Should I change site link structure? Will that make things worse?
-
I've got an Exact Match Domain that has just started to do well in Google for say the past year. I've always received good rankings from Bing and Yahoo but I love the traffic levels that Google sends.
Long story short on the 25th according to webmaster tools, my impressions on their search engine have been destroyed. No problems, not de-indexed, just not showing my site anymore.
I like this site and have been careful, built some links and the anchor text is suspect but also not suspect because its the same as the domain. What I feel the problem may be is the site structure. I set it up a long time ago like this:
Exact-Match-keyword. com/ Exact-match-keyword.php/state
I thought it looked kinda spammy at the time but also thought it may help. Now I'm wondering if I shorten all the page titles to the state name and 301 the old links if I will regain rankings, or if I may lose some from other search engines.
I used to think Penguins were cute......
-
Thank you Moosa,
Yes, I think your right. Ironically after the last pagerank update today, the site in question actually increased by 1. I don't know, I think I'll add some new content and try to find a few quality links before I do something drastic.
I think its good to let things settle before reacting.
Your help is appreciated!
-
Domain keyword and keyword again is spammy. Thanks for input!
-
I still believe that Penguins are cute but the only point they do not like you is that you are not a nature love but they are!
Yes Google with Panda of Penguin is trying to kill the websites that looks SPAM in search results…from the description you have provided, here are few things that you can change on your website and it will provide a good impact in SERPs…
- The kind of URL structure you have mentioned, it clearly seems like you are pushing the keywords in the URL to get ranking benefits… this is not natural and Google at the other hand does not like stuffing… you do have an exact match domain that’s fine but try changing you URL structure and make it look natural…
- Obviously redirect the old URL to new one, update the sitemap in GWT and wait for new URLs to crawl.
- Re check your basic on-page across the website… recently I have encountered a website that lost its ranking just because of un-natural and excessive internal linking… see if you have any on-page problems consider fixing it.
- Check your link profile and see if you have any SPAM looking links in your link profile… consider removing those links.
- If you cannot remove those links consider building high quality links in your profile.. (Guest blogging in that case is a great idea!)
-
TEGS,
I am also VERY curious to hear answers to this question also.
I too have the exact domain and was trying to decide if I should restate the exact keyword again in the URL after the exact keyword in domain name. I also plan to either but a subcategory and state in the url but not sure which to put first. ( Lets keep in touch by private message to share updates on our URL changes.)
I will not have to 301 redirect my URLs because I had no links to any of my other pages. I currently rank #2 for my main keyword in Google but expect a drop in my temporary drop in rankings after the change. (I have very bad rankings in Bing and Yahoo for some reason) In order to be re-indexed quickly I have read on this site that it is a good idea to leave your old site-map up with the new one until the new one is indexed.
Just curious.. on your backlinks what alt text did you use...your domain name url or just the keywords?
I am eating popcorn and hope answers are forthcoming from the experts!
Boo
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
-
Reasonable to Ask URL of Link from SEO Providing New Links before Link Activation?
My firm has hired an SEO to create links to our site. We asked the SEO to provide a list of domains that they are targeting for potential links. The SEO did not agree to this request on the grounds that the list is their unique intellectual property. Alternatively I asked the SEO to provide the URL that will be linking to our site before the link is activated. The SEO did not agree to this. However, they did say we could provide comments afterwards so they could tweak their efforts when the next 4-5 links are obtained next month. The SEO is adamant that the links will not be spam. For whatever it is worth the SEO was highly recommended. I am an end user; the owner and operator of a commercial real estate site, not an SEO or marketing professional. Is this protectiveness over process and data typical of link building providers? I want to be fair with the provider and hope I will be working with them a long time, however I want to ensure I receive high quality links. Should I be concerned? Thanks,
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Kingalan1
Alan0 -
Regret changing the URL structure, Would it be appropriate to change it back?
Hi Moz Community, We changed the URL structure 6 months ago for our new site, and we experienced a ranking drop since then. From my understanding, changing URL structure and using 301 redirects will lose link juice, more or less. We think the ranking drop is because of the loss of link juice, assuming other factors remain constant. Here are my questions: How do those link juice losses have an impact on our ranking? Would changing URL structure back to original version regain the lost link juice, with all the redirects done properly? Would it take a lot of efforts? Is it recommended to change it back? Thank you so much in advance. Any thoughts and opinions are appreciated! Best, Raymond
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | raymondlii0 -
Strange site link on Google for a Facebook result
A Facebook page targetted to US Hispanics (with content in Spanish and English) is showing me a hindi sitelink underneath the main Facebook link when I google (in the US, English) for the page [ page name facebook]. We don't have any content in hindi, or targetted to that audience. If I click on the sitelink while logged out of facebook, I can see it takes me to a facebook subdomain of hi-in. When I'm logged in it just redirects me to the same page. Any idea why this could be happening?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | M_80 -
Counting over-optimised links - do internal links count too?
To whit: In working out whether I've too many over-optimised links pointing to my homepage, do I look at just external links -- or also the links from my internal pages to my homepage? In other words, can a natural link profile from internal pages help dilute overoptimisation from external links?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Jeepster0 -
Do nofollow links affect link profile?
I've read that it's good to keep a natural link profile. Some naked links, some links going to our company name, some with anchor text, etc. Do nofollow links affect this link profile, or is it only followed links that are taken into account?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | lighttable0 -
A Client Changed the Link Structure for Their Site... Not Just Once, but Twice
I have a client who's experiencing a number of crawl errors, which I've gotten down fo 9,000 from 18,000. One of the challenges they experience is that they've modified their URL structure a couple times. First it was: site.com/year/month/day/post-name
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | digisavvy
Then it was: site.com/category/post-name
Now it's: site.com/post-name I'm not sure of the time elapsed between these changes, but enough time has passed that the URLs for the previous two URL structures have been indexed and spit out 404s now. What's the best/clean way to address this issue?I'm not going to create 9k redirect rules obviously, but there's got to be a way to address this issue and resolve it moving forward.0 -
Making a whole site website SSL (https)
Our IT department wants to make a change to our website and serve all the pages under SSL (https). This will be happening at the same time as a move from classic ASP to ASP.Net so the file extensions for non re-written urls will change (this doesn't equate to many). They will be ensuring everything is 301 redirected correctly. Even with this I can't help being very nervous about the change. We have tens of thousands of links to the website gained over many years, and I understand even with 301'ing them they will lose some of their value. We receive tens of thousands of natural visitors per day. Has anyone done anything like this before, or have any advice on whether it is the right thing to do?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | BigMiniMan0 -
Our URLs have changed. Do we request our external links be updated as well?
Hello Forum, We've re-launched our website with a new, SEO-friendly URL structure. We have also set up 301 redirects from our old URLs to the new ones. Now, is there any benefit to asking those external websites that link to us to update their links with our new URLs? What is the SEO best practice? Thanks for your insight.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | pano0