Websites often have their domain names changed and begin using a new URL. If the name of a brand is changed, the name of the website is changed or the company merges with another business, then a company may feel this step is necessary. This sort of decision should always be made carefully and thoughtfully though because the changing of important details like this can have a serious effect on a business and its SEO.
When a domain name and URL is changed, this means that all the previous links and marketing that exits for the original URL are no longer of great importance and the advertising campaign for the new URL must begin again. If a business has been established for a long time, this can be an important issue for consideration. A way that businesses try to ensure that any visitors to the old URL will also visit the new URL is by setting up an automatic redirect from the original URL.
However, changing a URL and setting up a redirect from one URL to another can negatively affect how the new URL is viewed and ranked by the search engines. The major concern for the search engines regarding redirects is that they may have not been established for legitimate reasons. If the website is not legitimate and each URL is not owned by the same company, the search engines do not want to be ranking such a URL inappropriately.
A recently published patent application from Yahoo! explores the issue of redirected URLs and how search engines can identify if these redirects are legitimate or not. This patent suggests that the search engine must determine if the URLs are owned by the same person or business.
A way for search engines to find if a pair of URLs is co-owned or not is by the examining the registration details of each. However, this can be a time-consuming task as there are so many redirected URLs currently present on the internet. The development of an automated system in order to check ownership is therefore necessary.
Yahoo! suggests that a web crawler could be used to identify two URLs that feature a redirect and then these URLs could be examined further using an algorithm that would explore key factors. This would mean that the identification of legitimate URLs could be carried out using an automated process that uses previously gathered information and that explores key factors to help with this determination. Anchor text, domain name server and web page titles may all be checked for overlaps to help establish if the two URLs are owned by the same company.
If redirecting a URL there are some important issues to consider and key factors to remember if you are doing it legitimately and want the search engines to view your URL as such. Ownership of both URLs is of major significance to search engines such as Yahoo! and so this ownership should be demonstrated and clear for the search engines to see. We at SEO Consult can help businesses with all aspects of search engine optimisation. If a URL is redirected, the company may require the use of some other SEO methods in order to help them achieve success with this new URL. At SEO Consult, we can help you promote the new URL efficiently and help you be viewed by the search engines as legitimate and worth acknowledging.
Related posts:
- URLs and keywords: caution
- New search features from Yahoo! and how this may affect brands
- Could the amount of time it takes a web page to load affect search engine optimisation?
- The crawling of web pages
- Can PDF documents affect SEO?
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How redirected URLs can affect your SEO…
Websites often have their domain names changed and begin using a new URL. If the name of a brand is changed, the name of the website is changed or the company merges with another business, then a company may feel this step is necessary. This sort of de…
How redirected URLs can affect your SEO…
Websites often have their domain names changed and begin using a new URL. If the name of a brand is changed, the name of the website is changed or the company merges with another business, then a company may feel this step is necessary. This sort of d…
How redirected URLs can affect your SEO…
Websites often have their domain names changed and begin using a new URL. If the name of a brand is changed, the name of the website is changed or the company merges with another business, then a company may feel this step is necessary. This sort of de…
How redirected URLs can affect your SEO…
Websites often have their domain names changed and begin using a new URL. If the name of a brand is changed, the name of the website is changed or the company merges with another business, then a company may feel this step is necessary. This sort of de…
How redirected URLs can affect your SEO…
Websites often have their domain names changed and begin using a new URL. If the name of a brand is changed, the name of the website is changed or the company merges with another business, then a company may feel this step is necessary. This sort of de…
How redirected URLs can affect your SEO…
Websites often have their domain names changed and begin using a new URL. If the name of a brand is changed, the name of the website is changed or the company merges with another business, then a company may feel this step is necessary. This sort of de…
How redirected URLs can affect your SEO…
Websites often have their domain names changed and begin using a new URL. If the name of a brand is changed, the name of the website is changed or the company merges with another business, then a company may feel this step is necessary. This sort of de…
How redirected URLs can affect your SEO…
Websites often have their domain names changed and begin using a new URL. If the name of a brand is changed, the name of the website is changed or the company merges with another business, then a company may feel this step is necessary. This sort of de…
How redirected URLs can affect your SEO…
Websites often have their domain names changed and begin using a new URL. If the name of a brand is changed, the name of the website is changed or the company merges with another business, then a company may feel this step is necessary. This sort of de…
How redirected URLs can affect your SEO…
Websites often have their domain names changed and begin using a new URL. If the name of a brand is changed, the name of the website is changed or the company merges with another business, then a company may feel this step is necessary. This sort of de…
How redirected URLs can affect your SEO…
Websites often have their domain names changed and begin using a new URL. If the name of a brand is changed, the name of the website is changed or the company merges with another business, then a company may feel this step is necessary. This sort of de…