Page Title in URL - What do I do if the page's title changes?

Question

Let's say I have a web site with a bunch of articles on it, with each article on its own page. Also, each page's URL has the title of the article in it, like this:

http://www.example.com/article/how-to-feed-a-walrus

If I create the article "How to Feed a Walrus", and a month later change the title to "How to Bathe a Walrus", should I change the URL to reflect this new title? The reason I ask is that if there are external links to the original URL, then those will no longer work since the URL changed. I don't want Google, for example, linking to a bunch of "Article Not Found" pages.

Answer 1

The recommended way to deal with this is to use a 301 ("permanent") redirect from the old article URL to the new article URL. That way users and search engines will be automatically redirected, and you should keep the vast majority of your link equity.

That being said, bathing vs feeding a walrus sound like they would have mostly different article contents, so in this case it may be better to just leave the old article up and put up the new one in addition.

If you were going from "how to bathe a walrus" to "how to feed and bathe a walrus" then the permanent redirect would make more sense, as the old article's contents would be found at the new location.

Answer 2

It won't be a problem but SEO will be disturbed. because Keyword in URL and Keyword in the title will different. If your article is scoring on top and you change it then it will drop your article to 3rd or 4th result. It will be a slight drop but there will be a drop.

As answered by Maximillian Laumeister advice, i would like to suggest the same, because google will simply replace your article URL and Title, without losing any SEO.