Changing link structure - what's the impact

Discussion in 'Search Engine Optimization' started by nsusa, Apr 26, 2007.

  1. #1
    I am considering to change the link structure on one of my websites. The current links are

    The new link structure would be

    "category" represents the category name and "article-name" represents the actual name of the article (is also in H1 tags).

    I wrote an .htaccess rule to redirect from old to new.

    There are a few more rules, but that is not what the question is really about.

    1) Is the rule itself sufficient enough or does it need to be a 301 and how would the rule then look like?

    2) What's the impact for my rankings and page rank that I would have to expect? Is it better to forget the entire idea and stay where I am?

    The site is a few years old and uses a commercial (now by development abandonded) software. I'd hate to put my rankings at risk just by trying to SEO the site a little better.

    Any feedback would be welcome.

    Thanks.

    Christoph
     
    nsusa, Apr 26, 2007 IP