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!
-
"Yes, with any URL change you will lose rank. There is a golden rule : never change URLS."
I respectfully disagree. The golden rule is keep your domain name unless the site is completely nuked. Update URLs to be more SEO friendly, especially if they look like the ones you have.
301 redirect appropriately, and if the new pages have the same content they will simply assume the ranking positions of the old URLs. Test a category first if you're nervous.
-
My experience is that any drop in rankings are extremely brief, especially if you carefully redirect all pages (as the others recommended). There have been occasions that I've seen quite the opposite happen... within 2 days, rankings shot to the top for the bulk of the phrases I was monitoring. Of course, that can be dependent upon your niche.
I have found that the long-term positive of cleaner URLs far outweighs the short-term negative. If you are careful and thorough with your 301 redirects, there might be no negative, IMHO.
-
Hello,
Yes, with any URL change you will lose rank. There is a golden rule : never change URLS.
I do understand the reason for this change and over medium - long term it might be a very good decision but on a short run you might see some Serps dance.
Now of course you need to 301 redirect each old page to the new page on a 1:1 basis. But even so you will lose some as 301 redirects don't pass all the PR from one page to another.
I had similar cases when some site went from some urls with dot asp to LAMP and they had to change any way .. with 301 redirects and new friendly URLS on short term they lost some rankings but on a long term they gain in rankings. so if you do that fro a client make them cristal clear that they will see some drops in the beginning.
If you can with this change improve other elements that will help blur the drops.
Also a very good idea is to change on stages - base don categories or something - if that is possibile as in this way you can track, monitor and adjust as you move forward and also you won't drop site wide with a full site url change. (but sometimes that's not possibile).
Hope it helps.
Cheers.
-
It's always good to have seo friendly urls, both for the bots and the users so they can easily understand what the page is about even in serps!
So you have to be cautious:
- be sure to implement well your 301s. Don't leave any page out if so you may lose real rankings
- prepare a new sitemap to submit as soon as you'll be swapping urls.
Even with that google will take a little to fully digest your new urls. SO you'll see some lower rankings at the beginning but maybe you'll recover in a couple of weeks.
Why not make a test with a bunch of lower priorities pages? So you'll be sure about the time to recover and maybe the impact will be less since it will be spreaded in a longer period.
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
-
Google selecting incorrect URL as canonical: 'Duplicate, submitted URL not selected as canonical'
Hi there, A number of our URLs are being de-indexed by Google. When looking into this using Google Search Console the same message is appearing on multiple pages across our sites: 'Duplicate, submitted URL not selected as canonical' 'IndexingIndexing allowed? YesUser-declared canonical - https://www.mrisoftware.com/ie/products/real-estate-financial-software/Google-selected canonical - https://www.mrisoftware.com/uk/products/real-estate-financial-software/'Has anyone else experienced this problem?How can I get Google to select the correct, user-declared canoncial? Thanks.
Technical SEO | | nfrank0 -
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 -
Removed URLs
Hi all, We have recently removed 200+ articles from our blog. However, those links are still being shown on Google weeks after their removal. In there a way to speed up the process? What effect will this have on our SEO ranking?
Technical SEO | | businessowner0 -
Posting on Forums for SEO benefit
Hi Is it beneficial to participate on forums in our market place to help become an authority in Googles eyes? I assume even if we don't get links it still useful in terms of co-citation... Thanks
Technical SEO | | jj34340 -
What are the SEO implications of URLs that use a # in them?
I have several clients who have begun to ask questions about sites that are designed to look like a single page. When you click on a link, the URL changes but it uses a # before (i.e. http://www.kelloggs.com/teamusa**/#**/teamusa/athletes/kerri-walsh.html. What are the SEO implications of having a page set up this way? I noticed that Google has indexed this page but the indexed URL does not include a #. Is Google indexing a separate version of this page? Any insights would be really helpful! Thanks
Technical SEO | | VMLYRDiscoverability0 -
SEO for a franchise business
Were about to embark on an SEO project for a franchise business with about 150 franchises. Would it be best to give all of the franchises individual domain names or house them under the one domain? If they were on the same domain would it be worth setting them up with sub domains or with a URL so city.mydomain.com vs mydomain.com/city Thanks
Technical SEO | | acs1110 -
SEO Audit - Panda
I am looking for a reputable SEO company to help diagnose Panda issues. I am very familiar with SEO and lead an in-house team so I need more than a basic audit. e.g You need unique content
Technical SEO | | WEB-IRS
e.g. You need to create quality content I am looking for someone with a technical mind to help diagnose. Please reach if you have someone in mind.0 -
SEO - Localization
Hello Folks, I'm curious why my landing page is ranking at #1 on www.google.com.br ( brazil ). keyword: build wizard diablo 3. My lp is above well know domain names such as: wikia.com , blizzard.com , and also above a keyworded domain name: www.wizardbuilds.com/ Is just because my website is focus in brazilian google( .com.br ) or is because my landing page are better than the others( i don't think so)? Thanks.
Technical SEO | | augustos1