We changed the URL structure 10 weeks ago and Google hasn't indexed it yet...
-
We recently modified the whole URL structure on our website, which resulted in huge amount of 404 pages changing them to nice human readable urls. We did this in the middle of March - about 10 weeks ago...
We used to have around 5000 404 pages in the beginning, but this number is decreasing slowly. (We have around 3000 now).
On some parts of the website we have also set up a 301 redirect from the old URLs to the new ones, to avoid showing a 404 page thus making the “indexing transmission”, but it doesn’t seem to have made any difference.
We've lost a significant amount of traffic, because of the URL changes, as Google removed the old URLs, but hasn’t indexed our new URLs yet.
Is there anything else we can do to get our website indexed with the new URL structure quicker?
It might also be useful to know that we are a page rank 4 and have over 30,000 unique users a month so I am sure Google often comes to the site quite often and pages we have made since then that only have the new url structure are indexed within hours sometimes they appear in search the next day!
-
Good Point. I'd suggest a canonical on the new pages as well as blasting them to the social media sites for a quicker turnaround.
-
They already has 5000 404 pages. I don't mean block any existing pages which were changed.
I mean only block pages which always returned a 404
-
I agree with Dave except I would not recommend blocking any pages with robots.txt. 301 redirect them all to their new pages.
-
If you have a site with 5000 pages and you decide to change all the page URLs, you will still have a site with 5000 pages. The problem is that Google has no way of understanding how the old pages map to the new ones. You do.
You need to 301 your old pages to your new ones. This method is a win all around.
You lose zero traffic. You keep 90%+ of the link value, and your visitors can find the pages they are looking for.
Right now Google sees your new pages as duplicate content and wont list it.
-
- Have you setup a Google Webmasters account?
- You should submit a sitemap to Webmasters. Info Here
- Also make sure all the 404 pages are blocked by robots.txt
- Add in a 301 redirect from all old content to the new content.
This link is about moving to a new domain but most of the steps still apply.
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
-
Not all images indexed in Google
Hi all, Recently, got an unusual issue with images in Google index. We have more than 1,500 images in our sitemap, but according to Search Console only 273 of those are indexed. If I check Google image search directly, I find more images in index, but still not all of them. For example this post has 28 images and only 17 are indexed in Google image. This is happening to other posts as well. Checked all possible reasons (missing alt, image as background, file size, fetch and render in Search Console), but none of these are relevant in our case. So, everything looks fine, but not all images are in index. Any ideas on this issue? Your feedback is much appreciated, thanks
Technical SEO | | flo_seo1 -
My video sitemap is not being index by Google
Dear friends, I have a videos portal. I created a video sitemap.xml and submit in to GWT but after 20 days it has not been indexed. I have verified in bing webmaster as well. All videos are dynamically being fetched from server. My all static pages have been indexed but not videos. Please help me where am I doing the mistake. There are no separate pages for single videos. All the content is dynamically coming from server. Please help me. your answers will be more appreciated................. Thanks
Technical SEO | | docbeans0 -
Test site got indexed in Google - What's the best way of getting the pages removed from the SERP's?
Hi Mozzers, I'd like your feedback on the following: the test/development domain where our sitebuilder works on got indexed, despite all warnings and advice. The content on these pages is in active use by our new site. Thus to prevent duplicate content penalties we have put a noindex in our robots.txt. However off course the pages are currently visible in the SERP's. What's the best way of dealing with this? I did not find related questions although I think this is a mistake that is often made. Perhaps the answer will also be relevant for others beside me. Thank you in advance, greetings, Folko
Technical SEO | | Yarden_Uitvaartorganisatie0 -
Correct linking to the /index of a site and subfolders: what's the best practice? link to: domain.com/ or domain.com/index.html ?
Dear all, starting with my .htaccess file: RewriteEngine On
Technical SEO | | inlinear
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^www.inlinear.com$ [NC]
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ http://inlinear.com/$1 [R=301,L] RewriteCond %{THE_REQUEST} ^./index.html
RewriteRule ^(.)index.html$ http://inlinear.com/ [R=301,L] 1. I redirect all URL-requests with www. to the non www-version...
2. all requests with "index.html" will be redirected to "domain.com/" My questions are: A) When linking from a page to my frontpage (home) the best practice is?: "http://domain.com/" the best and NOT: "http://domain.com/index.php" B) When linking to the index of a subfolder "http://domain.com/products/index.php" I should link also to: "http://domain.com/products/" and not put also the index.php..., right? C) When I define the canonical ULR, should I also define it just: "http://domain.com/products/" or in this case I should link to the definite file: "http://domain.com/products**/index.php**" Is A) B) the best practice? and C) ? Thanks for all replies! 🙂
Holger0 -
Google webmaster showing 0 indexed, yet I can see them all them Google search?
I can see them all the pages showing up in Google when i search for my site. But in webmaster tools under the sitemaps section in the indexed pages - the red bar is showing 0 indexed pages, even though they seem to be indexed. Any idea why is this showing like this? I don’t really think it’s that important as the pages are still indexed, but it just seems odd. Please see in the image.
Technical SEO | | Perfect0070 -
How can I get a listing of just the URLs that are indexed in Google
I know I can use the site: query to see all the pages I have indexed in Google, but I need a listing of just the URLs. We are doing a site re-platform and I want to make sure every URL in Google has a 301. Is there an easy way to just see the URLs that Google has indexed for a domain?
Technical SEO | | EvergladesDirect0 -
What tool do you use to check for URLs not indexed?
What is your favorite tool for getting a report of URLs that are not cached/indexed in Google & Bing for an entire site? Basically I want a list of URLs not cached in Google and a seperate list for Bing. Thanks, Mark
Technical SEO | | elephantseo3 -
How do I use the Robots.txt "disallow" command properly for folders I don't want indexed?
Today's sitemap webinar made me think about the disallow feature, seems opposite of sitemaps, but it also seems both are kind of ignored in varying ways by the engines. I don't need help semantically, I got that part. I just can't seem to find a contemporary answer about what should be blocked using the robots.txt file. For example, I have folders containing site comps for clients that I really don't want showing up in the SERPS. Is it better to not have these folders on the domain at all? There are also security issues I've heard of that make sense, simply look at a site's robots file to see what they are hiding. It makes it easier to hunt for files when they know the directory the files are contained in. Do I concern myself with this? Another example is a folder I have for my xml sitemap generator. I imagine google isn't going to try to index this or count it as content, so do I need to add folders like this to the disallow list?
Technical SEO | | SpringMountain0