Are Incorrectly Set Up URL Rewrites a Possible Cause of Panda
-
On a .NET site, there was a url rewrite done about 2 years ago. From a visitor's perspective, it seems to be fine as the urls look clean. But, Webmaster tools reports 500 errors from time to time showing /modules/categories... and /modules/products.... which are templates and how the original urls were structured. While the developer made it look clean, I am concerned that he could have set it up incorrectly. He acknowledged that IIS 7 on a Windows server allows url rewrites to be set up, but the site was done in another way that forces the urls to change to their product name. So, he has believed it to be okay.
However, the site dropped significantly in its ranking in July 2013 which appears to be a Panda penalty. In trying to figure out if this could be a factor in why the site has suffered, I would like to know other webmasters opinions. We have already killed many pages, removed 2/3 of the index that Google had, and are trying to understand what else it could be.
Also, in doing a header check, I see that it shows the /modules/products... page return a 301 status. I assume that this is okay, but wanted to see what others had to say about this.
When I look at the source code of a product page, I see a reference to the /modules/products...
I'm not sure if any of this pertains, but wanted to mention in case you have insight. I hope to get good feedback and direction from SEOs and technical folks
-
I don't think you understood the question as it didn't have much to do with links. This is related to a content management system which has an ugly url which a developer then took to make it more user friendly. While a user browsing the site sees clean URLs, webmaster tools reported 500 errors which are essentially server errors.
It doesn't seem those errors are in the console anymore. But, I was wondering if anyone has seen sites receive penalties because of a handful of 500 errors even though the site looks pretty good from a user perspective. (Note: the site is fairly large and a few 500 errors appeared).
-
Check your backlink profile - are there unnatural links? Are there sites which are spammy linking to you?
Get your site all working technically speaking, which it sounds like you have and then or at the same time check the links. I suspect you have some bad links which you are going to have to try to remove, or disavow.
Best of luck!
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
-
Which URL should I choose when combining content?
I am combining content from two similar articles into one. URL 1 has a featured snippet and better URL structure, but only 5,000 page views in the last 6 month, and has 39 keywords ranking in the top 10. URL 2 has worse structure, but over 100k page views in the last 6 months, and 236 keywords in the top 10. Basically, I'm wondering if I keep the one with the better URL structure or the one with more traffic. The deleted URL will be redirected to whichever I keep.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | curtis-yakketyyak0 -
Keyword in URL - SEO impact
Hi, We don't have most important keyword of our industry in our domain or sub-domain. How important it is to have keyword in website URL? Most of our competitors pages with "keyword" urls been listing in SERP. What is back-links role in this scenarion? And which URL have more advantage? keyword in sub-domain or page with keyword. Like for "seo" keyword..... seo.example.com or example.com/seo
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | vtmoz0 -
Can multiple geotargeting hreflang tags be set in one URL? International SEO question
Hi All, Thank you for this great post! I have a question please. If i target www.onedirect.co.nl/en/ in English for Holland, Belgium and Luxembourg, are the tags below correct? English for Holland, Belgium and Luxembourg: http://www.example.co.nl/en/" hreflang="en-nl" /> http://www.example.co.nl/en/" hreflang="en-be" /> http://www.example.co.nl/en/" hreflang="en-lu" /> AND Targeting Holland and Belgium in Dutch: Pour la page www.onedirect.co.nl on peut inclure ce tag: http://www.example.co.nl" hreflang="nl-nl" /> http://www.example.co.nl" hreflang="nl-be" /> thanks a lot for your help!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Onedirect_uk0 -
How to know website is hit with panda or penguin?
My Website traffic and keywords dropped day by day. How can I know website is hit with panda or penguin. Website is - 24hourpassportandvisas. com
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | bondhoward0 -
Htaccess rewrite rule (very specific)
Hello, Awhile back my company changed from http: to https: sitewide (before i started working here). We use a very standard rewrite rule that looks like this: RewriteEngine On
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Waismann
RewriteCond %{SERVER_PORT} 80
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ https://opiates.com/$1 [R,L] However, with this rule in place, some http: urls are being redirected with a 302 status code. My question is, can I safely change the above code to look like this: RewriteEngine On
RewriteCond %{SERVER_PORT} 80
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ https://opiates.com/$1 [R=301,L] to ensure that every redirected is returned with a 301 status code. The only change is in the [R,L] section. Thanks to whomever can help with this. I'm pretty sure its safe but I dont want the site to go down, even for a second, so figured I would ask first.0 -
Zenfolio set up for SEO
We are using zenfolio as a hosted photography/image gallery set up as http://oursite.zenfolio.com We have about 24,000 backlinks to the website however over 22,000 are from zenfolio.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | jazavide
Do you see issues with this set up from an organic seo perspective and so many links from one domain pointing back into the main site?
Thanks0 -
Exact keyword URL or not?
Hi all, I have a quick question about the proper use of permalinks. Let's say that I have a website about sports and I want to create an internal page dedicated to shoes. I know that the keyword "shoe" has 15.000 monthly visits, while the keyword "shoes" has 1.000 monthly visits. How do I have to name the internal page? http://www.example.com/shoe or http://www.example.com/shoes (with a final 's')? I would think that by naming the URL http://www.example.com/shoes, the search engine would consider that page for the keywords "shoe" and "shoes", but I am not sure about it. Should I create a URL that only focuses on one specific keyword ("shoe", in this example) or a URL that may encompass more than one keyword ("shoe" and "shoes")? I hope this is clear. Thank you for your time and help. All best, Sal
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | salvyy0 -
How do I make my URLs SEO friendly?
Hi all, I am aware that overly-dynamic URLs hurt a website's SEO potential and I want to fix mine. At present they look like this: http://www.societyboardshop.co.uk/products.php?brand=Girl+Skateboards&BrandID=153 What do I need to do to fix them please... do I add some code to the htaccess file? Many thanks, much apreciated. Paul.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Paul530