Change of URLs: "little by little" VS "all at once"
-
Hi guys,
We're planning to change our URLs structure for our product pages (to make them more SEO friendly) and it's obviously something very sensitive regarding the 301 redirections that we have to take with...
I'm having a doubt about Mister Google: if we slowly do that modification (area by area, to minimize the risk of problems in case of bad 301 redirection), would we lose rankings in the search engine? (I'm wondering if they might consider our website is not "coherent" -> not the same product page URLs structure for all the product pages during some time)
Thanks for your kind opinion
-
Hi Nakul,
Maybe the initial post was not explicit enough: we will obviously redirect (301) all the old URLs. And to make sure we won't mess it up with the redirections, we want to update the new product URLs littl by little, product area by product area.
Which means that during this "transition" period, some product URLs will have the old structure, some others will have the new URL structure (both are given above) and the question is: does Google matter about the coherence of (product pages) URLs in the same website?
-
Will the old URLs continue to work or will they redirect ? If you can share the URL here in public here or via PM, that might help.
-
Hi Nakul,
A product can't be in more than one category on our website so that won't be a problem.
-
Hi Keri,
Yes the second one will be the new. It's the word price that will be in the URL and not it's value. We are a price comparison website so the keyword price is core for us.
-
I agree with Keri.You don't want to do that. Also, what happens if your product is in multiple categories.
Do you have multiple URLs of the same product then ? Would you have a canonical tag ?
-
Is the second URL your new URL? You're including your price in your URL? What happens if your price changes?
-
Hi Nakul,
Our domain is quite strong, we are talking about more than 450 K product pages.
Here is an example of URL change that we'll do:
domain/[category ID]/[product ID]/[product name]
-> domain/[category name]/[product name]-price-p[product ID]_[category ID]
-
Pedro
How strong is your domain/website ? Can you give examples of what you are doing ? How many product pages are you talking about ?
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 WMT/search console: Thousands of "Links to your site" even only one back-link from a website.
Hi, I can see in my search console that a website giving thousands of links to my site where hardly only one back-link from one of their page to our page. Why this is happening? Here is screenshot: http://imgur.com/a/VleUf
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | vtmoz0 -
Only ranking well when "UK" is added to search term
Hi, what does it mean when a lot of our keyword phrases rank only when "UK" is typed in the search term? For example:
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Solid_Web
"boxes" (not in top 50)
"boxes UK" (38) "big storage boxes" (45)
"big storage boxes UK" (33) We haven't attempted to SEO the pages for search terms with "UK" appended to them. Our domain is a co.uk domain. So, what reasons could there be that are we ranking in such a way?0 -
How to redirect an url in .htaccess when "redirect 301" doesnt work
I have an odd page url, generated by a link from an external website, it has: %5Cu0026size=27.4KB%5Cu0026p=dell%20printers%20uk%5Cu0026oid=333302b6be58eaa914fbc7de45b23926%5Cu0026ni=21%5Cu0026no=24%5Cu0026tab=organic%5Cu0026sigi=11p3eqh65%5Cu0026tt=Dell%205210n%20A4%20Mono%20Laser%20Printer%20from%20Printer%20Experts%5Cu0026u=fb ,after a .jpg image url, and I can't get it redirect using the redirect 301 in .htaccess to the properly image url as I use to do with the rest of not found urls eg: /15985.jpg%5Cu0026size=27.4KB%5Cu0026p=dell%20printers%20uk%5Cu0026oid=333302b6be58eaa914fbc7de45b23926%5Cu0026ni=21%5Cu0026no=24%5Cu0026tab=organic%5Cu0026sigi=11p3eqh65%5Cu0026tt=Dell%205210n%20A4%20Mono%20Laser%20Printer%20from%20Printer%20Experts%5Cu0026u=fb to just: /15985.jpg
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Status0 -
Webmaster Tools "Not found" errors after sitemap update
Hello Mozzers - I found a sitemap with loads of URL errors on it (none of the URLs on sitemap actually existed) so I went ahead and updated sitemap - now I'm seeing a spike in "not found" errors in WMT - is this normal / anything to worry about when you significantly change a sitemap. I've never replaced every URL on a sitemap before! L
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | McTaggart0 -
Building "keyword" backlinks
Looking for some opinions here please. Been involved in seo for a couple of years mainly working on my websites and picking up the odd client here and there through word of mouth. I must admit that up until a few months back I was guilty of using some grey methods of link building - linkvana, unique article wizard and the such. While no penalties were handed out to my domains and some decent rankings gained, I got tired of always being on the lookout for what the next Google update will do to my results and which networks were being hit, and so I moved a lot more into the 'proper' way of seoing. These days my primary sources for backlinks are much more respectable... myblogguest bloggerlinkup postjoint Guest Blog Finder http://ultramarketer.com/guest-blogger-finder/ - not sure where i came across this resource but it's very handy I use these sources alongside industry only directories and general word of mouth. Ironically I have found that doing the word by hand not only leads to results I can happyily show people (content wise) but also it's much quicker and cheaper. The increased authority of the sites means far fewer links are needed. The one area I still am having a little issue with