Changing permalinks, 301 nightmare
-
I would like to change some of permalinks on our website. I have created new posts with new permalinks and the old ones I have redirect by using yoast seo plugin.
Today I have opened a category and I have realized that there are of course the post with new permalinks, but also the old once!
What should I do with the old posts?
-
Sunny greetings from Diani beach Dan! Thank you very much! I wish you very nice day
-
Awesome! Thanks for letting me know it worked and thanks for trying that 'good answer' button a few times
If you ever have any more trouble with anything on Moz - email help@seomoz.org
-
now it just worked...I am cursed:-(
-
Thank you so much Dan for all the explanation! All clear now! I have now manged to do redirect in .htaccesses file. All links are running well now. Thank you so much!
Iam trying to give you the good answer and it is bringing me to Not Found page:-(
I believe I might be cursed by computers and our site will never rank:-(
-
Hi July
This is really three separate things here, so I see why it's giving you trouble.
- Changing permalinks
- Changing what category a post belongs to
- Redirects
When you do one of the above, it does not do the others automatically - for example, changing a permalink will not change the category or add a 301 redirect (by default - although some systems might add the 301 automatically).
So let me explain each one step by step. Realize they are three separate things normally.
1. Changing The Permalink
This is changing the URL. If you wanted to change for example
That's one step. Now. Some plugins may add a redirect for you. So. When you change your permalink
- try visiting the old permalink
- if it redirects - you're all set - you don't need to do a redirect yourself.
- if it does not redirect, you either need to use the redirection plugin or write the redirect in the .htaccess file.
2. Changing What Category The Post Belong To
Note, this is entirely different from just changing a permalink. You need to go to edit that post itself and select your preferred category for that post. This is assuming your not creating any new categories or deleting old categories. You're just moving posts around to different categories.
Then, when you move a post into a different category and remove it from the old one, it will show up under the new category archive.
3. Redirects
As mentioned - these may or may not happen automatically when you change a permalink. I usually prefer them to NOT happen automatically.
This is why it's best of course to decide the final permalink for a post before you hit publish as it's much easier to not have to go back and edit it.
Please let us know if you're still having trouble - thanks!
-Dan
-
Hmmm.Yes, I would try the www in case your server doesn't handle that redirect automatically.
If you can't get it to work, I would remove the 301 redirects you added to the .htaccess file. Again, I would suggest you use the Redirection Plugin:
-
So and now i have pasted redirects of some posts and I am going to check and I can't axes the site! It says Internal server error. And now I am dead:-(
-
Thank you Jeff very much,
But we are not using www, do you thing that I have to include it anyway or is this redirect without www correct? Redirect 301 /geography-kenya-map-kenya/ http://villasdiani.com/where-is-kenya/
-
The basic idea for 301 redirects in htacess is:
`Redirect 301 /oldpage.html http://www.yoursite.com/newpage.html` But if you aren't comfortable writing out a line for each page you've deleted and need redirecting, I would suggest the "Redirection" plugin. It's pretty easy to set up.
-
Thank you very much Jeff, I thought that the only option will be to do it in .htaccess file, any idea how to do it?
-
I think the Yoast SEO Plugin assigns 301 redirects to existing pages, so it can't keep the redirect if you delete the old page. It sounds like you need to either add the 301 redirects directly to your .htaccess file (which isn't too tough if you only have a few), or use another plugin for redirects. The plugin called "Redirection" by John Godley does a good job. Good luck!
-
Most of our permalinks are way to long and almost all contain Diani beach, which is a word we wanted rank for and believed we have to write it everywhere....so I need to change them as it is a problem.
Sure I can change the permalink directly for each of the post, but then all the old posts links will be still not found after I change the link...
I thought with yoast plugin it is going to be easy but it does not make sense for me why if I redirect the post it stays in category. What is it for...who wants to redirect a post and then keep it in a category...
I can't find any answer anywhere:-( I am actually getting to the point that I want to just delete them(it is around 30) and wait until google index the new once, but I am afraid of some punishment..
-
Hmm, that is a bother. Are you not able to edit the permalinks directly for each of the posts? Sorry, maybe I'm just not following, but why create whole new posts?
