URL Changes Twice in the Same Year
-
I've got a new client with a great site, great off-page optimization and some scars and a hangover from a bad developer relationship. I'd be so grateful for your thoughts on this situation:
Some time in the not-too-distant-past, the website is established and new content is posted. We'll call this Alpha.
In April 2015, the client migrates to WordPress, implementing 301 redirects on every content page because of the capitalization issues of the old CMS. That means Alpha URLs are redirecting to Betas.
Problem is, the new Beta WordPress URLs are the the permalink structure: /%year%/%monthnum%/%postname%/ and update by default when the page content is updated meaning that any updates to existing content cause another 301.
It's my belief that for evergreen content, dates in the URL do nothing to help you and might even hurt from a user-experience standpoint, if not a search engine one. So, naturally, I'd like to move to the simple/%postname%/ structure, which would be Gamma.
So, here's how I think we should fix it.
Step 1: Update the sitemap and navigation and make the desired URL (Gamma) structure the default and the canonical.
Step 2: Change the Alpha -> Beta redirects to Alpha -> Gamma
Step 3: Add Beta -> Gamma redirects
Anyone done this in the past? Anyone have any problems with it?
-
That is really helpful! Thank you!
Looks like I'm going to have to get cozy with Screaming Frog, but that's cool.
The good news is that his social signals and inbound links are really strong, so I would expect any damage to be short-lived.
-
Hi,
Did something similar in the past - although the timeframe was a bit different (at least 5 years between the alpha & gamma version) - we also skipped step 2 as at the moment we migrated to the gamma version we didn't know the url's of the alpha version anymore.
Changing url's is always a risky business from a SEO perspective and I hope you're certain that you will stick to the gamma version for the next couple of years.
To reply to your question - the method you propose looks good and is probably the best way to migrate the url's. I would advice to check & double check the 301's. Put the new structure on a test server (mytestdomain.com or on a subdomain like test.mydomain.com - block it for indexing). Activate the redirects on the test server. Use Screaming Frog (in list mode) with both the alpha & beta url's to check that these are properly redirected (you will need to update the url lists and replace the current domain by test.mydomain.com or mytestdomain.com for test purposes).
Also check do a full crawl on the test server (in crawl mode) to see that all the internal links have been updated (there shouldn't be any internal 301).
If this is ok - you can put the redirects & the new url structure on the production server. Doublecheck again with Screaming Frog to make sure that everything is ok (same tests as above put on the production environment. Monitor both Webmastertools and Analytics (make sure you can identify your 404 page in Analytics) to see if the number of 404 increases. If so, check the causes & correct them asap.
If tested like this, normally you shouldn't have a SEO impact.
Hope this helps,
Dirk
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
-
URL Formatting - Magento
Hi, We are working with a client on Mangento who URLs are formatting Google friendly eg; productname.html - as seen in site search in Google) but when you click the link to the site it is adding on #.VEWKQxbc754 (or similar) The site is also having some page indexing problems as well Thoughts? specific settings/Add on in magento?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Pure-SEO0 -
Change url structure and keeping the social media likes/shares
Hi guys, We're thinking of changing the url structure of the tutorials (we call it knowledgebase) section on our website. We want to make it shorter URL so it be closer to the TLD. So, for the convenience we'll call them old page (www.domain.com/profiles/profile_id/kb/article_title) and new page (www.domain.com/kb/article_title) What I'm looking to do is change the url structure but keep the likes/shares we got from facebook. I thought of two ways to do it and would love to hear what the community members thinks is better. 1. Use rel=canonical I thought we might do a rel=canonical to the new page and add a "noindex" tag to the old page. In that way, the users will still be able to reach the old page, but the juice will still link to the new page and the old pages will disappear from Google SERP and the new pages will start to appear. I understand it will be pretty long process. But that's the only way likes will stay 2. Play with the og:url property Do the 301 redirect to the new page, but changing the og:url property inside that page to the old page url. It's a bit more tricky but might work. What do you think? Which way is better, or maybe there is a better way I'm not familiar with yet? Thanks so much for your help! Shaqd
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | ShaqD0 -
Dramatic Ranking Changes
Hi, My website is ranked on the 2nd page of Google for the /ncr. Last week suddenly it climbed up to the first page and I let my boss know about it with a quite enthusiasm and happiness 🙂 Then my boss didn't look at it on that day and next day our site was on the second page again and still is. Now I kind of lost reputation in the office, and people start questioning my comments. It wasn't a delusion but I would like to know what it was. No one does any SEO for this 10 years old site, and I've just started an SEO campaign about 1,5 months ago. And I really thought this is it, we are on the first page. But now we are back in to the 2nd page. Is waiting for couple days or weeks to Google to settle right approach for such cases? Or it was just a random bounce or coincidence? Never seen such thing, so I'm quite curious about your opinions or experience if you have.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | nunobaronio0 -
Numbers (2432423) in URL
Hello All Mozers, Quick question on URL. I know URL is important and should include keywords and all that but my question is does including numbers (not date or page numbers but numbers for internal use) in the URL affect SEO? For example, www.domain.com/screw-driver,12,1,23345.htm Is that any better or worse than www.domain.com/screw-driver.htm? I understand that this is not user friendly but in SEO stand point does it hurt ranking? What's your opinion on this? Thank you!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | TommyTan0 -
What Should I Do With My URL Names?
I release property on my blog each week, and it has come to the point we will get property in the same area as we have had in the past. So, I name my URL /blah-blah-blah-[area of property]/ for the first property in that area right. Now I get a different property in that same area and the URL will have to be named /blah-blah-blah-[area of property]-2/. Now I'm not sure if this is a major issue or not, but I'm sure there must be a better way than this, and I don't really want to take down our past properties - unless you can give me good reason too, of course? So before I start getting URLs like this: /blah-blah-blah-[area of property]-2334343534654/ (well, ok, maybe not that bad! But you get my point) I wanted to see what everyones opinion on it is 🙂 Thanks in advance!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | JonathanRolande0 -
Mobile URLs stolen and I need them back!
Hi guys, Mobile SEO question. So some time in the past, my client accidentally got a whole bunch of m.example.co.nz URLs indexed due to a link on another website and the awesome relative URL links on my client website. However, now they're building a mobile website and they want all those m.example.co.nz URLs. My question is, if we build a new mobile website and use those mobile website URLs including those already indexed by Google, will Google automatically know after crawling those URLs that they are now for mobile users? Will it change the pages to it's mobile index? Or will it be a case of duplicate content? Thanks Kim
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Voonie0 -
Change of domain procedure
Hi Guys, I have been tasked with conducting a change of domain for our company website. The website will be exactly the same, just change from www.jamesburfield.co.uk to www.burfieldcreative.co.uk. This was attempted before but my boss got cold feet and switched back after he saw a drop in rankings. (He put in the redirects and went through the change of domain procedure with google). I have told him that I think its possible with minimal disruption and we have agreed even with some disruption it will better in the long run for the company. Here is the process I intend to follow: 1. Copy and upload site to new domain 2. Redirect all pages with a wildcard or individually - possibly drop the www also 3. Follow the change of domain procedure in webmaster tools 4. Change the href of as many as possible back links to point at the new domain Please let me know your thoughts on my plan and if there is anything else I can do to ensure we maintain our rankings. Any help is appreciated as this is my suggestion and my neck is on the line! Thanks guys! Gareth
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | SimpsonGareth0 -
Best Product URL For Indexing
My proposed URL: mydomain.com/products/category/subcategory/product detail Puts my products 4 levels deep. Is this too deep to get my products indexed?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | waynekolenchuk0