If a page needs to be deleted, a reason for deletion should be created to help determine if there needs to be a mapping to a new page or if the page should be archived. Why? A page that is deleted has acquired some metrics from the search engines and should not be 404’ed, but rather 301’ed to a related page to capture metrics.
Types of Redirects
302 Redirect is a redirect that indicates that a page has temporarily been moved, but could change again so the browser or spider should continue to use the old URL. This stops algorithmic metrics from being passed to the new page, thus CM does not suggest using this redirect from an SEO standpoint.
301 Redirect indicates that the requested page has been assigned a new permanent URL and that any future references to the page should use the new URL, and any algorithmic metrics that were gained should be passed on to the new URL.
Java Script and Meta Refresh Redirects are appealing and easier to implement in some cases, they have a negative impact on a website’s ranking in search engines, and can be seen as a spam tactic in some cases.
Mapping for a deleted page
- Page to be deleted is identified
- Link analysis is done to determine page value
- New page is identified for mapping
- Mapping is created and a 301 is implemented
- QA is done to ensure 301 redirect has been created
- SEO is notified when page gets deleted on production so it can be removed from the xml and HTML sitemaps.
Page is being moved to a new URL
- New URL is created based on URL creation rules
- Old URL that has the similar content is 301 redirected to the new URL
- QA is done to ensure 301 redirect has been created
- SEO is notified when page gets deleted on production so it can be removed from the xml and HTML sitemaps.
