Advice on strange URL problem
-
I'm considering doing some pro bono work for a local non-profit and upon initial review they have a number of serious issues but there is one in particular I'd like to check my thinking on.
The developer who set up the site some years ago implemented a javascript redirect on their root domain so that it redirects to:
This is wrong for all kinds of reasons and I want to recommend eliminating this redirect and getting rid of the 'wordpress' part of the path altogether. However, the site is quite established with good PR and they would take a hit by changing the path.
I'd do 301 redirects to the new URLs that would not have 'wordpress' in the path in addition to other remediation.
My question - is my thinking here good? It's worth it, right? The other option is just get rid of the weird redirect and keep 'wordpress' in the path but this seems unacceptable to me.
Any opinions?
-
Thanks, Andrew! I had done this for handfuls of pages at a time, but not an entire site and it had me concerned. I appreciate the advice!
-
Hi John,
Agree - sounds very messy!
With regard to any 'ranking drop' I really wouldn't worry about this either. I had the same concerns a few weeks ago when I redirected my entire website (an old keyword loaded domain to acornseo.com).
I did a quick audit of the site using Screaming Frog to get all the links, then 301'd each one individually to the new location. The process was very easy, the time it takes depends on the number of pages your website has.
Looking at the Google results after I made the change, I could see my new links appearing in the results, just below the old ones. After a few days the old ones had disappeared and the new acornseo.com links replaced them completely - in effect I had zero ranking downtime, and haven't seen any loss of position since the change over.
Hope that helps.
Cheers,
Andrew
-
OK, thanks for your advice.
-
I'm saying keep your URLs. You can move them but there's a short-term penalty for doing so. Proper 301s will keep it from being too bad but, as my mother likes to say, if it ain't broke, don't fix it!
-
Thanks Highland. Are you saying you think keeping the 'wordpress' in the path is the way to go or would you get rid of it? Not sure what you mean when you say 'original URLs'.
-
Thanks, Andrew. Actually the entire site is in the wordpress folder and they don't use the blogging functionality. So if you visit the site with javascript disabled you get a blank page. The home page is actually http://domain.com/wordpress but the root domain (without the 'wordpress' attached) returns a 200 response code. It essentially just contains a javascript redirect. What a mess.
So, I was going to do exactly as you suggest but wanted to make sure it would be worth the hit in the search results and I wasn't just responding emotionally to the poor technical and aesthetic aspects of the set up.
-
I agree that keeping the original URLs is the better way to go (you'll lose some SEO momentum changing them). I also agree that a 301 from the root to the wordpress directory would be superior to a JS redirect. Googlebot is probably smart enough to figure that one out (especially if the site is indexed) but there's no reason not to do this and make sure.
-
Hi John,
Using the 'wordpress' name isn't ideal, and I would agree you could make it more user-friendly. Depending on what is actually in the subfolder, a standard 301 redirect from 'wordpress' to 'blog' should do the trick.
However, you could also consider moving the 'wordpress' folder to the root domain and getting rid of the javascript redirect. Then you have the website on the root. Moving Wordpress instances from one directory to another is relatively painless - get back to me if you need advice on that front.
