Big drop in organic traffic after moving the website-should we still do 301 redirects?
-
Hi,
We have a website that got redesigned with new urls in Jan 31, 2018. Since then our SEO traffic has gone down big time and to never recover.We did not do any 301 redirects back then (very stupid I know but I was not in charge then).
So my question is would it be beneficial to 301 redirect old urls that were once ranked but now have all 404 errors or is it too late to do these 301 to gain any benefits?
If a page that was once ranked and then have a 404 error, how long does google keep that 404 page in their database? I have heard information saying that although the page is a 404 it may still be indexed in their backend for some time and then it completely drops off all together. If so do you know how long time they would keep those 404 in their database?
The old urls may have had good backlinks pointed to them because the organic traffic was good back then. So I wonder if doing 301 right now would help send some link juice over to the new urls? Or would this be a complete waste of time?
Cheers
Martin
-
Hi Martin,
Too bad to hear that you've lost that much traffic.
I'll try to answer you questions separately:
- Benefits of setting the 301 redirects? Yes, you'll be rewarded, probably not gaining all whats lost but still something.
- How long google keeps URLs? for ever. They have said that they keep that URLs forever and usually recrawl them to check whether they are sill gone or if something has changed
- Old URLs have links, redirecting would help? YES, definitely.
That said, please analyze all urls and make redirections that make sense. Do not redirect all to homepage or to few categories, make 1:1 redirections and those that don't have a correspondant.. To the most similar page or category.
It could come handy this articles about migrations:
The Website Migration Guide: SEO Strategy, Process, & Checklist - Moz Blog
The Ultimate SEO Guide for Successful Web Migrations at #DigitalOlympus - AleydaSolis
Migration Best Practices - SMX London 2018 <- backedup by JohnMu in this tweetHope it helps.
Best luck.
GR
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
-
Google Analytics direct traffic dropped by 50% after switching to https
Hi, everyone, have a little dilemma and was hoping to get some advice here. I recently installed a new SSL (3 months ago) to force our URL to start with https://. The site was earlier accessible through https:// and http:// prefix however now I have made it so that all urls are redirected to the correct https:// version. The problem is that direct traffic has dropped by more than 50% after implementing these changes and I can for the life of me figure out why. Why would the direct traffic drop all of sudden after making these changes? I am starting to suspect that the earlier data was inflated and that Google analytics was counting users coming from a http:// version of the URL to a https:// version of the URL was counted as direct traffic. Could that be it? Any other possible causes? Would really appreciate any guidance on this problem. Thanks
Reporting & Analytics | | nsereke0 -
Time For New Website To Rank?
We've been working on a site for the past couple months and going to be launching in a couple weeks. How long does it take for Google to establish a "stabilized" ranking for the site and various pages? The main homepage will have its targeted keywords and each product page will have its own targeted keywords. We have about 100 total pages for the site. I know rankings may fluctuate initially but trying to get an idea of when the rankings are stabilized before we start working on the ongoing SEO like earning backlinks, changing on-page optimization, etc to be able to track changes in rankings over time.
Reporting & Analytics | | vikasnwu0 -
Tracking sessions from a sub-domain that is 301 redirected to main domain
Hi, one of my client is launching a new site on a subdomain newsite.brand.com.au but will use a shorter URL on the packaging on their new rang of products to be sold in supermarkets, prompting shoppers to visit xxx.brand.com.au. This specific sub-domain xxx.brand.com.au will be 301 redirecting to newsite.brand.com.au How can I identify and track accurrately all the visits coming from xxx.brand.com.au to newsite.brand.com.au?The visits from sub-domain xxx.brand.com.au will be attributed to direct channel I guess. Is it worth adding GA on this 301 redirected sub-domain xxx.brand.com.au or there another way to identify those visits on newsite.brand.com.au ?
Reporting & Analytics | | mecglobal0 -
Specific Industry Website Conversion Rates: Lighting
Hi All, There's loads of info around on general retail conversion rates, but does anyone have any experience with online lighting shops and typical conversion rates? This is a highly price driven shopper, and from my experience so far they bounce around looking for the best price... We've recently taken ownership of this new site, and I'm not sure I can relate general metrics to this site... although there is lots of work to do on here! Cheers in advance.
Reporting & Analytics | | b4cab0 -
How do I add subdomain tracking to an existing Google analytics account that was set up to track website only (without the subdomain option)
I know you can track subdomains by just selecting the proper code when you set up the analytics and then create filters for the data in analytics. But how do you add a subdomain for existing analytics website. Is there a way to go back and change to the option to include subdomains and then I assume just replace the tracking code with the new code that Google delivers for this?
Reporting & Analytics | | rhgraves650 -
Sudden dramatic drop in "some but not all" keyphrase rankings for client, 3 weeks ago
I noticed recently that 4 of my keyphrases which ranked on page one, and were climbing 3 weeks ago, have suddenly dropped to > 50. What could have happened? I did find an issue with my sitemap (yoast generated), but why would that suddenly change? And even more importantly, how do I fix it?
Reporting & Analytics | | chill9860 -
Getting traffic for another site
Hi Everyone, Our website url/brand is very close to another website url/brand. We are non-competing entities. It appears as though this other company has begun a marketing program which has resulted in our traffic skyrocketing. However, it seems to have also resulted in our Pages/Visit and Visit Duration to decrease and our Bounce Rate to increase. Can anyone suggest how to deal with this type of scenario? Thanks,
Reporting & Analytics | | AC_Pro
Robert0 -
How Can I Record .zip Traffic in Google Analytics
The company I am with shows traffic coming in to .zip files in Google Analytics. The traffic being recorded stopped a while back, but I know people are still downloading/visiting these .zip ULRs. I'm not sure how they were recording/tracking the .zip URLs (in Analytics) before, but I'd like to track them once again. Does anyone know how to do this? Thanks
Reporting & Analytics | | poolguy0