Help changing category and page titles on established Magento site.
-
Hi All,
This is my first post, I've been a Pro member for a while now, read many posts but have never asked a question here.
I have an established Magento site that I need to do a lot of SEO work on. I am a newbie at SEO, so I wanted to ask for advice here.
I just changed one of the category names, the url, meta title, and meta description. When making the change I selected the checkbox in the Magento backend that says "Create Permanent Redirect for Old URL"
Example:
Old Category: http://www.domain.com/old-category-name.html
New Category: http://www.domain.com/new-category-name.htmlEverything worked fine with the exception of one alarming thing... I lost all of the page authority for the category itself and all of the sub categories and pages below it. Now the category and all pages below it show (on the moz toolbar) a PA of 1 and 0 links and 0 domains.
I updated the sitemap. I did not do a 301 redirect in the .htaccess, I only chose the option to redirect on the Magento backend when changing the name and url of the category.
I need to change a lot of other category and page names and urls but now I'm a bit gun shy, as I do not want to do something that will damage what little page rank I have at the moment.
I'm looking for some advice from one of you guys who might be able to help me do this the correct way. I did some research on Google, but I'm still not sure of the correct method to accomplish this.
Thanks in advance for any help that you can offer.
-
A bit late with an answer here, but yes, Istvan is correct. The next Linkscape update is April 10th, so you should see changes then!
-
Thanks again, and by the way... I made the changes yesterday.
I just thought I would check with someone who knows more than me before I start making a lot of changes that could damage my site.
Thanks for the info, makes sense that what I am seeing is likely due to Linkscape not knowing about the change that I made.
-
Every big change you make on a website can cause fluctuation in the rankings. That's all normal.
But if you have done it properly, you shouldn't worry about it, it will come back up.
Gr.,
Istvan
-
Thanks for the reply!
So what you are saying is that this is nothing to worry about from a Google page rank perspective? I see how it could affect external pages anchor text links back to the pages on my site, but they will redirect fine, I just won't receive as much love from Google since the anchor text does not match the new page name that I made the changes to.
So, basically what you're saying is that this is nothing to worry about as long as things are linked properly and redirecting.
Thanks again for your reply.
-
Hi there,
My question is: when did you do this change? As far as I know the Linkscape update was yesterday, so it might take a month until the next update, so you will see the "changes" done.
Mozzers, correct me if I am wrong.
Gr.,
Istvan
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
-
Changing site URL structure
Hey everybody, I'm looking for a bit of advice. A few weeks ago Google sent me an email saying all pages with any text input on them need to switch to https for those pages. This is no problem, I was slowly switching the site to https anyway using a 301 redirect. However, my site also has a language subfolder in the url, mysite.com/en/ mysite.com/ru/ etc. Due to poor work on my part the translations of the site haven't been updated in a long time and lots of the pages are in english even on the russian version etc. So I'm thinking of just removing this url structure and just having mysite.com My plan is to 301 all requests to https and remove the language subfolder in the url at the same time. So far the https switching hasn't changed my rankings. Am I more at risk of losing my rankings by doing this? Thanks!
Technical SEO | | Ruhol0 -
Changed site to https now GWT and analytics - do I Know have to re-add it
Hi had the previous version (wordpress) site in GWT working just fine - now everything seems to have stopped. Do I have to treat this as an entirely new site and now add a new account for the https version? Many thanks,
Technical SEO | | AndreavanEugen0 -
Page Title Displaying differently on Google
Hi i am wondering why page title is display differently on google search. The combination of words that are being displayed on google are not on the page and the page title is simply "Camera Filters", however the page is showing as "our range of Camera Filters" (with the same capitalisation). http://awesomescreenshot.com/0cf4r09y27 I have optimised the age as best i can so it removes the OUR RANGE OF preface, however no luck. Any info would be appreciated. Cheers
Technical SEO | | andrewlos0 -
Linking Domains in Open Site Explorer Report No Longer Exist. Help.
Hello to all, I have a number of Linking Domains on our Open Site Explorer Report that no longer exist. I've run URL checks on just a sample of the list, and found that approx. 35% of that sample are from now dead Linking Domains. Can someone help? If these Linking Domains are defunct, how can I remove these? Does Google reflect negatively on these dead Linking Domains in our SERPs? Has anyone experienced this before? What action did you take?
Technical SEO | | -Al-0 -
Can someone help me get this site ranked? www.2sponsors.com
Hi, I am have been trying for months to get a site ranked for one of my customers and I am not doing very well. I have been doing SEO for years and have gotten lots of sites ranked but this one has been the most difficult. Does anyone have time to look at it for me? Thanks The sites PR=4. I am trying to get it ranked in www.google.com.ar Thanks Carla skype: carla.dawson78
Technical SEO | | Carla_Dawson0 -
Duplicate Page Titles and Content
I have a site that has a lot of contact modules. So basically each section/page has a contact person and when you click the contact button it brings up a new window with form to submit and then ends with a thank you page. All of the contact and thank you pages are showing up as duplicate page titles and content. Is this something that needs to be fixed even if I am not using them to target keywords?
Technical SEO | | AlightAnalytics0 -
New page titles not updating in Google results even though recrawlled
I have updated the page title of a website - it's a top product page and very high authority (64 PA on a 63 DA). The page has been recrawlled and the cache updated - but the page tiltle in the Google snippet is still the same. Any ideas?
Technical SEO | | OddDog0