/long-tail-keyword2.php
etc etc

question is... whats the best way to effect the change???

thanks in advance guys...

actually, it will be better without the slashes

they way you did it is great, don't change it


and about the links in the footer, look, i really recommend to prevent this method, its good, but if you have 50 links from there its not that much


I can tell you it will be better to add those links in the content itself

something like:

"Welcome to my computer guides site, in that site you will find a laptops guides and some Photoshop Guides too...." etc

ofcourse the bolded text is the links, the first link is to your home page for instans...


Moreover, i recommand not changing the site to much (especially not titles, H1, H2)
it can hurt you rankings for a cycle of time. (though the rankings returns to their own place most of the time if you do it the right way)


good luck with your site

serious? i dont come up in ...irurl: .. at all... unless i type without the spaces.. more ppl search with spaces than w/o

care to explain why you say its better w/o the dashes??

the way u have ur site setup is fine, and ur not making any huge changes SEO wise with ur new structure either.

so just let it be

actually nobody searches without spaces, to compete with spaces u will have to do some serious SEO, depending on ur selected keyword.

for example i have a site where i review a product, and the url is http://is<product>ascam.com

now if u type that in G ill be at number 1, but if u type it with spaces, im on page 5 or 6

I don't think it really matters, but if you want to test, just change a couple and see if they rank as well.

You will need to do a 301 redirect from your non-hyphen URLs to the matching hyphed URLs so that Google sees it as a permanent change and shifts the page value from the old page to the new page though.

Cheers
Nugget

With the change you propose, you will lose all existing ranking and keyword strength until your site is re-digested by the engine and reposted in the 'new' appropriate place (according to the engine) based on those changes.

IMO - The change you suggest will hurt you more than help you.

1st You lose what you have now.
2nd You are not guaranteed to get back or surpass what you lost.
3rd There are places you could better spend your time in seo now that you are indexed, than to change what you have already gained in the SERPS.

Any gain you (might) get from the hyphens change to the page names WILL NOT give you the traffic increases (from search) that you are expecting, and further, let's not forget that you will lose what you have today...

Oh, and a good html sitemap in the footer will help too.

do not change lol. you search in google any keyword or better your own keyword and you will find that both the types are ranking high as you have given in the above example. it will literally make no difference.

very true do not change the titles, i did many a times and now 2 of my main keywords,could not even found in google search.

well if i were you, i started building more backlinks, directory submssion, social bookmarking blah blah, of course that helps, and yes quality content not just some duplicate content, if you use orginal content it will give you a total boost.

thats what i know as far my experiences goes.

there are so many cheap services for available for BHW, so search around spend some dime, and you will be at the top

whatever you do don't stop link building.