Question on changing URL structures
-
We have a lot of "Long URL" errors in moz, and our URLs have no helpful format to them. For example, our blog URLs currently have a date and the title so they end up looking like this: blog/year/month/day/long title that never ends.
If I were to setup a new URL structure using MOZ best practices, can I just make the change going forward and redirect a few high trafficked links to this new structure? Or do I really need to make the change for the website (specifically blog) as a whole to see a positive impact? I know this means there may be an initial drop in traffic which I'd like to avoid.
-
Be very careful about changing hierarchy or structure. It does have an effect on where the pages rank.
Any pages that are ranking well (i.e. position 0 to 5) don't even touch them, in fact anything on the first page I would be slow to alter without very good reason.
Anything that is on the second page or worse you haven't got a lot to lose, so restructuring probably would make sense.
-
Hey there,
I assume you're using WordPress default permalink structure. If your site is a large blog I would recommend to check out yoast premium plugin which allows you to set up the 301 redirect at once when you change the permalink structure. If it's a small blog you can do that with other free plugins that help set up 301 redirects as well.
-
To get the full benefit of changing the link structure it's probably a good idea to structure the whole thing correctly as opposed to just throwing it on top of the links you have now. As long as you do the redirects right, it should be a smooth process.
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
-
WWW used in research URL, or not to WWW
Long time user, infrequent poster.... thanks for taking my question... When I go to gather a series of data elements on a company's URL, the data changes (sometime dramatically) depending on whether the 'www.' is added to the URL & it seems related more to Page data than Domain. My question is about which data I should be using to assess the real strength of the site / page? Is there a 'best practice' question here, a personal preference or is there an actual difference in the performance of the www vs the non-www version? aquGYdz
Moz Pro | | SWGroves0 -
Major Drop in URLs that Received Organic Search Visits
Hi there! I can't figure out this issue. We had a major drop in URLS receiving organic search visits (according to Koz) yet our traffic hasn't seemed to drop in correlation. Our site had a major issue at the end of may (*hence the drop in search traffic) but it seems to have recovered, yet URLs that Received Organic Search Visits has dropped dramatically. I've looked at Google updates but can't seem to find anything, what am I missing? NVun4Wq
Moz Pro | | DotP0 -
SEOMoz Question
Hi, I have taken over SEO on a real estate site with an internal blog. Unfortunately there are loads of duplicated pages and titles in the blog. It was suggested that all should be rel=canonical so not to show up. In my last crawl here though they still do. So question is if SEOMoz crawls and sees them is Google also seeing them? Also would it be best to move the blog off site so this does not cause anymore damage and just link to it from the main site? Thanks for your comments
Moz Pro | | AkilarOffice0 -
Q&A alert e-mails no longer contain links back to the question referenced in the e-mail
How does everyone feel about no longer having direct links back to questions we may have answered or asked in the e-mails? Until just recently when somebody commented on a question you had commented on easily you were able to click a link and see if it was maybe another question for you if you had not been clear enough the first time or if you needed to give more info whatever the need you had a link directly to The question referenced in the email. Now all I can do is click on the person's profile which unfortunately does not get me back to Q&A to reply if needed to any questions. I have to go through all the steps again and find it strange why you guys would remove the link going straight to the question being referenced in the email. PS I love you and look the at new e-mails they look great. This is not anything big, but it was a nice advantage, and I will happily give up for all the great stuff you guys are giving us now. However if it would not be a burden I would love to see you back in their how does everyone else feel? Sincerely, Thomas Von Zickell
Moz Pro | | BlueprintMarketing0 -
Campaign Domain "change" (www. vs no www.)
Hello, I'm tracking a domain (with www.thespin.be) since months. Last week we changed things related to domain & server and now SEOmoz has 0 pages crawled. I think that's because now my main domain is without www. (thespin.be). How can I modify my campaign to reflect this "change" (that's not really a new domain..) to avoid losing all my campaign history ? Also, on Google Webmaster Tools it's like I have 2 different sites (one with www. and another without), although I've defined my favorite domain (without www.) months ago.. Google won't update its index. And I have this problem on several other sites.. Thank you very much for giving me a feedback. Regards Jean-Louis
Moz Pro | | JeanlouisSEO1 -
Why would my domain authority keep changing when I refresh?
Hi All, I've noticed that my domain authority is changing every time I refresh SEO MOz. In some instances it increases and other time stays the same as a previous month. Is this just a mid-transitional stage? or is there a potential bug in the system? It's making it difficult to know what is really happening.
Moz Pro | | Benjamin3790 -
Question about a dramatic decrease in domain authority.
My personal website http://Bsalva.com has started to drop in both page authority and domain authority. This seems to be largely due to open site explorer not picking up all of my inbound links. Right now it says I only have one linking root domain, but I know this to be crap. I have quite a few followed links from well trusted and reputable sites. My page rank typically bounces between a 5 and 6. I should also have hundreds of inbound links. The other sites In my campaign monitor haven't taken such a hit so I'm starting to get a little worried. Does anyone know what might cause incoming links to not me recognized? they were just fine last month, and I can go find them on the web as we speak.
Moz Pro | | Bsalva0 -
Are the Ranking Changes on SEOmoz ranking reports weekly or life of the keyword?
I am referring to the area where it says ranking changes and where it has a green and a red arrow for improved and declined.
Moz Pro | | JGar-2203710