Do I necessarily need to apply 301 Redirects ?

[davidbarnes77@googlemail.]

Hello all,

I have a quick query I'm hoping to get some advice on regarding 301 redirects.

We purchased an established ecom store recently, that's been online since 2005. It hasn't got a huge presence in the market (the previous owner was out of her depth and of retirement age, didn't really market it and didn't keep on-top of adding new products), but it does have some good visibility on google searches for 'some' products and general category searches (there were other reasons we purchased it btw, not just for past google search wealth).

Briefly, we've had the site updated/re-designed and put onto a new platform (it's on staging at the mo, so hasn't gone live yet). We've also adding tons of new products (again these haven't gone live yet). I mentioned to the company who are doing this for us, that we'll send a spreadsheet with all the old and new URLs, so they can apply it for 301 redirects. However, they've suggested that 301 redirects are not needed now, as Google is clever enough to work out, that the old URL of any such product, can be matched up to the new URL - on the basis that the products still have the same (or similar) name.

Some relevant info:

1) The main domain name has not changed
2) Whilst the products have not changed name, the way they are displayed/termed on the website maybe slightly different. For e.g the old product might be stated as 'Harrington 13115-600 Mocha Brown' and the new one might say 'Harrington 13115/600 Brown' (this is a made-up product name btw).
3) The sub-directories, paths and slugs on the new site, though similar, will not be exactly the same. For example ..../Traditional/... may now be .../Traditional & Vintage/....
4) There is also the consideration of general (non-product specific) google searches such as 'Large Brown Chair'. We come up on page 1, 2 or 3 on quite a few general searches, and so it was our thoughts to redirect these URLs to the correct category on the new website.
5) Many of the existing products don't currently see light of day on google searches, so it's my thoughts that we would not look to redirect these, as it might actually have a negative effect. Whereas a new link for the same product may actually have better hits - especially once we start marketing things. We'd probably only look to redirect around 100-200 URLs

The Developer has been brilliant by the way all the way along, and I've no real reason to doubt what they have said about not needing 301 redirects. But I am just surprised at what he said, so I wanted to get a 2nd opinion.

Many thanks in advance.

 

[Community]

Absolute rubbish, even if you wasnt applying redirects to retain some SEO value for the products etc, they are still aid user experience, which correlate to user metrics and usage signals.

Redirecting old relevent products to new ones that a customer might like instead can mean the difference between visitors leaving, or checking out.

Regardless of the developers ability to be a developer, thats why he's a developer and not a marketer.

Unfortunately, alot of these devs seem to suggest platforms where redirects are not always possible, in which case they shouldnt have suggested an established brand to be using a platform which has little to no flexiblity to scale.

Insist on the redirects being tried and tested before going live, the benefits far outweigh the time/investment spent.