Our August SEO webinar shared insights on the impact that your website’s information architecture and URL structure have on your performance in search engines. For the full details, access the webinar recording, SEO and URL Management: The What and How of Website URLs, or download the SEO webinar presentation slides. Below you’ll find a transcript of the Q&A session we hosted for participants at the end of the presentation.

Q: What impact does using a 301 redirect have on SEO for your site?

A: 301 redirectswill degrade your link authority over time, so be careful to use 301 redirects sparingly. However, 301s are a necessary “Band-Aid” in a lot of cases.Especially if you’re moving from one site to another, you really can’t go without them, they’rea necessary evil.

Q: If you’re setting up a blog on your site, is it better for SEO to use a subdomain like blog.domain.com or would it be better to use a folder structure like domain.com/blog?

A: Use the folder structure if you can. Most people are trained to use that structure. If they want to see someone’s blog, they’re going to enter domain.com/blog almost automatically. Using a subdomain makes it harder for people to find you.  Plus, when using a domain like domain.com/blog versus blog.domain.comyou avoid competing with yourself from an SEO perspective.Using the folder structure domain.com/blog will help you maintain link authority from all of the content on your blog and your corporate site.

Q: Is there a tool for redirecting all of the URLs from an old site to a new site when you launch a new site?

A: There is a tool that was actually developed at Siteworx. We’ve used it in the past for that. When URL redirects are completed by a developer, it can take weeks at a time to create the appropriate mapping from an old site to a new one, not to mention the cost and opportunity lost having your developer complete such a monotonous task. A tool like SEOversitewill allow you to use a simple spreadsheet to map your old URLs to your new domain. You can redirect a large number of URLs at one time; otherwise it can be a time-consuming, costly headache. Again, it’s one of those necessary evils. If you’re moving from an old site to a new site, URL redirects are very important and something you can’t forget about.

Q: When assigning a URL using your CMS, is it necessary to go all the way to the page level? For example: www.site.com/product/page.html or www.site.com/product/productname.html.

A: Those are the kind of questions you should ask when you are either initially putting up your site or putting up a new CMS. Sometimes you’re limited by what the content management system can do as opposed to what you want to do. You want to be able to structure your content in a way that makes sense for your visitors. That goes for navigation as well. If you have a page navigation that makes sense, your URL structure should follow that.

Q: How does your domain name come into play as far as SEO goes?

A: The length of time you’ve had your domain name is more important than the name itself. Trust comes into play.If you have a domain that has been available for over ten years, it’s going to give you an advantage over somebody who just put up a domain last week. That domain may have a great name, but it won’t be viewed as being as trustworthy as your long-standing domain. Also, if you have your business or product name as the domain name,you’ll earn brand equity and as a result you’ll almost always rank very high for your product or business name. Aside from the actual domain name, the keywords that follow the domain have the most impact from an SEO standpoint.

Our next webinar will take place September, 23 at 1 p.m. ET. To receive notifications of all of our news and events, Subscribe to Siteworx E-News or follow Siteworx on Twitter.