Cineworld have 74 cinemas around the UK. They are doing pretty well considering the company was only formed in 1996. Their site recently had a bit of a re-vamp but the developers didn’t bother with any re-directs from the old URL’s to the new URL’s. It means my bookmark to my local cinema doesn’t work and they must be losing a big chunk of traffic.
So I thought I’d should sent them an e-mail.
Dear Sir / Madam
I go to the Cineworld Didsbury cinema about three to four times a month. Before the visit I check times by going to the Didsbury cinema page on your site.
Last week I checked cinema times to see a film but when clicking my bookmark the page returned a 404 error. (A 404 error means the page isn’t there). It was at this point I noticed the site has been redesigned and after a quick check released that the inner page URL’s had also changed. For example
The old Didsbury cinema page URL was :
http://www.cineworld.co.uk/reservation/ChoixResa.jgi?REGION=4&CINEMA=84
The new Didsbury cinema page URL is now:
http://www.cineworld.co.uk/cinemas/18
I know a little about websites and Internet marketing, so I’ll give a little bit of free advice. Add 301 re-directs from the old URL’s to the new ones. This way when clicking on my bookmark I’ll get automatically re-directed to the new URL. Best of all the search engines will also get re-directed. Your site must be loosing a lot of traffic indeed which can have the knock on in less people visiting the cinema.
The re-directs can be done by adding rules to your htaccess file. It’s pretty simple, any problems do e-mail back.
Kind Regards
Lets see if we get a reply.