Should I change Permalinks?
-
I have a site that is doing well in rankings, and its also been accepted in to Google news.
I have around 800 article live on the site.
My current permalink structure is - /%year%/%monthnum%/%postname%/
What I am wondering, would it be better to change it to - /%postname%/
The reason I ask is that most of the well ranking sites and sites built by SEO companies all seem to have the /%postname%/
Will I get a benefit from changing this? I know that I could republish content have the /%postname%/ permalinks.
Are there any other benefits?
If the is a benefit, I'd perefr to change it as soon as possible before the site grows even more
Thanks in advance for anyone who can help
-
I have just done a test with another wordpress site I run.
I changed the permalinks and the old URLs got redirected to the new URLs.
I checked if the redirect was a 301 and it was.
I dont have the redirection plugin installed.
It appears as though wordpress does this automatically.
-
Ok great. I hope so lol.
I will be moving hosting from a shared one to a VPS and use CDN so we can really speed up the site.
I am guessing that the best time to do the permalink change will be when we move servers.
Anything you suggest I should watch out for?
-
Hi John,
There is a plugin that allows you to edit permalinks for single posts, so you can decide what kind of permalink structure you want for each post from now. Here you have the link:
http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/permalink-editor/
However, as Marcus says, if your redirects are well done (and redirect plugin lets you do it), you don't have to worry about it.
Sergio
-
To be honest, I'm scared to change the permalinks now!
Terrified the the site will take a beating and drop rankings
The wordpress site is built using Genesis framework and Ive got Yoast SEO plugin installed.
I cant see it as simply just change the permalinks in wordpress and everythng works lol I wish it was that simple.
Does the redirection pluggin automatically create 301's?
I am sure that wordpress has that built in if I am correct. I recall changing permalinks in past wordpress sites and redrects happened
-
Hey, that is not possible with the default settings although there may be a plugin that could extend the functionality.
You would not see any problem from making a change in your permalink structure with the redirection plugin in place and whilst you may have a small bump whilst things switch over, if your URLs are getting crazy long then any slashes and characters you can remove is going to work in your favour.
Your best bet is likely to go one way or the other and personally, if you feel the date elements bring nothing to the table then I would make the change in the spirit of moving forwards.
_* I did come across an old plugin called Advanced Permalinks but lots of folks seem to have problems with it. _
-
Wow, great thanks Sergio. I have not seen the quoted info.
I understand totally, we always try to look at it from the users point of view.
We do not use the date archives on the site, so having the content in date folders I cant see adding any benefit.
I think the site can do a great deal better with the rankings certainly, but it is on the way up
We get a few interactions, but not many. Would like a lot more
Some of the URLs are getting very long also, so that another reason we would like to change the permalinks
I have also noticed that some of the older posts are dropping down the rankings. It appears a little faster then normal. This may not be anything to do with the permalinks, but its a thought i have had
It would be great if we could just somehow start all the posts from now onwards using the /%postname%/ structure. And all the past articles staying the same URL.
I dont see why we would have to change the already existing URL's of the past articles.
Is that possible do you know on a wordpress site?
-
Hi John,
If you look at SEOmoz PRO Dashboard On-page Resports, one issue they consider as Low Importance Factor is 'Minimal Subfolders in the URL'. They explain it as follows:
<dt style="color: #5e5e5e; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;">Explanation</dt>
<dd style="color: #5e5e5e; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;">
The quantity of subfolders in a URL appears to correlate to rankings. URLs with fewer trailing slashes perform better than those with more. Additionally, search engine representatives have recommended that excessive, subfolders in a URL string may be a signal that the page is very deep in a site's structure and may be less valuable/worthwhile to crawl, index and rank.
</dd>
<dt style="color: #5e5e5e; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;">Recommendation</dt>
<dd style="color: #5e5e5e; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;">
Rewrite the URL to include no more than 3 subfolder levels (4 trailing slashes following the domain name)
</dd>
However, I agree with Marcus. Think about your users and your website needs. Forget about Google and its way of crawling, indexing an so on. If you see a good performance from your users, what is bad?
Consider the following:
- Is your traffic good for your expectations?
- Is your traffic increasing through time?
- Do your users interact?
- Is your website well considered by your users?
If all your answers are YES, then keep on going. You´re doing very well.
If not, consider if minimizing subfolders could improve your website's experience (at all stages).
Hope it helps.
Sergio
-
Hi Marcus,
Thanks for your reply.
I noticed that some other big news sites dont use the date in the URL's, but the posts show the date.
My concern is that Google may lower the rankings over time as it knows these pages are time sensitive.
Thanks for the redirection plugin link. We currently use that on the site.
-
I don't really think this is an SEO question as such and lots of well ranked sites have the year and month in the URL.
Really, it all depends on what works best for you and your users.
- Are the pages and stories date specific?
- Will having just the page names make for better looking URLs?
Try to think about this outside of the SEO mindset and do whatever is best for the content and your users as you are not going to get any kind of noticeable SEO boost from removing the date from the URLs.
But, if you do decide to do this, and assuming this is WordPress from the terminology, then if you install the redirection plugin it will create automatic 301 redirections for any page names you change so it could save you a whole load of work.
