Require a solution for solving self generated 404s that meets our SEO needs

Question

Our Setup:

We use Magento Community (v 1.8.1) and use Microsoft Navision to manage our business processes in the backend (product info, stock levels, ordering, warehousing, etc) and the Navconnect plugin to pass changes made in Navision into Magento.

The Problem:

From time to time we have products that require re-packaging, the product stays the same (same name, same description, same price) but in order to differentiate the old and new packaging, we give the new version a new SKU code.

Now currently our process has been to go into NavConnect and create a new product and copy across all of the same content and settings for the existing product while set to disabled. Once we are happy that it is an exact clone of the existing product, we disable the existing product and enable the new product and push this information into Magento.

However this causing a number of issues:

1. The old page is now creating a 404 error
2. The new product page has a new url /productA-1234.html

So not only are we giving visitors a bad experience by providing them with a link that displays a 404 error, but we are also harming our SEO work by changing the urls, which is effectively throwing away any page ranking authority that we' ve built up over time (All the inbound links pointing to this product page - both external + internal)

Now I'm fairly new to using Magento, so first of al I'm wondering if what we are trying to do is even possible. (i.e. Can you replace a products SKU and hope to keep the same URL?)

Secondly, if it is possible, what's the best solution to make sure we keep our url in tact without causing more 404 errors and url with numbers attached to the end?

I hope this makes sense?

Answer 1

If you wish to have the new product referenced by the original URL, you likely will need to contact NavConnect for assistance.

If you just want to fix the 404's you can add a URL rewrite in the magento backend to send all requests for the original URL to the new one. Try this:

• Admin->Catalog->URL Rewrite Management: -Click Button: Add URL Rewrite
• Select from the dropdown: For product
• Choose your product
• Choose a category if you wish a specific category be referenced in the new redirected URL (mystore/shirts/oxfordwhite.html instead of generically mystore/oxfordwhite.html
• In the next form, enter the new URL in the Request Path field and add the rest of the data as you wish

If someone knows how this will affect SEO please comment and I'll add it here.

Don't forget to re-index the Catalog URL Rewrites!