Changing Site URLs
-
I am working on a new client that hasn't implemented any SEO previously. The site has terrible url nomenclature and I am wondering if it is worth it to try and change it. Will I lose rankings? What is the best url naming structure?
Here's the website http://www.formica.com/en/home/TradeLanding.aspx. (I am only working on the North America site.)
Thanks!
-
Sorry about that http://www.seomoz.org/learn-seo/redirection
-
That link does not work.
-
Hi Michelle,
Looking at your site structure, it doesn't look complicated to change your site URLs. Of course there are the risks but I don't think its difficult.
From what I see, you have a proper structure followed, even though its non SEO optimized. For instance you have categories like - http://www.formica.com/en/home/ProductLine.aspx?start=1&prl=PRL_SOLID_SURFACING and http://www.formica.com/en/home/ProductLine_Colors.aspx?prl=PRL_LAMINATE&cls=CLS_180FX# and individual product listing pages like these - http://www.formica.com/en/home/dna.aspx?color=3461&std=1&prl=PRL_LAMINATE&mc=0&sp=0&ots=&fns=&grs=
You can try fixing these from within the webmasters tool using the dynamic parameters tool for a start.
You need to go for a complete URL restructuring only if it doesn't work.
Also, I would suggest using a good sitemap indexer to create a sitemap of all the individual listings and categorical pages with the right priority settings first. Google bots are clever these days because once the URLs (dynamic) are indexed via a sitemap, even if you have dynamic URLs they will figure the rest out from the content.
So, I don't think URLs are going to help you in a very significant way so it might not be worth the risk assuming that you have to do some major CMS changes to make it happen (and hope you don't screw anything on the way).
Get the basics right first like sitemaps, unique meta information and content. Then submit a sitemap and iron out the wrinkles using the dynamic parameter tool.
-
Before setting up naming structure, have you done keyword research, mapped out the content to what pages you want rank for what key words? Implement this, add content and deal with on-page issues as a first pass. After making these changes, and seeing what difference this makes if any in rankings.
I would move to consider changing Urls and URL structure. etc. Here is a good post from seomoz to learn about Redirections and URL Structure.
I hope this helps you out.
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
-
Domain remains the same IP address is changing on same server only last 3 digits changing. Will this effect rankings
Dear All, We have taken and a product called webacelator from our hosting UKfast and our ip address is changing. UKFasts asked to point DNS to different IP in order to route the traffic through webacelator, which will enhance browsing speed. I am concerned, will this change effect our rankings. Your responses highly appreciated.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | tigersohelll0 -
(Australia) Changing .net.au to .com.au - web dev is refusing to do a 301 redirect and wants to run two sites?
After years using a .net.au site, my client has purchased the .com.au version of the same domain. I've now set up a new, responsive website using a wordpress template with new content, but used a similar page structure. I've asked their web developer to now do a 301 permanent redirect on each old page from .net.au site to it's new .com.au page, but he has refused, saying it would be bad for long term SEO. Instead, he says they should run both sites (which I thought would cause duplicate content issues). Both domains are hosted with the same company. I thought as long as the 301 redirects were done on a page by page basis, there were no issues? I'm no SEO expert, (which he claims to be), so I just wanted to get another opinion on what best practice would be in this instance.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | carolineraad0 -
Image URL Change Catastrophe
We have a site with over 3mm pages indexed, and an XML sitemap with over 12mm images (312k indexed at peak). Last week our traffic dropped off a cliff. The only major change we made to the site in that time period was adding a DNS record for all of our images that moved them from a SoftLayer Object Storage domain to a subdomain of our site. The old URLs still work, but we changed all the links from across our site to the new subdomain. The big mistake we made was that we didn't update our XML sitemap to the new URLs until almost a week after the switch (totally forgot that they were served from a process with a different config file). We believe this was the cause of the issue because: The pages that dropped in traffic were the ones where the images moved, while other pages stayed more or less the same. We have some sections of our property where the images are, and have always been, hosted by Amazon and their rankings didn't crater. Same with pages that do not have images in the XML sitemap (like list pages). There wasn't a change in geographic breakdown of our traffic, which we looked at because the timing was around the same time as Pigeon. There were no warnings or messages in Webmaster Tools, to indicate a manual action around something unrelated. The number of images indexed in our sitemap according Webmaster Tools dropped from 312k to 10k over the past week. The gap between the change and the drop was 5 days. It takes Google >10 to crawl our entire site, so the timing seems plausible. Of course, it could be something totally unrelated and just coincidence, but we can't come up with any other plausible theory that makes sense given the timing and pages affected. The XML sitemap was updated last Thursday, and we resubmitted it to Google, but still no real change. Anyone had a similar experience? Any way to expedite the climb back to normal traffic levels? Screen%20Shot%202014-07-29%20at%203.38.34%20PM.png
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | wantering0 -
How hard would it be to take a well-linked site, completely change the subject matter & still retain link authority?
So, this would be taking a domain with a domain authority of 50 (200 root domains, 3500 total links) and, for fictitious example, going from a subject matter like "Online Deals" to "The History Of Dentistry"... just totally unrelated new subject for the old/re-purposed domain. The old content goes away entirely. The domain name itself is a super vague .com name and has no exact match to anything either way. I'm wondering, if the DNS changed to different servers, it went from 1000 pages to a blog, ownership/contacts stayed the same, the missing pages were 301'd to the homepage, how would that fare in Google for the new homepage focus and over what time frame? Assume the new terms are a reasonable match to the old domain authority and compete U.S.-wide... not local or international. Bonus points for answers from folks who have actually done this. Thanks... Darcy
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | 945010 -
How do I best handle a minor URL change?
My company is about to complete an upgrade to our website but part of this will be changing the URLs slightly. Mainly the .aspx suffix will be dropped off the pages that we're most worried about. The current URLs will automatically redirect to the new pages, will this be enough or will there be an SEO impact? If it helps the site is www.duracard.com and the product pages are the ones we want to keep ranked. For instance if someone searches for "plastic gift cards" our page '<cite>https://www.duracard.com/products/plastic-gift-cards.aspx</cite>' is #3 and we want to make sure it stays that way once we change it to 'https://www.duracard.com/products/plastic-gift-cards'. Any advice would be greatly appreciated, thank you!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Andrea.G0 -
Should I change .html to / ?
On my ecommerce site, we have .html extensions on all files and categories. I was wondering if it is worth the development cost to make all of them / ? Is there any SEO benefit in doing so? Thanks, B
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | bjs20100 -
Site comparison - what is wrong with me?
www.bcspeakers.com/ vs www.psbspeakers.com/ with the search term "speakers" why does BC speakers show up in around #50-60 and PSB is not in the top #1000? From all metrics on seomoz PSB kicks BC in every area by a large margine! can anyone see why BC is listed for that keyword and PSB is not?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | kevin48030 -
Is it good to change an ecommerce site homepage everyday?
my website is www.theprinterdepo.com but now my boss says that it should change everyday, its en ecommerce site, that the products should change everyday, even some times more than day. Is it good for seo? taking into account that google does not crawl all sites every day I suppose.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | levalencia10