I am thinking of creating 301 redirects for pages that are updated versions of existing pages, on the same site.
The old and new pages will have very similar content. But, I want better URLs and title tags, so I am creating new pages. I can't remove the old pages from the site (or edit them), or the sitemap, due to constraints on this platform.
GOALS: Get search engines to see the new pages instead of the old, get better SEO, not be penalized for duplicate content.
Example:
- Current page: category/brand/product1234.html
- New page: /model-brand-category-detail-product-12-34.html
- Note that the new page has a better, more detailed URL, with a better model number that closer reflects the real model number. It is also closer to the root.
The new pages will not be in the sitemap. The old pages will stay in the sitemap.
QUESTIONS: Will it cause problems in this case to create 301 redirects for all the new pages? My concern is that if the old pages are still in the sitemap Google will penalize me.