Will adding /blog/ to my urls affect SEO rankings?
-
Following advice from an external SEO agency I removed /blog/ from our permalinks late last year. The logic was that it a) doesn't help SEO and b) reduces the character count for the slug.
Both points make sense. However, it makes segmenting blog posts from other content in Google Analytics impossible.
If I were to add /blog/ back into my URLs, and redirected the permalinks, would it harm my rankings?
Thanks!
-
I had recently remove a blog from my website and the website certainly drops in ranking. The reason is that Google considers it a totally new page.
-
I agree with you both that "blog" in the urls is valuable in terms of segmenting Analytics data. The only thing I'd bear in mind is that changing the URL isn't actually just changing the URL. To Google - you are deleting one page and creating another, and it takes time to understand that the new page should replace the old page, even if there's a redirect in place.
Given that you've presumably already done this once and you're reversing it, the risk should be lower, but I'd still approach this change as though it's a migration. I'm not saying "don't do it" just "take precautions".
In terms of tracking in the interim - you could consider using a custom dimension to identify blog posts. Use Google Tag Manager to determine the page is a blog post then send the dimension along with the page hit. Not ideal but it's something if you find you don't have other options.
Good luck!
-
Hi there,
I would keep a "blog" in the URL since it can get really messy in Google Analytics.
Ross
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
-
Friendly URLS (SEO urls)
Hello, I own a eCommerce site with more than 5k of products, urls of products are : www.site.com/index.php?route=product/product&path=61_87&product_id=266 Im thinking about make it friend to seo site.com/category/product-brand Here is my question,will I lost ranks for make that change? Its very important to me know it Thank you very much!
Technical SEO | | matiw0 -
Structuring URL's for better SEO
Hello, We were rolling our fresh urls for our new service website. Currently we have our structure as www.practo.com/health/dental/clinic/bangalore We like to have it as www.practo.com/health/dental-clinic-bangalore Can someone advice us better which one of the above structure would work out better and why? Should this be a focus of attention while going ahead since this is like a search engine platform for patients looking out for actual doctors. Thanks, Aditya
Technical SEO | | shanky10 -
Will having a big list of cities for areas a client services help or damage SEO on a page?
We have a client we inherited that has flat text list of all the cities and counties they service on their contact page. They service the entire southeast so the list just looks crazy ridiculous. --------- Example: ---- South Carolina: Abbeville, Aiken, Allendale, Anderson, Bamberg, Barnwell, Beaufort, Berkeley, Calhoun, Charleston, Cherokee, etc etc ------ end example ------ The question is, will this help or hinder their seo for their very specific niche industry? Is this key word spamming? It has an end-user purpose so it technically isn't spam, but perhaps the engines may look at it otherwise. I couldn't find a definitive answer to the question, any help would be appreciated.
Technical SEO | | Highforge0 -
Our sites have a high number of long urls. how does this affected ranking
Hi, A few of the sights in our networks have a high number of urls. How does this affect our rankings Thanks in advance for your help
Technical SEO | | Feily0 -
Moving a blog from unique domain to root /blog/ but on 2 different servers? HELP!
I have a main site hosted on one server, I have the blog hosted on another server - BOTH of which my team has FULL control over. I ultimately want the blog to reside on the root domain: www.mysite.com/blog/ My network team is saying "DNS will not allow this to happen, the resolution will ultimately have to be on blog.website.com" Has anyone out there done this? Is it even possible? HELP!
Technical SEO | | BCA0 -
Fowarding URL's Have No SEO Value?
Good Morning from -3 Degrees C no paths gritted wetherby UK 😞 Imagine this scenario. http://www.barrettsteel.com/ has been optimised for "Steel suppliers" & "Steel stockholders". After runnning an on page SEO moz report its recommended that the target terms should be placed in the url eg www.steel-suppliers.co.uk Now the organisation will not change the url but think setting up a forwarding url eg registering www.steel-suppliers.co.uk to then forward to www.steel-suppliers.co.uk will be of benfit from an SEO perspective. But i think not. So my question is please "is a forwarding url of no value but a permanent URL (struggling for the terminology to describe the url a site is set up with) such as www.steel-suppliers.co.uk would be of value?" Any insights welcome 🙂
Technical SEO | | Nightwing0 -
How do 301 redirects affect rankings?
Scenario: example.com/red-shoes gets 301 redirected to example.com/brown-boots because we have stopped selling red shoes and now only sell brown boots (which is a fairly new page with no authority). the red-shoes page ranked well for "red shoes" and "footwear". Will Google still index and show the red-shoes url in the SERPs? Will the "red shoes" and "footwear" keywords still rank well? Or does the redirected/new boots page need to properly support these keywords? The boots page has inherited the juice from the shoes page, but how does it help the boots page rank well? Only for keywords that both pages targeted, like a general "footwear" type keyword? Thanks in advance!
Technical SEO | | akim260 -
Sharepoint SEO - How to lowercase urls with rewrite rules?
We have a borked website running on sharepoint IIS .net that has been at the mercy of many bad developers We have rewrite rules with an ini file for 301s etc. We are struggling to find out or figure out how to lowercase them The lowercase functionality may be native within sharepoint somewhere Any help appreciated! Sorry its so vague S
Technical SEO | | firstconversion0