Should I change my permalink structure?
-
Hi guys, hope you've had a manageable working week. Just after some advice!
What would you think to changing the permalink structure of an already established entertainment website so that the category and postdate also appears in the URL, i.e "2014-01-01/news/this-is-the-post"? I have done it before without thinking about all the crawl errors it would cause and quickly reverted everything. However, I am now eager to get listed in Google News (don't worry, this isn't the only reason to change the URL) and think it might help things overall.
Thoughts? Worth the effort or a pointless exercise?
-
Donna - good advice. I think that's the way to go. Thanks very much for the help!
-
John,
there is no right answer to your question, no rule of thumb. As I said earlier, it really depends on your originating pages and how much traffic, bookmarks and inbound links they currently have.
Matt Cutts says "there is no limit to the number of [direct] redirects we'll follow".
If it was me and I was worried about slowing down the site, I'd create all the redirects and watch site speed. If the site slowed down, I'd deal with that then. It's easier to drop redirects than it is to try to recover lost links because the redirects weren't there in the first place.
-
Donna - interesting idea.
I'm working with a new client with about 5,000 pages. I don't want to create hundreds of 404's but if I don't have to redirect 5,000 pages that would be good too.
What, in your opinion, would be too many 404's, too many redirects, or a good ratio of redirects to 404's?
Any suggestions would be very appreciated - thanks!
-
Hutch42 - I have a new client with a similar problem. They have about 5,000 pages with the default WordPress link structure and they want to improve the SEO rankings
That would mean 5,000 redirects - is there such a thing as too many?
I've done this with site of up to 500 but not in the thousands.
Thoughts?
-
No, I don't think letting nature take its course is the answer, but there might be another approach.
You could, as Hutch42 suggests, inventory existing URLs and then gather some additional information, meaning inbound (landing page) traffic and links.
- If a page has inbound traffic it usually means the page is ranking well, bookmarked, linked to or shared. No inbound traffic means people come to the page after having already landed elsewhere on the site.
- If a page has incoming links, that's helping build your domain authority.
Group pages according to the ones that are getting a significant amount in inbound traffic or have inbound links. Redirect those. Don't bother with the others.
Google analytics will tell you which pages have landing page traffic. Use a couple of different link tools to assess which ones have valuable inbound links including Google Webmaster Tools. (Every tool is going to give you a different answer. You want as good an inventory as you can muster.)
How much is "enough" inbound traffic and/or links? That'll be a judgment call on your part. So really you'll need to weigh the amount of effort to do this analysis versus the amount of effort to build the redirects and go from there.
That's my two cents.
-
Yes it's worth it if you don't care about your traffic and you happy to see it disappear.
-
You put all the work into those articles, why would you throw away all the search relevance that they have earned? I would never ever move content and not redirect it, no matter how many 301s I would have to add.
-
I think you may be right, but the sheer amount of redirects necessary would mean that it could take me months. I have been posting 4 articles a day for the past year without fail - could it be worth just leaving the crawl errors and hoping that they eventually drop off? This is my quandary.
-
While you will always loose some ranking with large site wide restructures, you can minimize it by having your redirects in place as soon as you make the shift. When I do restructures or site re-launches I create a large CSV that has all of my current URLs and the corresponding URL that it will update to. Double check the list and use it as a checklist to make sure all of your old content properly redirects to the new. On a side note, when doing something like this it is a good time to update your site to secure as you are already redirecting the majority of your pages, so redirected them to the https: version is not much extra work.
As for if you should do this, that will depend on your site goals and if adding the date in the url would benefit your visitors or corresponds with another digital part of your digital strategy.
