Is your new website hurting your SEO?
Re-building your company’s website can be exciting and rewarding — particularly if it has been a while since your last website refresh. You get to take advantage of the latest tools in web development, and end up with a stunning modern site to promote your business. However, if the new site deployment isn’t properly planned out, there is a risk of losing Google search placement (SEO) as a result of the new site.
Many new websites include more user-friendly URL’s, which is generally a good thing. For example, the “About” page on your old site might be www.yourcompany.com/page.cfm?p=3. On your new site, the URL might be updated to www.yourcompany.com/about
Where the trouble can surface is that Google has been indexing that old URL for the past several years, and therefore that old URL has built up a good reputation in Google. When Google sees the new URL , by default it will treat it as a new page, and the old URL will turn into a dead link.
The good news is that there are straightforward methods to prevent this from happening, but they require some back-end site modifications prior to the new site going live. So, whether you work with an outside web firm, or are rebuilding in-house, it is important to ask if an SEO conversion strategy is being implemented as part of the website redesign.