-
Hi Philip, Thank you very much, yest I would love to, but once I delete them and I go to check the redirects, they do not bring me to the new url but the page is not found:-(
-
Hi,
Would it be possible to delete the old pages if they're not serving any purpose?
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
-
Is it Safe to do 301 Redirects on Tiered Expired Domains?
Is this considered a safe SEO friendly strategy to redirect expired domains using 301s to your higher tiered domains? Thank you!
Link Building | | SteveScott310 -
Redirect 301 multiple url to frontpage
I have a lot of /dummy.php/xxx pages that i would like to redirect to the front page. /dummy.php/100
Link Building | | Morten-Hjemmesider
/dummy.php/101
/dummy.php/102
..... redirect 301 /dummy.php/WILDCARD http://www.domain.com I can not figure it out?0 -
Why Moz OSE, Ahrefs, Majestic and so on, don't change their user agent while crawling?
Some blackhat websites, PBNs and other "cheaters" are using various methods to effectively block third party backlink checker bots (OSE, Ahrefs, Majestic...) : robot.txt, IP and such. A simple solution for those bots would be to mimic Google by using its user agent string for example.
Link Building | | astronaute
Or if not legally permitted (which I doubt) use some kind of randomness in user agent strings, urls, and IPs in order to prevent blocking. This should not be a big deal IMHO, am I missing something obvious ?0 -
Use 301'd Domain for a new campaign
Hello everybody, My company is getting ready to start a new mediacampaign on a very specific subject. The mediacampaign is not directly targeted at our core business, the goal is more to inform our customers about a subject and do a little branding for our company. A nice (and expensive) infographic was built that is going to be the core content of the campaign. We want the infographic to get shared a lot and therefore some of my colleagues want the url to be as short as possible. The idea is to host the infographic on a url on our companysite, but use a 301'd, shorter domainname in our communications. We are going to be getting a lot of links to this empty 301'd domain which does nothing else then 301 to our companysite. I know that linkbuilding to a 301'd domain is an old blackhat tactic, that's the main reason I don't feel good about this. But i can't really find any info on this subject.
Link Building | | Laurensvda0 -
Changing links
Hi guys i wanted you views on changing the anchor text of links. I have quality links coming in but with year terms such as 2012 in there, if i want to change them all to 2013 for example would it be badly seen by Google? I cant say i feel comfortable about doing it but they are my links and are related to our products. Any advice much appreciated.
Link Building | | pauledwards0 -
Can changing our links page make our rankings drop through the floor?
Hi all, When I first started at my current job, most of the link building (aside from submitting to free directories left, right and centre) was replying to every spammy reciprocal email and adding them to our links page! Now we're all a bit wiser about such matters (thanks SEOMoz!), I want to get our links page turned into something actually useful. My plan was to get it neatly categorised, with recommendations, cut out unrelated links that would be useless to visitors and call it something like "Our Friends" I thought this might be useful for future link building efforts, but in its current state, it's a complete mess. However, I am worried about cutting out a lot of links if they have been reciprocal ones. Are the sort of sites that would be sending typical spammy link exchange emails for window installation in NY likely to notice our UK education site taking away their link six months later and take away ours? If they do, will losing links from these sites harm us? Perhaps more importantly, is my plan a terrible idea in the first place? Look forward to hearing from y'all!
Link Building | | TEFLScot0 -
What percentage of an old post can I change without lose rank?
A few months ago I updated some old posts of my site (Wordpress), to improve old content, with new pictures (better quality), better content, new info about product, and links to our review of this product (newer posts). Most part of the content is this old posts were new, so I "deleted" the old text but replaced the new one with another of better quality. I suppose it will help new post to improve rank, but I los thousands of daily visits, because old posts ranks worse since the change. What do you think? What happened here? Maybe I shouldn't update the whole text, only add a link to new content? Thank you!
Link Building | | DSG0 -
Impact of Panda Algorithm Change on Articles Base.
I am a published author and researcher. All my articles are original content and high quality. If I am looking for backlinks by submitting high quality original articles to Articles Base, how will the panda algorithm change affect me? Should I be submitting articles somewhere else? If so, where? I greatly appreciate any suggestions you may have.
Link Building | | DanManCastro0