Hope that helps,
Cheers
Andrew
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
-
Tags problem I need help
Hello I have a problem on my site and I want to help solve it I allow adding tags in search engines However, when writing new content, tags are not added to search engines This is my website link مجلة الحلوة
Technical SEO | | ahmedahmed3230 -
Doubts about the technical URL structure
Hello, first we had this structure Categorie: https://www.stoneart-design.de/armaturen/ Subcategory: https://www.stoneart-design.de/armaturen/waschtischarmaturen/ Oft i see this https://www.xxxxxxxx.de/badewelt/badmoebel/ But i have heard it has something to do with layers so google can index it better, is that true ? "Badewelt" is an extra layer ? So i thought maybe we can better change this to: https://www.stoneart-design.de/badewelt/armaturen/ https://www.stoneart-design.de/badewelt/armaturen/waschtischarmaturen/ and after seeing that i thought we can do it also like this so the keyword is on the left, and make instead "badewelt" just a "c" and put it on the back https://www.stoneart-design.de/armaturen/c/ https://www.stoneart-design.de/armaturen/waschtischarmaturen/c/ I dont understand it anymomre which is the best one, to me its seems to be the last one The reason was about this: this looks to me keyword stuffing: Attached picture Google indexed not the same time the same url, so i thougt with this we can solve it Also we can use only the word "whirlpools" in de main category and the subs only the type without "whirlpools" in text thanks Regards, Marcel SC9vi60
Technical SEO | | HolgerL0 -
Need URL structure suggestions
On my website I am in the process of creating expat city guides for different cities in Cambodia. I've already gotten three up, but I am worried that my URL structure is not the best, so I am wondering if I should fix it before I put the rest up. Right now the city guides are housed here: movetocambodia.com/expat-city-and-island-guides/ There's a section for each city, this one is for Battambang: movetocambodia.com/expat-city-and-island-guides/battambang And then there are sections for hotels, restaurants, etc. movetocambodia.com/expat-city-and-island-guides/battambang/battambang-hotels-and-accommodation So once you finally get to a review for an individual hotel or activity, the URL is really long, like this: movetocambodia.com/expat-city-and-island-guides/battambang/battambang-hotels-and-accommodation/classy-hotel Should I just par the section names down so the URL would be something like this: movetocambodia.com/expat-city-guides/battambang/accommodation/classy-hotel/ ? I was hoping by having the long URLs slugs for my section pages, such as "battambang-hotels-and-accommodation" they would be more likely to show on search terms like "Battambang hotels" than if the section was just "accommodation." However, this whole section is getting much less search traffic than anything else on my site, so I am wondering if it is because of these ridiculously long URLs. Any suggestions would be appreciated.
Technical SEO | | Lina5000 -
Dynamic vs. static URLs
Hello Everyone, I'm new here on MOZ and just getting back into SEO (a little bit) after not doing anything 'myself' for a couple of years. Currently my individual URLs show as: https://www.example.com/index.php?l=product_detail&p=107 (dynamic responsive site). I can switch it to a static site, so the individual product pages read as:https://www.example.com/catalog/category name/product name-107.html It's still a long URL, but it would be keyword rich. Some of my current dynamic pages are indexed,and due to an upgrade I had to do several months back, I already have some redirects (301) from my php extensions to the one listed above. This is my long explanation to my following questions: Does having a dynamic or static site matter when ranking in search engines I already have some redirects coming my older site to this dynamic site, so I would have to make more directs from the dynamic site to my static site - is this okay to do? I'm really at a loss, a couple of years ago, I ranked 1-3 (on Page 1) on Google for all my keywords, (all White Hat work), and now I'm into great abyss of no mans land of the internet (ranked on Page 3+) Thank you for any and all help from everyone! ~Sandra
Technical SEO | | rankmenow0 -
Should the date be included in news URLs
My website is not a news or magazine site, but we do have a news section updated 2-3 times a week with industry related news. We are working on a new structure for the URLs.
Technical SEO | | theLotter
Should the date be included in the URL? From this article from Google I understand that as long as we submit a news sitemap it doesnt matter whether or not numbers are included in the URL, correct? https://support.google.com/news/publisher/answer/68323?topic=116650 -
Query strings in Canoncials URLs
Video on my site all resides at www.mydomain.com/video in a player that does not assign unique URLs for each video. We may be able to rewrite the URLs to include a unique identifier found in the video's metadata (www.mydomain.com/video/?bctid=17769780). If I did this, how would it impact the canonical URL? Do the SEs accept canonicals with query strings? What if I only changed the canonical URL and did not change the video's URL? Would that be a problem?
Technical SEO | | BostonWright0 -
Variables in URLS?
How much do variables in URLs hurt indexing of that page? I'm worried that with this huge string of variables that the pages won't get indexed. Here's what I think we should have: http://adomainname.com/New/Local/State/City/Make/Model/ Here's the current URL:http://adomainname.com/New/Local/MN/Bayport/Jeep/Liberty?curPage=1&pageResultSize=50&orderDir=DESC&orderBy=ModifiedDate&conditionId=1&makeId=7&modelId=141&stateProvinceName=Minnesota&mc=1
Technical SEO | | CFSSEO0 -
Problem wth Crawling
Hello, I have a website http://digitaldiscovery.eu here in SEOmoz. Its strange since the last week SEOmoz is crawling only one page! And before it was crwaling all the pages. Whats happening? Help SEOmoz! :))
Technical SEO | | PedroM0