SOS - I have done a terrible mistake: How can I make it up?
-
Two weeks ago i changed the urls on our website, without redirecting the old ones. This has led to a dramatic drop in ranking.
What should i do:
-
redirect the old pages and keep the new ones
-
Change the urls back to the original ones
Which of these to methods will result in best ranking?
Maia
-
-
Maia,
Here's your info on how to do the redirections: http://moz.com/learn/seo/redirection
-
As Ray-PP & Silver Door have mentioned 301 is the best option here. You may well have to wait for Google to discover the new links but fear not, whilst you are waiting you can be pro-active getting in touch with webmasters who have the links on their pages and ask them to update the links. You can also submit some of your more important links to e.g. twitter to help them get indexed that bit quicker if you're in a really hurry but I wouldn't spam this and only use it for some of the more important areas.
As for the how to it really depends on your CMS system. As for which method, currently your in the same mess for which ever tactic you choose so find the URL structure you like and go for that.
Some more info on redirects can be found here - https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/93633?hl=en
Good luck.
-
No, generally a 301 redirect will transfer 99%+ of the authority to the new link. I would anticipate waiting about 2 weeks before noticing the new URLs rank as high as the old URLs.
If you change the URLs back to the old structure, those rankings should return more quickly. However, if you new structure is more user friendly, it may be a good idea to make the change now rather than later, when the URLs gain even more authority.
-
99 %... so I don't get punished more? How fast will I see the increase? How do I redirect pages?
-
We changed something in the cms.. instead of having the heading "solutions" we changed to "products" not thinking about the fact that all the sites linking from this page now would change their urls.
We could change back, because the change wasn't that important. But would we then get the same ranking on google like we had before the change two weeks ago?
If I should redirect - how do I do it? And how much do I get punished SEO-wise by changing?
Maia
-
Make sure to 301 the old URLs to the new URLs - this will pass along 99% of the authority and you should see an increase in the SERPs for your new URLs.
-
Hi Maia,
Sorry to hear this has happened.
What was the reason for changing the URL in the first place?
This will determine if you redirect the old ones or revert back.
Could you possible specify why the change was made?
Thanks
SilverDoor
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
-
Panda 4.1 - Regained rankings by making changes on my site
So thought I would share this with others as it 'might' help. So I got around 40 pages, all of them have taken a dive in rankings so on average from Pg1/2 to Pg5/6. I took one page and started working on content upgrades, I had around 50 words of boiler plate content above the fold and 750 words of unique content way down the page so maybe 600px below the fold before you hit it. I removed the boiler plate content and produced 75 words of unique content to replace it, I shuffled things around and managed to get the 750 words maybe 250px below the fold then chucked another 100 unique words into the mix. Fetched the page in GWMT's and resubmitted the URL - hour later that page alone, the page I upgraded had recovered its rankings back to the original position before Panda 4.1 hit. Will the rankings for this page drop back down again, not sure but interesting this page was Pg6/7 since the 23rd and doing the above within an hour regained rankings back to Pg2 middle.
On-Page Optimization | | followuk1 -
Duplicate Content - What can be duplicate in two different product pages.
I am having a hard time understanding how my 3 different product pages are being shown up as Duplicate Content in s crawl. Some of my 21 different pages are being shown as duplicate content. Here are 3 of those: 1. http://champu.in/korn-rock-band-mens-round-neck-t-shirt-india 2. http://champu.in/stop-the-burning-mens-round-neck-t-shirt-india 3. http://champu.in/funny-t-shirts/absolut-punjabi-red-men-s-round-neck-t-shirt Can someone help me with this. Thanks in advance 🙂
On-Page Optimization | | sidjain4you0 -
Can I add multi location business cities to homepage meta title or desc.?
I have a business with 6 locations (in the same state) but very different cities. We we expanded from one location with the city name in the URL we followed best practices to move to the new domain without the singular city name in the URL. We definitly took a hit on the organic side and I'm trying to figure out best practice for where to add geo info. Currently I have geo info: -In footer
On-Page Optimization | | beehiive
-Contact Page -On local page It's a WP site and each location has it's own page (ie. locations/geolocation_keyword). I know all other locations will take sometime but my concern is the hit we took on the original location that had geo-target URL. I guess really my question is simply can I include city names in homepage meta title and desc.?
and is there anything else I can do to bounce back organically on the original city faster?0 -
What makes a "perfectly optimized page" in 2013?
Hi all, I was re-reading this blog http://moz.com/blog/perfecting-keyword-targeting-on-page-optimization and wondered how relevant you guys thought this post still was? Moz link directly to it from their 'learn' page http://moz.com/learn/seo so I'm interpreting that to mean it is still accurate and as current as it can be? What else would you add to it? Thanks,
On-Page Optimization | | James-Distinction
James0 -
How long should I wait before making changes to my new site in order to increase ranking?
I just create a site www.autoinsurancefremontca.com. It has been about a week since this site has been launched. The site currently resides at 12th position on google. With Semoz it has a Site Grade Of "A" . When should I start making changes to the site like adding a content as an example to increase my ranking. I am trying to get this site on the first page with google. Please help!!
On-Page Optimization | | Greenpeak0 -
How long can rich snippets be?
How long (how many words) can a description tag of a rich snippets code?
On-Page Optimization | | seoflorida0 -
Can u suggest me good one page optimization tool for wordpress based websites?
Can u suggest me good one page optimization tool for wordpress based websites?
On-Page Optimization | | dineshameh0