[Request] Modify the gen-1 website to prevent confusion with SynthV Studio

Internet searches for SynthV still frequently show the legacy version (“gen-1” or “R1”) as the first result. This results in users installing the wrong product very frequently, to the point where we see revelvant questions on this forum at least weekly from users who had no way of knowing they had installed the wrong thing.

For example, searching Google for “synthv download” will send users here: Download | Synthesizer V - Official Website

While I appreciate that the legacy software remains available, it should not be accessible directly via search engine. The page title should be changed to specify that it is “gen-1” or legacy software so that link previews (like the one above) are not ambiguous, and a noindex tag should be added to the old website so that it is not indexed by Google and users must navigate there intentionally via the “previous versions” link on the main Dreamtonics homepage.

Additionally, there should be a banner or warning popup added to the page making it clear that the current software product is Synthesizer V Studio and directing users to the correct webpage.

「いいね!」 3

Or just a permanent redirect so the old site is never seen.

I think having the gen-1 version be available to the public is actually a good thing since it allows people to get introduced to the software and its capabilties at its most basic level.

So a renaming of the website or an addition of clarification would be much better than hiding it away from public eye.

That being said, I do agree that, it gets very confusing for new users.

Honestly I think it’d be much better if they’d just have one synonymous website, then they can have a bunch of drop down menus that’ll redirect you to proper pages.

… and in addition to that, they could use that as an opportunity to have a place where you can see an entire list of the voicebanks SynthV supports and have that list redirect you to the websites where you can buy them in proper.

「いいね!」 2

This is what the need to do. Pull down the old pages. For every page they pull they need to replace it with a 301 redirect. This way any old link juice for those pages won’t be lost, and any incoming links to those pages will be treated as if they are linking to the new pages. It’s very important the type of redirect used is a 301.

I was making the assumption that Dreamtonics does not want to completely remove the old website. They still have a “Previous Versions” link on the homepage, so it seems that they want to at least keep it available. The issue is not that people can navigate to the page, it’s that people end up there by accident.

A redirect is of course an option, however that would also mean making the first-generation software permanently unavailable (even to the people who intentionally want to use it), which may be an undesirable side-effect.

Of course they could add a “legacy software” folder to the existing downloads website, but this introduces additional work rather than a simple solution.

「いいね!」 1

No I get it. I ended up there by accident initially. Honestly I don’t’ see a reason to allow people to go there. Seems like a bad decision to me,