is that of building keyword based backlinks. I now find it fairly easy to get my content on a reasonable quality site - DA to 40 and above, however the vast majority of these sites will allow the backlink only as the company name or as a generic read more type thing. This is fine and it is improving my website performance and authority. The trouble I am finding is that while i am ranking for the title tag and some keywords in the page, I am struggling to get backlinks for other keywords. In an ideal world every page on the site would be optimised for a different keyword and you could then just the site name as anchor text to build the authority of that page and make it rank for it's content, but what about when you (or the client) wants to rank the home for a number of different keywords, some not featured on the page. The keywords are too similar to go to the trouble of making unique pages for, and that would also add no value to the site. My question really then, after a very long winded way of getting there, is are others finding it much more difficult to gain keyword based backlinks these days? The great thing about the grey seo tools, as mentioned above, is that it was super easy to get the backlinks with whatever anchor text you wanted - even if you needed hundreds of the thing to compensate for the low value of each!! Thanks Carl
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | GrumpyCarl0 -
Show wordpress "archive links" on blog?
I here conflicting reports on whether to show wordpress archive links on the blog or not. Some say it is important for viewers to see, others say it is not and creates way too many links. I think both have good points but for SEO purposes, I lean towards removing them. What do Moz users think?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | seomozinator0 -
Is my landing page "over-optimized"? Please help
Hello out there My website www.painterdublin.com and www.tilers-dublin.com were heavily hit by google panda update on 27.9.2012 and EMD update few days after. I lost about 70% of the traffic mainly from combination of the keywords from my domain name (painter dublin and tilers dublin) and never managed to recover from it. I am wondering if I should also concentrate on rewriting the content of both home landing pages in the terms of "KEYWORD DENSITY". Do you think my content is "OVER OPTIMIZED" for my main keywords? (painter dublin, tilers-dublin). What is the correct use? Is there any tool to guide me? I am aware I am using those terms quite often. I don't want to start deleting those terms before I know the right way to do it. Is there anybody willing to have a look at my sites and give me advice please? kind regards Jaro
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | jarik0 -
"Original Content" Dynamic Hurting SEO? -- Strategies for Differentiating Template Websites for a Nationwide Local Business Segment?
The Problem I have a stable of clients spread around the U.S. in the maid service/cleaning industry -- each client is a franchisee, however their business is truly 'local' with a local service area, local phone/address, unique business name, and virtually complete control over their web presence (URL, site design, content; apart from a few branding guidelines). Over time I've developed a website template with a high lead conversion rate, and I've rolled this website out to 3 or 4 dozen clients. Each client has exclusivity in their region/metro area. Lately my white hat back linking strategies have not been yielding the results they were one year ago, including legitimate directories, customer blogging (as compelling as maid service/cleaning blogs can really be!), and some article writing. This is expected, or at least reflected in articles on SEO trends and directory/article strategies. I am writing this question because I see sites with seemingly much weaker back link profiles outranking my clients (using SEOMoz toolbar and Site Explorer stats, and factoring in general quality vs. quantity dynamics). Questions Assuming general on-page optimization and linking factors are equal: Might my clients be suffering because they're using my oft-repeated template website (albeit with some unique 'content' variables)? If I choose to differentiate each client's website, how much differentiation makes sense? Specifically: Even if primary content (copy, essentially) is differentiated, will Google still interpret the matching code structure as 'the same website'? Are images as important as copy in differentiating content? From an 'machine' or algorithm perspective evaluating unique content, I wonder if strategies will be effective such as saving the images in a different format, or altering them slightly in Photoshop, or using unique CSS selectors or slightly different table structures for each site (differentiating the code)? Considerations My understanding of Google's "duplicate content " dynamics is that they mainly apply to de-duping search results at a query specific level, and choosing which result to show from a pool of duplicate results. My clients' search terms most often contain client-specific city and state names. Despite the "original content" mantra, I believe my clients being local businesses who have opted to use a template website (an economical choice), still represent legitimate and relevant matches for their target user searches -- it is in this spirit I ask these questions, not to 'game' Google with malicious intent. In an ideal world my clients would all have their own unique website developed, but these are Main St business owners balancing solutions with economics and I'm trying to provide them with scalable solutions. Thank You! I am new to this community, thank you for any thoughts, discussion and comments!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | localizedseo0