Joomla to Wordpress site migration - thousands of 404s
-
I recently migrated a site from Joomla to Wordpress. In advance I exported the HTML pages from Joomla using Screaming Frog and did 301 redirects on all those pages.
However Webmaster Tools is now telling me (a week after putting the redirects in place) that there are >7k 404s. Many of them aren't HTML pages, just index.php files but I didn't think I would have to export these in my Screaming Frog crawl.
We have since done a blanket 301 redirect for anything with index.php in it but Webmaster Tools is still picking them up as 404s.
So my question is, what should I have done with Screaming Frog re exporting to ensure I captured all pages to redirect and what should I now do to fix the 404s that Webmaster Tools is picking up?
-
Hi There
Generally those types of 404's won't be too harmful - they sound like they may have been somewhat artificial WordPress pages.
What I would do is get your list now from Analytics or Webmaster Tools - this way you will capture URLs that actually got traffic or Impression in Google and redirect those.
So run a landing pages report, and an top pages report in webmaster tools - maybe for the last 6 months. Create a text file of all the URLs, and run them in list mode through Screaming Frog. Redirect any that 404.
If you were to go back in time, what I would have done with Screaming Frog is - let it crawl everything - you have to allow it to "follow redirects" and "ignore robots.txt" etc - I know Google is not supposed to crawl anything in robots.txt - but basically you'd be letting Screaming Frog get to everything, that way you don't miss any URLs.
-
I know it doesn't create redirects but I wanted to use it to figure out the list of files / pages to create 301 redirects for and then add these to the HTAccess file. However was I incorrect to just export the HTML files from Screaming Frog as there were only 500 of these but there are now 7000 404s in Webmaster Tools of PHP files.
-
Hi,
Screaming frog doesn't create redirects. You need to use a mod_redirect or something similar.
Maybe, the best option for your problem it's creating a database of old pages -> new pages, and redirect all connections for unknown pages to these page.
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 -
International Site Migration
Hi guys, In the process of launching internationally ecommerce site (Magento CMS) for two different countries (Australia and US). Then later on expand to other countries like the UK, Canada, etc. The plan is for each country will have its own sub-folder e.g. www.domain.com/us, www.domain.com.au/au, www.domain.com.au/uk A lot of the content between these English based countries are the same. E.g. same product descriptions.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | jayoliverwright
So in order to prevent duplication, from what I’ve read we will need to add Hreflang tags to every single page on the site? So for: Australian pages: United States pages: Just wanted to make sure this is the correct strategy (will hreflang prevent duplicate content issues?) and anything else i should be considering? Thankyou, Chris0 -
Domain Mapping, WordPress MultiSite
Hello, With WordPress MultiSite, does Domain Mapping negatively impact search rankings? I am wondering if the search engines can tell if the Domain is part of a MultiSite Network. Or does it just see the site as a regular website? I understand the issue of IP Address and C Blocks but I'm wondering if the search engines will treat a Mapped Domain Name as it would any other website that is on a shared hosting account. Thanks
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | bronxpad0 -
Baffled why my site is not improving in rankings.
Site shows up in the Map results when ever Google shows them. But for all other organic terms site ranks way back. Have lots of unique content and one page grade of an A. The site is http://alexpadillabailbonds.com The main page is optimized for "sacramento bail bonds" with a Moz grade of A yet its not included in the search results. It was before. Any insight from any one will greatly help. Thanks.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | andreyzolnikov0 -
What's the Best Host For WordPress sites
Our site has gone down twice in a week...hosted by Fat Cow. So we're going to switch hosts this week. We currently have 2 WP sites on a Fat Cow VPS. 8 GB file size and 2 GB data transfer monthly. We use a CDN and video hosting company (Wistia) so the file sizes are small. I've contacted several hosts and narrowed it down to WP Engine, Rack Space and A Small Orange. I care about fast page load time (1 second), 99.999% up-time and great support. Price is a secondary concern. I'm leaning towards WP Engine, but wanted to ask Moz community before making a decision. Any other hosting companies I should call?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Branden_S0 -
Network Of Sites...
Hi Guys, Just wondering if anyone can help me out... We have recently been hit by the Google penguin update and I'm currently working though all the bad / spammy backlinks that previous SEO companies have built for us. I have come across 1 particular domain www.justgoodcars.com they seem to have a lot of different domain names: <colgroup><col width="390"></colgroup>
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | ScottBaxterWW
| http://www.justpulsarcars.com/nissan-pulsar-warranties/1/United_Kingdom/all.html |
| http://www.justpumacars.com/ford-puma-warranties/1/United_Kingdom/all.html |
| http://www.justpuntocars.com/dutch-site/fiat-punto-warranties/1/United_Kingdom/all.html?selectcountry1=United_Kingdom |
| http://www.justpuntocars.com/fiat-punto-warranties/1/United_Kingdom/all.html?selectcountry1=United_Kingdom | Now all of theses domains names have exactly the same IP Address?? Above is just a few I would say there are 100s of them. Do you think this could have an affect on us? Thanks, Scott0 -
Linking to bad sites
Hi, I just have a quick question. Is it very negative to link to "bad" sites, such as online pharmacies, dating, adult sites, that sort of stuff? How much does linking to a "bad" site negatively affect a "good" site? Thank you.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | salvyy0 -
Domain migration strategy
Imagine you have a large site on an aged and authoritative domain. For commercial reasons the site has to be moved to a new domain, and in the process is going to be revamped significantly. Not an ideal starting scenario obviously to be biting off so much all at once, but unavoidable. The plan is to run the new site in beta for about 4 weeks, giving users the opportunity to play with it and provide feedback. After that there will be a hard cut over with all URLs permanently redirected to the new domain. The hard cut over is necessary due to business continuity reasons, and real complexity in trying to maintain complex UI and client reporting over multiple domains. Of course we'll endeavour to mitigate the impact of the change by telling G about the change in WMC and ensuring we monitor crawl errors etc etc. My question is whether we should allow the new site to be indexed during the beta period? My gut feeling is yes for the following reasons: It's only 4 weeks and until such time as we start redirecting the old site the new domain won't have much whuffie so there's next to no chance the site will ranking for anything much. Give Googlebot a headstart on indexing a lot of URLs so they won't all be new when we cut over the redirects Is that sound reasoning? Is the duplication during that 4 week beta period likely to have some negative impact that I am underestimating?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Charlie_Coxhead0