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
-
URL Structure & Best Practice when Facing 4+ Sub-levels
Hi. I've spent the last day fiddling with the setup of a new URL structure for a site, and I can't "pull the trigger" on it. Example: - domain.com/games/type-of-game/provider-name/name-of-game/ Specific example: - arcade.com/games/pinball/deckerballs/starshooter2k/ The example is a good description of the content that I have to organize. The aim is to a) define url structure, b) facilitate good ux, **c) **create a good starting point for content marketing and SEO, avoiding multiple / stuffing keywords in urls'. The problem? Not all providers have the same type of game. Meaning, that once I get past the /type-of-game/, I must write a new category / page / content for /provider-name/. No matter how I switch the different "sub-levels" around in the url, at one point, the provider-name doesn't fit as its in need of new content, multiple times. The solution? I can skip "provider-name". The caveat though is that I lose out on ranking for provider keywords as I don't have a cornerstone content page for them. Question: Using the URL structure as outlined above in WordPress, would you A) go with "Pages", or B) use "Posts"
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Dan-Louis0 -
Why do sites w/o structured data beat me for rich snippets?
I can't figure this out. For a number of search terms that I compete for, there are competitors that rank below me, but their pages are featured in a rich snippet. I wanted to see what kind of structured data these sites are providing, thinking maybe there's something I can learn. But when I run these URLs through Google's Structured Data Testing Tool, it tells me these pages contain no structured data! So how is it that Google think's my page is more relevant (I rank higher) and I have structured data, but Google chooses to feature a different page? Does anyone have ideas on how I can snag these rich snippets for myself?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | AlexLenhoff0 -
Best practices for structuring an ecommerce site
I'm revamping my wife's ecommerce site. It is currently a very low traffic website that is not indexed very well in Google. So, my plan is to restructure it based upon the best practices that helps me avoid duplicate content penalties, and easier to index strategies. The store has about 7 types of products. Each product has approximately 30 different size variations that are sometimes specifically searched for. For example: 20x10x1 air filters, 20x10x2 air filters, 20x10x1 allergy reducing air filters, etc So, is it best for me to create 7 different products with 30 different size variations (size selector at the product level that changes the price) or is it better to create 210 different product pages, one for each style/size?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | pherbio0 -
Traffic by Country: Is It Possible to Change it?
Let's say you have a .ng domain but you receive more traffic from USA than from Nigeria. Let's say you want traffic only from Nigeria. How do you correct this?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | YESdesign0 -
Will changing Google Places address hurt rankings?
I have a client transferring ownership of their service business (photo booth rental). The current listed address will change, so my main concern is preserving the rankings during the transition. Should I change the Google Local listing to a new physical address, or change it to "serve a surrounding area"? It seems best to set as "serving a surrounding area", but I know Google is really weird about making local listing changes. I've seen and heard about countless listings falling completely off the map after being updated. Any advice appreciated.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Joes_Ideas0 -
Changing the G+ Author
Hello, We have a website we are linking using schema / google places to a G+ profile. however, this is a person in the company and may change in the future. Is there any issue (e.g. TOS issue) with Google to have one author of a website and then change to another (e.g. change from author being one G+ account ot another with a new image/profile/person)? Thanks!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | onlinemktg10 -
Should I change my product titles from singular to plural to satisfy optimisation?
At present most of our products are listed in the singular form. http://www.towelsrus.co.uk/towels-bath-towels/aztex/turkish-cotton-bath-towel_ct473bd182pd2744.htm However we are optimising for the plural form after carrying out keyword research The question is should I update the product title to reflect this change? This would then change the URL of the page, H1 tag, H2 tag (both auto generated from the product title) My concern here is that these pages will then become "new pages" and will need to index and rank, albeit they don't rank well as they have never been optimised until now. I could put 301 re-directs in place on the old URL's or i could just let the return a 404. What do people think?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Towelsrus0 -
SEO Strategy for URL Change
I'm working with a company who will likely have to change their URL because of a trademark dispute. They will be able to maintain the new URL for some period but will soon need to drop the existing URL all together. Aside from the usual keyword considerations when choosing a URL, are there any SEO strategies I should consider as we execute this change?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Jon_KS0