Huge uptick in 404s on new website
-
I just launched a new website, and I see that the 404s shot up hugely in Google Webmaster Tools right during the launch. We went from Drupal to WordPress, but I was wondering if anyone has any thoughts on whether these 404s represent a crisis, or potentially something harmless? There has been no noticeable SEO downtick in terms of keywords or queries during the same period...
Thanks for any thoughts.
-
Christy: I think that the answers have been helpful, but the jury is still out. I'm taking advice from both Patrick and Toby's input, and I'll update this space as soon as I see some changes.
The one question that I don't see answered is: are these 404s definitely harming the website's SEO, assuming that they are NOT being visited by users? I'd love to know what people think on that.
-
Hi there, thanks for your question! You've received some good responses. Did any of them help resolve you resolve your issue? We'd love an update, thanks!
Christy
-
"We went from Drupal to WordPress"
That seems like a very backwards move to me, that should be the other way around (My personal opinion anyway)
On the 404s though, any URL changes will cause problems, you will need to add in redirects to deal with those.
On a drupal specific note, if your old site was using the 'URL Redirect' module, you may have had a number of redirects in place in the database, these wouldn't have been in your .htaccess file and will no longer work after moving to wordpress.
-
Hi there
Did you change URLs at all? Did you check your URL mapping before launching the site? Take a look at your sitemap (then submit to Google and Bing Webmaster Tools) and internal links as well to see if there are any issues.
Take a look at this guide from Moz as well on a site migration. This will be a huge help.
Let me know if you have any questions or comments! Good luck!
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 can I identify technical problems with my website?
I am hoping for your good health. I would appreciate any tips on fixing technical issues on my website. Could anyone please help me to resolve some technical issues on my website? Thanks in advance. Here is my website: Apkarc
Technical SEO | | jjbndjkui880 -
How to check if my website is penalized ?
Hi all, I just went over some post that my page can get penalized for over optimizing. I realized my page has quite a lot of h1 (6 it had 30) and a lot of "bold" keywords, does the bolding affect the page seo/penalizing the page? the page im talking about it palmislander.com/dumaguete-travel-guide Thanks
Technical SEO | | i3arty0 -
Can redirect URL website also shown on the google ranking? and higher than the original website?
can redirect URL website also shown on the google ranking? and higher than the original website? For example, I create URL B which redirect to website A, and do good SEO on URL B, can URL B rank higher than my original website A?
Technical SEO | | HealthmateForever0 -
Old domain to new domain
Hi, A website on server A is no longer required. The owner has redirected some URLS of this website (via plugin) to his new website on server B -but not all URLS. So when I use COMMAND site:website A , I see a mixture of redirected URLS and not redirected URLS.Therefore two websites are still being indexed in some form and causing duplication. However, weirdly when I crawl with Screaming Frog I only see one URL which is 301 redirected to the new website. I would have thought I'd see lots of URLs which hadn't been redirected. How come it is different to using the site:command? Anyway, how do I move to the new website completely without the old one being indexed anymore. I thought I knew this but have read so many blogs I've confused myself! Should I: Redirect all URLS via the HTACESS file on old website on server A? There are lots of pages indexed so a lot of URLs. What if I miss some? or Point the old domain via DNS to server B and do the redirects in website B HTaccess file? This seems more sensible but does this method still retain the website rankings? Thanks for any help
Technical SEO | | AL123al0 -
Website Hierarchy Question / Discussion
Hey all, I am looking to get the opinions off the community to help settle a discussion / debate. We are looking at how a site is laid out and which is the preferred method. There are two options: www.site.com --> /category-page --> /product-page (With this option, you always have the domain name and then page, no matter where in the site you actually are, and how many clicks it took you to get there). Your URL to the end page here would be www.site.com/product-page www.site.com --> /category-page --> /category-page/product-page --> (With this option, you into a defined structure). Your URL to the end page here would be www.site.com/category-page/product-page If you have a moment, I would be interested to know your views on which you would consider to be your preferred method and why. Thanks, Andy
Technical SEO | | Andy.Drinkwater0 -
How to handle pagination for a large website?
I am currently doing a site audit on a large website that just went through a redesign. When looking through their webmaster tools, they have about 3,000 duplicate Title Tags. This is due to the way their pagination is set up on their site. For example. domain.com/books-in-english?page=1 // domain.com/books-in-english?page=4 What is the best way to handle these? According to Google Webmaster Tools, a viable solution is to do nothing because Google is good at distinguishing these. That said, it seems like their could be a better solution to help prevent duplicate content issues. Any advice would be much welcomed. 🙂
Technical SEO | | J-Banz0 -
Ecommerce website with too many links on page
Hi, I'm working on onsite seo for an ecommerce website and my recent report has shown that I have a high number of pages where there are 'too many links on page'. Does anyone have tips on how to avoid this when we're using mega menus, plenty of navigation for the user and links to products on each page? Thanks
Technical SEO | | Will_Craig1 -
Absolute of Relative Internal Website Links
Hi, I am not sure what is considered best practice when linking between pages on the same site - absolute or relative: Link Or Link I notice a lot of CMS systems (WordPress) use the absolute method - is there a reason? Any help much appreciated. Barney.
Technical SEO | | barnst0