I have a couple of pages that have spaces instead of hyphens. so in search results I get .... /page%20name.htm (20% representing the space) These pages are only 1-1/2 months old, but have been indexed & the site is about a year old. I've read somewhere that Google does not like deleted pages. Is this correct? So is it a good idea to re-name these pages & delete the old ones after the new ones have been indexed?
Usually I'd say: don't rename pages. It's a lot of hassle. But in the case of spaces in URL's - I hate those, and they are hard to type for people. So in this case I would rename them, and leave up the old ones with a link to the new. It's no use to only delete the old ones when the new ones have been indexed, because that will just create duplicate pages on your site -something you want to avoid if you can (wish I'd known that 8 years ago, but that's another story). Keep the old pages, but make them empty except for a link to the new. Make sure all the links on your site point to the new. They will be indexed in a reasonable amount of time if the old ones had been indexed.
From my experience google didnt mind at all. I had some spaces in my page urls, renamed pages and they seem to show up with new url on google pretty quickly. Long story short: had no problems.
Thanks everyone. Kh7, I am not sure I understand this part: I wanted to delete them to prevent duplicate content! Anyway, so you are suggesting I remove all the links to the old pages & just leave them blank? Thanks.
Yes roughly: I'm suggesting leaving them blank, except for a link to the new page. Then, when the new page is indexed you can delete the old pages.
see if ur web pages are still not cached by google then u can go in for renaming ur webpages according to the keywords based on that webpages. but if the pages are cacahed then it is not gud to rename those pages as they will create duplicacy n supplemntal reslts for ur website, which is not at all a good sign as in SEO.
Thanks. The pages are indexed & cached. So to prevent duplication, if I have slightly different content in the re-named pages, am I safe then to delete the old ones once the new ones are indexed?
Personally if the pages are only a month old and their links to them are internal (ie they don't have a ton of external links pointing straight at them) I would defiantely change them. The hard part is deciding whether to change url paths that are a few years old seeing as how 301 doesn't always transfer the juice.
If you're going to rename, the sooner the better. It's not ideal to do so, but if the pages are less than 2 months old, it should be Ok.
Definitely rename them. Make sure you choose good names for the pages so you don't need to do this again. The best way to do it is delete the pages and setup a 301 redirect using .htaccess - if this is to technical, then here's my suggestion... 1. Remove all content from the pages. Instead, add a link to the new page eg... "This page has moved. Please visit [new page link]". Update the internal links on the rest of your site. 2. Add a meta tag to the old pages... <meta name="robots" content="noindex,follow"> This tells spiders not to index this page, but follow the links. You really want these old pages out of the index. 3. DO NOT delete the old pages. Even once the search engines have removed the old pages, people may still have bookmarked the page, or there may be links on other sites to these old pages. If you delete the pages, you may lose traffic or link juice. 4. Do not add a Meta redirect to the old pages - search engines generally don't like meta redirects.
Do not delete all pages is my old advice. When you design something you have to evaluate from the beginning what is the best way to go. Google wouldnt mind all these %20 while MSN would.