Google pagerank from 5 to 0. Can you help?

Wildflowerdyes · #1 (**permalink**) 12-28-2004, 12:27 PM

Hi, Thanks for reading this......
I have just changed all my URL address extentions to include words instead of numbers. For example, my address used to look something like this:
www.wildflowerdyes.CityMax/page/page/12345.html
I have know changed it to:
http://www.wildflowerdyes.com/tiedye_home.html
I did this because I was told it would increase my search engine ranking as I have added a keyword into the address. I checked my pagerank this morning and it has changed from 5 to 0, will this change back eventually? Can anyone explain why this would happen?
Thanks so much,
Valerie

minstrel · #2 (**permalink**) 12-28-2004, 02:33 PM

It happened because as far as the search engines are concerned those are new pages. I also notice that you are using the underscore as a word separator; if you're looking for any boost that method might provide, you should use hyphens/dashes, not underscores.

Now, to reclaim your old PR, you need to put 301 permanent redirects from each of the old page names to the corresponding new page names. There are several threads here on different methods for doing that. Then wait until the search engines catch up with your changes.

By the way, it's not necessarily going to help a great deal to rename the pages, other than perhaps making it more memorable for your visitors. You might want to reconsider whether it's really worth it.

Wildflowerdyes · #3 (**permalink**) 12-28-2004, 03:41 PM

Hi minstrel

Thanks for advice. I will change the underscores.
I have no idea how to redirect as you suggested. I will try and find the info on this site.

I guess I should have checked here first before changing my web address extentions because I am now not able to go back to my old addresses as I have checked with my host.

I guess I've learned a good lesson by doing something before really researching the results of that action.
How disapointing :(...........

minstrel · #4 (**permalink**) 12-28-2004, 04:13 PM

There is more than one method. The simplest is the refresh method which you add to the <HEAD> </HEAD> section of your old pages (recreate them if they've been deleted as follows):

Code:

<HTML>
<HEAD>
<META HTTP-EQUIV="REFRESH" CONTENT="10; URL=http://www.yourdomain.com/newpage.html">
<TITLE>This page has moved</TITLE>
</head>
<BODY>


This Page Has Moved

Please update your bookmarks to 
<A href="http://www.yourdomain.com/newpage.html">
http://www.yourdomain.com/newpage.html</A>
</p>
</body>
</html>

Don't make the value less than 10 seconds!

Alternatively, if your host allows an .htaccess file, you can use a 301 redirect there:

Code:

Redirect 301 /oldpage.html http://www.yoursite.com/newpage.html

or

Code:

Redirect permanent /oldpage.html http://www.yoursite.com/newpage.html

Or, if you can use PHP:

Code:

<?php
header("HTTP/1.1 301 Moved Permanently"); 
header("Location: http://www.newdomain.com/page.html"); 
exit(); 
?>

Or, if you're on a Windows server, use ASP:

Code:

<%
response.Status = "301 Moved Permanently"
response.addheader "location", "http://www.newdomain.com/page.html"
response.end
%>