Obviously, this is not a specific answer, only you can provide that, but think of it not as an SEO fix but think of your users and how this would effect them in a positive way.
Hope that helps!
MarcusReferences:
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
-
Domain Change for a well positioned website... I'm a-scared
Hello, A few years ago I have "inherited" a website about a particular touristic area in Italy (the Langhe region) called langhe.net. The website is very well positioned, the domain has been registered in '97 and the overall SEO performance is pretty good (it ranks in the top #3 positions for all the main search queries in our niche). We are currently redesigning the whole thing, and one of the idea was to change the domain (and the name) of the website from langhe.net to lovelanghe.com (which we already registered). The reasons behind this decision are the following (most important first): Google prefer brands over keywords and "Langhe" is just a keyword LoveLanghe looks more memorable and "marketable" than just Langhe.net All our social presence is branded already as LoveLanghe (they were created years back under this name - I don't know why) We will do our due diligence work (301 everything, domain change in Search Console etc. etc.) but I'm still kind of worried that we will lose some ranking. So my question(s) are: do you think it's a good idea to change the domain when ranking is good and original domain is so old? how much ranking (approximately) are we going to lose? Thanks in advance 🙂 Best
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Enrico_Cassinelli0 -
Should I use the Change of Address in Search Console when moving subdomains to subfolders?
We have several subdomains for various markets for our business. We are in the process of moving those subdomains to subfolders on the main site. Example: boston.example.com will become example.com/boston And seattle.example.com will become example.com/seattle and so on. It's not truly a change of address, but should I use the change of address tool in GSC for all of these subdomains moving?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | MJTrevens0 -
URL structure change and xml sitemap
At the end of April we changed the url structure of most of our pages and 301 redirected the old pages to the new ones. The xml sitemaps were also updated at that point to reflect the new url structure. Since then Google has not indexed the new urls from our xml sitemaps and I am unsure of why. We are at 4 weeks since the change, so I would have thought they would have indexed the pages by now. Any ideas on what I should check to make sure pages are indexed?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | ang0 -
Thoughts on my change of address delima?
Currently our corporate website and store website are under two domains. internationalcompany.com (DA: 51; Corporate Website) companystore.com (DA: 34; US Store Website) We were hoping to piggyback on the corporate website domain authority by moving our store to internationalcompany.com/store and when we learned that couldn't happen we opted for us.internationalcompany.com/store. The reason we are leaning towards the route of us.internationalcompany.com is because it is likely that we will be taking over the US branch of the corporate website so we thought it better that the store be a sub address of that. My main concerns... From what I have gathered it seems that I can't do a change of address to a subdomain within Webmaster Tools - I'd have to have access to internationalcompany.com which won't happen soon. So, is a 301 just as good in this case? As a subdomain, we won't actually reap the benefits of the domain authority of the parent domain will we? Are we just as well off considering a new domain and asking that regional tags be established on the current internationalcompany.com so that the content does not interfere with our SEO efforts? This is a broad explanation for a complicated issue. Please ask any question that may help clarify.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | bearpaw0 -
WIX? How to change URLS and is it any good for SEO
I have Wix website and want to change its url structure, but not able to do so, any one know how to do so?. Does below URLs work for SEO? And Is Wix is good for SEO or not? abc.com/#!how-it-works/c46c abc.com/#!party-event/c1lzb
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Dan_Brown10 -
Redesign Launch with change from ASP to PHP
My client is launching a new corporate website redesign. But the trick is, their old site was built in ASP and they want the new site to be a Wordpress site, built in PHP. Their current website has A PR4/10 and MANY backlinks to its pages. I don't want to risk any SEO authority and make sure the transition is smooth. The current site only has less than 75 pages. Can anyone give me a checklist of things I need to make sure get done? And how to do each? For example: 1. How to forward the old domain to new URLs... (301s? DNS? HT Access?..not savvy) 2. Keep all the same URLs? 3. Don't change any content?...etc. 4. Submit new sitemap? or robots.txt file? Also, I wanted to add a Wordpress Blog to the new site for SEO purposes, but since it's being built in Wordpress, do you recommend I have a subdomain on this site as www.blog.website.com? Or is this now not necessary since the entire thing is built in wordpress? I would REALLY appreciate your time helping me on this. Thanks! Derek
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | DerekM880 -
How does changing hosting affect rankings?
I have a hosting account that is ancient. So is it's CPanel, its way of operation (I have to call in to change the zone file), and its hardware and software (It can't even recognize Wordpress as a user so i have to change permissions to change anything.) I plan on moving the site, but I want to prepare for any changes that may happen. Currently the site ranks between #1 or 3 for quite a few very valuable words. It is also in season for this business. I know changing hosting data or servers can cause google to temporarily drop rankings. Does anyone have any experience with this or now how long the faded rankings can last? Or if its even true?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | MarloSchneider0 -
I have 4,100 302 redirects; How can I change so many to 301s
hi, i have way to many 302 redirects, how can i bulk change these to 301 i have started in cpanel but i could be old by the time i finsih
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | freedomelectronics1