Moz Q&A is closed.
After more than 13 years, and tens of thousands of questions, Moz Q&A closed on 12th December 2024. Whilst we’re not completely removing the content - many posts will still be possible to view - we have locked both new posts and new replies. More details here.
Will changing a URL negatively affect ranking?
-
Hello Mozzers,
We would like to change the URL for a page on our website which ranks well for some our keyphrases/words. We are hoping the change of URL, through the addition of an additional keyword would help boost the rank of that URL further. At the moment out page gets 2 x A and 2 x B 1xF on the MOZ page rank tool using 5 keyphrase/word variations . One phrase ranks 4, one ranks 3 and the other 3 are 'not in the top 50'
Our plan was to change the URL, using SHF404, and use 'Fetch' in the Google search console to re-submit the page to Google.
Appreciate you can't give any guarantees how Google will behave, just wondered what your thoughts were on the wisdom of changing the URL in the first place?
Thanks
Ian
-
-
Where did you get the 15% number? Just hoping to cite it. Thanks!
-
Agreed with one note... its a really bad idea if you are already ranking for the terms you like to. There will definitely be a period of time where you will lose your rankings and although they should return to their previous rankings, Google is fickle.
So if you aren't ranking in the top 50 for several terms, simply changing the URL won't get you to the first page (it may get you into the top 50 though). You would need to update the content and backlinks (internal + external) to see worthwhile movement. Otherwise you just risk losing ranking for the terms you currently do well for.
-
It's a bad idea to monkey with your URLs, a really bad idea... but if you can't help yourself, do it immediately, because the longer you wait the more you will probably lose as that page accumulates authority.
-
Hi,
According to this article, John Mueller says Google doesn't weigh URLs that heavily when determining rank. I always advise against changing URLs unless it's absolutely necessary, as you'll lose about 15% of the page's current PR when you redirect it.
This article also directly says to not change URLs for SEO purposes: https://www.seroundtable.com/google-urls-seo-17889.html
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
-
How Do SSL Certificates Affect On SEO?
Does really a SSL certificate affect on SEO? How? Why? According to my hosting provider (ganje.host), "https" improves SEO! As I know, It decreases speed. So how does it improve SEO when my speed is slower than before?
On-Page Optimization | | MirzaeeMustafa0 -
When I changes Template, why traffic goes down?
I've noticed that when I change my blog's template the traffic goes down dramatically, about of 40% decrease. I know that new themes can have some problems but I have tried this with 2 different themes. First try was with genesis framework(Paid one) and just in one day traffic went down and when I reverted the old theme, the traffic became normal. Should I wait for 1 week to see what happens? What could be the potential reason of this?
On-Page Optimization | | hammadrafique0 -
Two URL's for the same page
Hi, on our site we have two separate URL's for a page that has the same content. So, for example - 'www.domain.co.uk/stuff' and 'www.domain.co.uk/things/stuff' both have the same content on the page. We currently rank high in search for 'www.domain.co.uk/things/stuff' for our targeted keyword, but there are numerous links on the site to www.domain.co.uk/stuff and also potentially inbound links to this page. Ideally we want just the www.domain.co.uk/things/stuff URL to be present on the site, what would be the best course of action to take? Would a simple Canonical tag from the '/stuff' URL which points to the '/things/stuff' page be wise? If we were to scrap the '/stuff' URL totally and redirect it to the 'things/stuff' URL and change all our on site links, would this be beneficial and not harm our current ranking for '/things/stuff'? We only want 1 URL for this page for numerous reasons (i.e, easier to track in Analytics), but I'm a bit cautious that changing the page that doesn't rank may have an affect on the page that does rank! Thanks.
On-Page Optimization | | Jaybeamer2 -
Does css float affect SEO?
It is generally believed that the closer the content is to the top of the page, the better it is for SEO. If that's incorrect, please let me know. I have a 2 column site where the left menu is navigation and right side is content. Obviously, the left menu appears in the code before the content does, but I can flip them around via css float. If I do that, the content will appear on the left visually, even though in the code it still comes after the left side navigation. Do either positions affect seo?
On-Page Optimization | | cmp1010 -
Disclaimer in footer - is it affecting my SEO?
For legal reasons I am required to include a 266 word disclaimer in the footer of every page of my credit card comparison site creditcards.com.au. My question is in 2 parts: is this indexable content likely to be hurting my SEO? if so, what is the best way to include the text in the footer but prevent search engines from indexing it? Thanks.
On-Page Optimization | | OMGPyrmont0 -
Do images on a CDN affect my Google Ranking?
I have recently switched my images to a CDN (MaxCDN) and all of the images within my post are now get loaded directly from the CDN. Will this affect my Google ranking? Do Google care if the image is hosted physicaly on the domain?
On-Page Optimization | | Amosnet0 -
Does having a "+" in a URL hurt SEO? Would much value be gained changing it to a hyphen?
There's a site that contains "+" signs in the URL in order to call different information for the content on the page. Would it be better to change those to hyphens (-), or not that much value will be gained, so leave them as is? Thanks!
On-Page Optimization | | MitchellStoker0 -
301 redirect and then keywords in URL
Hi, Matt Cutts says that 301 redirects, including the ones on internal pages, causes the loss of a little bit of link juice. But also, I know that keywords in the URL are very important. On our site, we've got unoptimized URLs (few keywords) in the internal pages. Is it worth doing a 301 redirect in order to optimize the URLs for each main page. 301 redirects are the only way we can do it on our premade cart For example (just an example) say our main (1 of the 4) keywords for the page is "brown shoes". I'm wondering if I should redirect something like shoes.com/shoecolors.html to shoes.com/brown-shoes.html In other words, with the loss of juice would we come out ahead? In what instances would we come out ahead?
On-Page Optimization | | BobGW0