Major URL changes in new site launch
-
Hey Guys - we recently launched a new website for a client. Prior, all of their URLs were dynamic via an old-school Cold Fusion CMS. We basically had to rewrite 90% of the sites URLs (site is like 300 pages). The new URLs are SEO friendly and the on-page SEO is strong; but the page rank/authority is starting from scratch from these pages and placement has decreased more most of the new pages with competitive keywords.
We set up all of the 301 redirects properly and are actively monitoring in Google Webmaster Tools. **Anything else I can do to lessen the pain and get these pages higher page rank/authority sooner rather than later?**Thanks for all of your help.
-
It's not uncommon to see some lower traffic as Google re-crawls the site. If your 301 redirects are all done correctly to the correct pages, there's not much else you can do. As James mentioned, you may want to reach out where appropriate and see if you can have the link directed to the new URL.
I don't know how much they've changed, but you will also want to check and make sure that any changes to the internal links or navigation are for the best. Deeper pages can sometimes suffer in site redesigns if the number of internal links or the click-depth has fallen.
-
A few things to think about.
1. I usually crawl the old site with screaming frog software, to build by URL list.
2. I map out the URLs to related new pages on the site, any thing non related just 301 too the home page or sub category section.
3. Track your top converting keywords from the old site before and after the move too note changes.
4. Another too look at is internal links to your site from external sites, if you have some highly authority links it could be worth changing them to new URLS.
5. Re crawl the site after the launch to look for any errors pages ect, I wouldn't personally USE GWT for something like this I would use Deep Crawl or Screaming Frog.
-
One more - did you update the on page content to reflect the new URL structure? Any content linking to old URLs?
-
When did you launch the new site? For all 300 old pages did you redirect to the 300 new pages or did you just redirect everything to the home page? On those redirects, did you redirect to the same/equivalent page on the new site or different pages? Are the new URLs cached in Google SERPs or do you see the old URLs? Are you still seeing old URLs in your GWT reports for impressions and clicks? Did you update your sitemap with new URLs? Are you sure you got all the old pages? Often CMSs will generate all kinds of versions of a URL using parameters and so you will need your 301s to account for that.
Not sure if that is an answer, but I am just curious.
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
-
Are slides how's etc the new Splash Pages?
I just did SEO audits of approx 50 websites in the tourism sector. Nearly all had poor Google Pagespeed ratings, partly down to that, among other factors. I also feel that slideshows,, large images and videos in headers are poor for usability. I say get the content people need to engage with in front of them asap Are there any stats or studies that can provide insight on this? I've been telling those with these designs to keep an eye on bounce rates and let that guide them
Web Design | | anndonnelly0 -
301 Redirect Issue for URL with # and !
Hi All, We had a WIX website and now moved to Wordpress. I m having issue while doing redirecting from old URL to new URL. Example: Old Url: http://www.firsttraffic.com.au/#!traffic-management/ccfn New Url: http://www.firsttraffic.com.au/our-services/traffic-management/ I tried different wordpress plugin but nothing works. I m thinking its due to the # . But How can I to redirection for URL like this . Thanks
Web Design | | emarketexperts0 -
New Re-design will my website rankings drop?
Hi guys, I have had to re-design my site although we are only 4 months into the seo game we have seen some good progress with our rankings. My question is there anything I need to consider before implementing the new designs so it doesn't effect my current rankings or any of our SEO work. Our current designs are content thing and so we have had to create more content to better optimize our site, however if doing so will this loose our current ranking position? Apperciate any advice around this Thanks
Web Design | | edward-may0 -
How does Google look at strings added to a URL
For example: http://localhost:3000/en-US/app/a-knsmtrhqrqs/personal where knsmtrhqrqs is a string Can Google tell this is a string and what's their policy? Will it hurt rankings? Thank you.
Web Design | | RoxBrock0 -
Image URL's and naming
We're re-platforming on Magento and wondering about our images. 1. Should I be concerned about 301 redirects for my images. 2. Is there a "best practice" path for images? or is just the name important? Right now, all our images are in /meta/images/sm or /lg or /xlg. Since we're re-platforming, we're wondering if we should change the urls. But, I'm assuming this would require all of them to have 301 redirects and with all the other redirects, I'm not sure this is really feasible. thanks for any suggestions on this.
Web Design | | centralvacuumstores0 -
Is anyone here managing or doing SEO for a site using GoECart?
We are preparing to update/migrate to a new ecommerce platform. We are in the process of choosing right now. One of the things we know we want is faceted navigation, but I am well aware of the problems this presents for SEO. Are any of you amazing people here using, managing or have experience with GoECart? I am interested to know your feedback, particularly from an SEO viewpoint. Thanks in advance! Dana
Web Design | | danatanseo0 -
Can you use a base element and mod_rewrite to alleviate the need for absolute URLs?
This is a follow up question to Scott Parsons' question about using absolute versus relative URLs when linking internally. Andy King makes the statement that this can be done and that it saves additional space (which he claims then can improve page speed). Is this a true and accurate statement? Can using a base element and mod-rewrite alleviate the need for absolute URLs? I need to know before going off on a "change all of our relative URLs to absolutes" campaign. Thanks in advance! Dana
Web Design | | danatanseo0 -
Template change, huge drop in rankings
We recently changed the template of our website but we kept the same url structure, most titles are the same, the content changed a little bit, the description is the same, and the same on-page SEO. Although we have been very careful and the actual template change took less than 5 minutes, we experienced a huge drop in rankings (even more than 10 positions in Google serp). Does anyone have any idea what could have caused such a drop? The weird thing is that Google still has the old website in cash and not the new one. We resubmitted the sitemap, made a few more redirects... but anyway... what else can we do? Any advice would be much appreciated. Thanks!
Web Design | | echo10
