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
-
Will there be problems in the future with a mobile dedicated site?
Just wanted everyone's input/opinion on this article that basically states Google will move to a solely mobile index in the future https://www.nngroup.com/articles/mobile-vs-responsive/ That seems like it would negatively impact sites that have a separate URL for their mobile site. In this particular case I'm talking about... the mobile site URL is this layout: www.site.com/MobileView/MobileHome.aspx Any thoughts/input would be enormously appreciated.
Web Design | | AliMac260 -
Site with no ads hit by Page Layout update?
Hi there! Can a site that has no ads on it be hit by Google's latest Page Layout update? Can it be hit for just one or two keywords? My site (www.ink2paper.com) has a decline in Google organic traffic in early Feb so my suspicion is the Page Layout update. However I have no ads on the site. Digging into GWMT I find that it is only one or 2 keywords that seems to have taken a dive, mainly [photo paper]. I used to get around 80 imps a day for this term. Then on 6 Feb it was down to 50; 7 Feb = 34; 8 Feb just 4 impressions! I got a spike back at usual levels on 10 & 11 Feb, but since then it has been back down to only 5 or so impressions a day. [photographic paper] took a small hit at the start of February, but has nose dived since the start of April. The homepage performs well for Google organic traffic - low bounce (22%) and good ecom conversion rate (14%) - although this is likely to be largely branded traffic. I feel my site is a 'good' result for the search term [photo paper], although there is always room for improvement of course! Any suggestions as to why Google has stopped showing my site for these keywords? All help is greatly appreciated. Cheers,
Web Design | | SimonHogg
Simon0 -
New website and new domain
Hi, We have a domain with current e-commerce site on, about 5 years old. We have a new website being built with a different company and a new domain name. We are transferring our old domain over to new provider and 301'ing the domain to new domain. However, we can not take the current website with us, so we lose all our links/pages etc.. How important would it be to take a wrap of our current website to keep all the pages alive? Is there anything we can do so oldurl.com/brand/tshirt/ doesnt lose its rank? Can we 301 individual pages if we dont have the actual website? Just the domain name. Any help be great. Thanks
Web Design | | YNWA0 -
Pagerank and SERP rankings downhill after site update
Our site underwent a major update in September 2012. We put the entire site in WordPress and did away with our static pages. Then, in February 2013, we moved our shopping cart pages from a subdomain to our main domain (in WordPress). In both cases, we had to implement a massive 301 redirect through htaccess as most of our URLs changed with the update. Our site consists of the shopping cart (WooCommerce), blog, and supporting pages. We noticed traffic starting to drop around the last week of November (2012) and it has steadily declined ever since. None of our shop pages have a pagerank with virtually all them showing a gray bar with question mark. Only the shop homepage has some pagerank -- that too from 4 previously to 2 now. Some of the words we used to rank very well for before, we don't even show in the first five pages anymore. At first, we thought it was a temporary situation that would self correct over time, but it doesn't seem to get better at all. All said, we have lost over 80% of our traffic from Google organic. Upon repeated reviews, the 301 redirects seem to be done correctly and we don't see any serious mistakes that could cause such a huge drop. So the question is are we missing something? Are we not looking at the right places? Any ideas where we might start looking? We're simply looking for ideas and a fresh perspective.
Web Design | | bizmanuals0 -
301 forwarding during site migration problem - several url versions of the same page....
Hello, I'm migrating from an old site to a new site, and 301 forwarding many of the pages... My key problem is this I'm seeing www.website.com/ indexed in SE and www.website.com/default.aspx in showing as URL when I'm on homepage - should I simply 301 forward both of these? Then for several internal pages there are 2/3 versions of each page indexed. Canonicalization issues. Again, I'm wondering whether I should 301 forward each URL even if there are several different indexed URLs for the same page? Your advice will be welcome! Thanks in advance - Luke
Web Design | | McTaggart0 -
Bizarre PDF URL string
Hey folks, I'm getting literally hundreds of Duplicate Title and Duplicate Content errors for a site, and most of them are a result of the same issue. The site uses javascript container pages a lot, but each gets their own URL. Unfortunately, it seems like each page is also loading all the content for all the other pages, or something. For instance, I have a section of the site under /for-institutions/, and then there are 5 container pages under that. Each container page has it's own URL, so when you select it, you get the URL /for-institutions/products/ or /for-institutions/services/ etc. However, the institutions container page doesn't change, just the content within. In my SEO results, I'm getting the following: /for-institutions/$%7Bpdf%7D/ /for-institutions/$%7Bpdf%7D/$%7Bpdf%7D/ etc, each as a duplicate title and content page. How can I eliminate this? Is there a regular expression that rewrites URL segments beginning with $ ? For your reference: The page is set up so that any URL that doesn't exist just refers to the subdirectory. /for-institutions/$%7Bpdf%7D/ displays /for-institutions/, but does not rewrite the URL. So too if I were to enter /for-institutions/dog.
Web Design | | SpokeHQ0 -
Website URL Structures - Which does Google prefer or does it matter?
Which URL structure does google prefer..............OR DOES IT REALLY MATTER? Option A www.example.com/services/service#1 - this is the default that wordpress uses Option B www.example.com/service#1
Web Design | | webestate0 -
Suggestions For My Ecommerce Site
I am starting to work on an ecommerce site that I am part owner of. My partner who is the other owner started the site a while back and because he has no internet marketing experience the site didn't come out very well. I am currently overhauling the site and here is a list of things first on my list so I can at least get started on some seo and even ppc. I would really appreciate it if you could take a look at our store and see if you think I am missing anything or you could suggest anything else that really should be done immediately or something that is wrong. The site is www.clubfitnesswarehouse.com Update magento to newest version Fix url structure to be SEO friendly for homepage, category pages, product pages etc. For an example of a site that has great seo friendly urls please refer to examples on http://www.bigfitness.com/ site. For example these pages. http://www.bigfitness.com/treadmillstore.html , http://www.bigfitness.com/bosplincy.html , Remove top navigation menu and instead create left sidebar navigation menu created to navigate site and products. For example of these types of sidebars please refer to sidebar on http://www.bigfitness.com/ or http://www.americanfitness.net/ We will NOT be using same structure as what is in top navigation currently. Categories and keywords of categories will be changed and some will stay the same structure as is currently in navigation For header we would like to feature our shipping policy, returns, privacy policy, no sales tax etc. For example I have seen that I like refer to http://www.spiderofficechairs.com/ Obviously we do not want to copy but something similar for our own site. All images on homepage must be changed to include clickable txt so google can read text not just pictures. We would also like product pages modified to make more user friendly and conversion increased. Add to cart button needs to be changed, text needs to be brighter instead of dull grey color. Add to cart button must also be moved ABOVE THE FOLD! Also on product pages we would like to add sections in addition to Product Description, of Specs, and About section for each product page. We also need the ability to change this information as needed when we need to.
Web Design | | PEnterprises0