How to tell google about the changes
-
Hello All
this is my first question here. we have recently changed our website design and backend. so the problem now is in google it is showing the old url's and when ever a client come from google he is prasented with a 404 error page
if this happenes many times. will google penalise our site ? if yes. how to prevent this from happen.
waiting for some replies.. thanks
-
That's a good sign. Carry out all the above and you'll be back on track swiftly.
Hope it all goes well for you
-
thanks for the reply once again.. i will try to do that ASAP. just noticed the new site url's also poping up in google when clicked in <more pages="" from="" our="" domain="">.. but mostly its a mix of old ones and new pages...</more>
-
You're welcome, glad to be able to help.
301 redirecting that many pages would take a while for sure and probably unnecessary for many of them.
I'd suggest individually 301 redirecting your most important pages, such as the obvious ones like your main product pages, about us, contact us... plus pages that have any valuable links pointing into them.
Then for the remainder, you can do a Wildcard 301 redirect, for example, redirecting all pages within a certain directory such as /news/
Regards
Simon
-
hey
thank you so much for nice explanation.
-
our domain name is same. so we have trafic from google but they are getting 404 page
-
we have already genarated new sitemap and submited to google via webmaster tools
-
the only thing i am not sure is how to set a up a 301 direct for those many pages. like we have more 2000 pages which shows up in google. as we sale products and we have the old site up from 2008..
do i need to hand pick all the url's to create a 301 redirect ?
-
-
Hi There
It sounds like your old URLs have not been 301 Redirected to the new URLs. If so, it's now a case of damage limitation.
As a matter of urgency, you'll need to map your old pages to point to the most appropriate new ones, then 301 redirect those old URLs to the mapped new ones.
Then update your sitemap.xml and submit/re-submit it via Google Webmaster Tools (GWMT). Also ensure that your robots.txt file is up-to-date.
If it's not too late, which it probably isn't yet as you say that Google is showing your old URLs, this will ensure that as much page strength as possible is retained, by being transferred from the old page to the new one via a 301 redirect. It will let Google know which old pages to replace (reindex) with the correct new page.
This will also reduce the number of 404 pages that are presented to your visitors as the search results (old URLs) will be redirected to the correct new pages.
As for your homepage, hopefully that hasn't changed (as in a new domain name). If it is indeed the same as before, you'll still get visitors finding that page correctly. Though with the site showing so many 404 pages and at present, old pages loosing strength as they cannot be found, your domain authority and homepage strength could start to reduce soon, thus reducing your rankings for your homepage.
If your domain name has changed, you'll need to inform Google of the change via GWMT.
If the above isn't done and done soon, your old pages will start to disappear from search engine indexes and you'll be starting from scratch with your new pages.
Hope that helps,
Regards
Simon
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
How to use Google search console's 'Name change' tool?
Hi There, I'm having trouble performing a 'Name change' for a new website (rebrand and domain change) in Google Search console. Because the 301 redirects are in place (a requirement of the name change tool), Google can no longer verify the site, which means I can't complete the name change? To me, step two (301 redirect) conflicts with step there (site verification) - or is there a way to perform a 301 redirect and have the tool verify the old site? Any pointers in the right direction would be much appreciated. Cheers Ben
Technical SEO | | cmscss0 -
What is the best way to change the URL along with the brand name change & having a minimal affect on the traffic
We are changing our brand name & hence our URL should change as well What is the best way to do that keeping in view we donot want to take a hit on the existing traffic to our ecommerce site as we get a good revenue from the site. Can someone give me the best strategy to approach this or share there experience with a similar issue they have dealt earlier
Technical SEO | | sharp_instincts1 -
Google Not Recognizing Domain Name Change
It has been over a month since we have switch https://www.iwdextensions.com
Technical SEO | | lsujoe
to
https://www.iwdagency.com/extensions/ Yet Google is still ranking the old domain name in their search results. https://www.google.com/webhp?sourceid=chrome-instant&ion=1&espv=2&ie=UTF-8#q=iwd extensions Are we doing something wrong or does it take Google more than a month to update their results for this type of change? We have 301 redirected the old url to the new one and submitted a domain name change in GWT. Let me know your thoughts!0 -
How to change primary language of the website?
Problem: there is a domain.com which primary language is Lithuanian, we want to switch it to English. The English content is on the website fully translated under domain.com/en/english-url. Question: How do i switch English content to domain.com while moving the Lithuanian one to domain.com/lt/lithuanian-url The purpose of course is NOT to loose neither English nor Lithuanian organic traffic Possible solution: the only solution I though of is to 301 English /en urls to domain.com ant to 301 the Lithuanian domain.com urls to /lt. Is that everything I should do or is there some other meta tags, server side or other stuff i should be worried about?
Technical SEO | | SEO_MediaInno0 -
Google Links
I am assuming that the list presented by Google Webmaster tools (TRAFFIC | Links To Your Site) is the one that will actually be used by Google for indexing ? There seem to be quite a few links that there that should not be there. ie Assumed NOFOLLOW links. Am I working under an incorrect assumption that all links in webmaster tools are actually followed ?
Technical SEO | | blinkybill0 -
Why is google ignoring my sitelinks demotions?
I'm referring to the sitelinks that appear in the SERPs when searching for my brand name. 6 subpages come up- some found in my main navigation, some not. 3 of the 6 sitelinks have been demoted in Webmaster Tools under "Site Configuration > Sitelinks." I realize that they say in their instructions: "Google doesn't guarantee that demoted URLs will never appear as a sitelink, but we do consider a demotion a strong hint that we'll try to honor when generating sitelinks." I am just surprised they would ignore 3 of the demotions and for so long. The pages that are demoted do not have very many internal links pointing to them (unlike other pages of my site that are targeted specifically). Also, the site has tens of thousands of pages to choose from. Why are they ignoring my request? What else can I do to fix this?
Technical SEO | | Hakkasan0 -
Google Sandboxing
I have a new site with a new domain that ranked well the 1st week or so after it was indexed then it totally dropped off the SERP. My question is, does Google Sandboxing affect new sites on new domains that don't have any incoming links? The site dropped off before I began link building - from what I've read unnatural link build is often the cause. Can you still be sandboxed without any link building? If this is the case, are there things I can do to get out of the sandbox? Thanks folks, Jason
Technical SEO | | OptioPublishing0 -
How to disallow google and roger?
Hey Guys and girls, i have a question, i want to disallow all robots from accessing a certain root link: Get rid of bots User-agent: * Disallow: /index.php?_a=login&redir=/index.php?_a=tellafriend%26productId=* Will this make the bots not to access any web link that has the prefix you see before the asterisk? And at least google and roger will get away by reading "user-agent: *"? I know this isn't the standard proceedure but if it works for google and seomoz bot we are good.
Technical SEO | | iFix0