301 redirects reduce traffic considerably

[MarkWill]

I recently identified an issue with our site whereby we had three different URL types for each article. As an example, we might have something like:

• /articles/my-article-name
• /articles/my-article-name.aspx
• /articles/My-Article-Name

We've since taken action to address this by implement 301 redirects from the second and third formats to the first (so everything is without the .aspx extension and is in lower case). But the results have been disconcerting.

Before the change, one of our articles receives 150 or so hits per day via the .aspx version. The other two existed but had very low traffic (1-3 per day). We decided the non .aspx and lowercase version was the version we wanted. Sure enough, when we introduced the 301 redirects on September 25th the traffic for the .aspx version just stopped (after a day) and the traffic for the non-.aspx version climbed. But not enough.

After the change, the non-.aspx version is receiving about 60-70% of the traffic that we used to have on the .aspx version. So, instead of receiving 150 per day (to the .aspx version) we are receiving around 100 or so to the non-.aspx version.

This pattern has occured across all our articles and, as a result, our site-wide traffic has dropped by about 40% or so.

Since we are using 301 redirects I had assumed that the search engines would just update to reflect the non-.aspx version.

I am sure I am missing something here. Any help would be most appreciated.

Thanks.

Mark

[MarkWill]

Thank you, Ryan (and Malachi). Strangely, I thought I had the redirect for non-www pages in place and I am not sure how that got broken. I do have the preference setting in Google configured. Anyway, I've fixed that and I really appreciate you checking this out.

I will investigate the traffic loss further. It's encouraging to know that my logic is sound here though.

Thanks again.

Mark

[malachiii]

Ryan has great points.. also you SHOULD change the www. on your backend, but you can also tell google which one you prefer to point to in http://www.google.com/webmasters/

granted, this wont work for yahoo / bing, so def change it on your server as well.

[RyanKent]

After looking at your site and reviewing the issue I can offer the following recommendations:

• Review your Google Analytics to determine the exact source of your traffic loss. If you steadily received 150 hits/day on a page one week, then it dropped to 100 hits/day the next week, examine the source of the hits from each week. Is it Google Organic Search? Bing Search? E-mails? Ads? etc.

Once you determine the source, drill down further. If you determine the loss stems from Google organic search, examine your keywords and determine where you lost traffic. You need to investigate in this manner for at least a couple pages to determine a pattern.

• Your site has a major SEO issue in that it appears in both the www and non-www form.

http://www.wednet.com/wedding-gifts/wedding-articles/engagement-party-ideas

http://wednet.com/wedding-gifts/wedding-articles/engagement-party-ideas

Both of the above URLs work and return the same page. You need to decide which version of URL you want to present to users and then stick to that format 100%. Since you shared a www type of url previously I will assume that is the format you desire. In that case, 301 redirect all non-www traffic to the www equivalent. This should be possible with a single statement. Presently you have links for both URL versions, and this will affect your SEO and rankings.

Your present 301 redirect for your aspx extension and case-sensitive letters appears correct.

[MarkWill]

Thank you Ryan. I believe the 301's are just fine - I have used a utility to verify this and I correctly see them flagged as being redirected through 301. So, assuming that is good....

Can you clarify a little how I would verify if I am losing link juice? I am indeed in a compeitive industry (wedding planning).

Here is an example of an article that gets us a good number of visitors but which has fallen by 40% or so since we implemented the redirect (as compared to the .aspx traffic we received before).

http://www.wednet.com/wedding-gifts/wedding-articles/engagement-party-ideas

Before I implemented the 301's I had three versions of this page. The .aspx version was the "heavy hitter" in terms of visitors, with the non-.aspx and lower-and-uppercase versions very low. However, the .aspx version had a much higher readership than I am now achieving with just the URL above. Having implemenrted the redirect, the other two URLs are now "dormant" as expecetd (no traffic at all being logged, due to the 301's directing to the URL above).

So, pretty confused.

Thanks again.

Mark

[RyanKent]

Hi Mark.

Your reasoning and logic for the 301 redirects is sound. It is a common practice. I have two initial concerns:

• Were the 301s done properly?

• How much link juice are you losing with the redirect, and has it affected your rankings? This could happen if you are in an ultra-competitive industry.

Can you share some URL examples for your site?