Huge uptick in 404s on new website
-
I just launched a new website, and I see that the 404s shot up hugely in Google Webmaster Tools right during the launch. We went from Drupal to WordPress, but I was wondering if anyone has any thoughts on whether these 404s represent a crisis, or potentially something harmless? There has been no noticeable SEO downtick in terms of keywords or queries during the same period...
Thanks for any thoughts.
-
Christy: I think that the answers have been helpful, but the jury is still out. I'm taking advice from both Patrick and Toby's input, and I'll update this space as soon as I see some changes.
The one question that I don't see answered is: are these 404s definitely harming the website's SEO, assuming that they are NOT being visited by users? I'd love to know what people think on that.
-
Hi there, thanks for your question! You've received some good responses. Did any of them help resolve you resolve your issue? We'd love an update, thanks!
Christy
-
"We went from Drupal to WordPress"
That seems like a very backwards move to me, that should be the other way around
(My personal opinion anyway)
On the 404s though, any URL changes will cause problems, you will need to add in redirects to deal with those.
On a drupal specific note, if your old site was using the 'URL Redirect' module, you may have had a number of redirects in place in the database, these wouldn't have been in your .htaccess file and will no longer work after moving to wordpress.
-
Hi there
Did you change URLs at all? Did you check your URL mapping before launching the site? Take a look at your sitemap (then submit to Google and Bing Webmaster Tools) and internal links as well to see if there are any issues.
Take a look at this guide from Moz as well on a site migration. This will be a huge help.
Let me know if you have any questions or comments! Good luck!
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
-
Website rank 5th position than bounce
Hello A website client won't rank dor branded keyword (site name) for several months, i optimize onpage seo, did some backlinks, the DA jump to 8 (from 1). Yesterday the website rank for branded keyword 5, than 4, tomorrow can't found it.
Technical SEO | | Zidani0 -
What do you think about my new site?
Hi everyone, I'm looking for a review for my new site www.interlive.it Could you please let me know what do you think about the work that I did for my site. I'll be very happy to receive your suggestions. Regards, Mike
Technical SEO | | salvyy0 -
Multi Language websites!
Hello, What is the best way for a website to have more languages? For example www.site.com is in english BUT the content will be translated in other 4 languages .es .it .fr .de . Should i buy 4 diferent domains www.site1.es www.site2.it etc... or create folders like site.com/es/ site.com/it etc OR create subdomains es.site.com Few months ago i was 100% sure..to go and buy diferent domains then to create diferent content on that languages..but now..i am not so sure. Thank you very much for your help!
Technical SEO | | willyg0 -
Website redesign launch
Hello everyone, I am in the process of having my consulting website redesigned and have a question about how this may impact SEO. I will be using the same URL as I did before, just simply replacing an old website with a new website. Obviously the URL structure will change slightly since I am changing navigation names. Page titles will also change. Do I need to do anything special to ensure that all of the pages from the old website are redirected to the new website? For example, should I do a page level redirect for each page that remains the same? So that the old "services" page is pointed to the new "services" page? Or can I simply do a redirect at the index page level? Thank you in advance for any advice! Best, Linda
Technical SEO | | LindaSchumacher0 -
Give your top 3 of best optimized websites
Hey gents & ladies, Give your top 3 of websites that in your eyes are optimized in a good way? Tell me why you think the website is that good and notice the keywords.
Technical SEO | | PlusPort0 -
Absolute of Relative Internal Website Links
Hi, I am not sure what is considered best practice when linking between pages on the same site - absolute or relative: Link Or Link I notice a lot of CMS systems (WordPress) use the absolute method - is there a reason? Any help much appreciated. Barney.
Technical SEO | | barnst0 -
When should you turn off redirects to your new domain?
Our website moved to a new domain a year ago, and we have our original domain to redirect to our new domain. We're working on contacting people who still link to our old domain to ask them to update, but 7% of our traffic is still coming as a redirect from our old domain. My question is, when should we just shut the old domain down entirely and stop redirecting people to our new domain? Or should we just keep it up indefinitely? What would be the positive or negative impact on our new domain's SEO if we shut the old domain down? Thanks!
Technical SEO | | UWPCE0 -
Segmenting Website into XML Sitemaps
Hi all, I'm about to begin the process of chopping up a 1,000 page website into separate sitemaps. I'm going for a three tiered approach so that I can check indexation on each level for: Category, Subcategory, Product What's the easiest way to create three separate XML sitemaps for this? Thanks, Nick
Technical SEO | | NickPateman810