New blog post URLs due to WordPress permalink structure changes. Any SEO repercussions?
-
A client site had the follwing URLs for all blog posts: www.example.com/health-news/sample-post
www.example.com/health-news is the top level page for the blog section. While making some theme changes during Google mobilegeddon, the permalink structure got changed to www.example.com/sample-post ("health-news" got dropped from all blog post URLs).
Google has indexed the updated post structure and older URLs are getting redirected (if entered directly in the browser) to the new ones; it appears that WordPress takes care of that automatically as no 301 redirects were entered manually.
It seems that there hasn't been any loss of rankings (however not 100% sure as the site ranks for well over 100 terms).
Do you suggest changing the structure back to the old one?
Two reasons that I see are preserving any link juice from domains linking to old URLs and ensuring no future/current loss of rankings.
-
If you have a very small blog, with a limited number of posts on a narrow topic range, this perhaps doesn't apply.
If you are bigger than that and cover a range of topics, a multilevel structure keeps things organized, for you, your readers, and for search engines.
You can also take advantage of internal linking, organizing sub-topics under topics both so that readers can find related articles that might interest them and so that search engines can see how your posts are related, and what concepts are relevant. [A post titled "Shingles" would mean one thing under health-news, and another under building-materials.]
-
Linda - Thanks for the response!
"If you prefer the two-level structure (which I would, for a couple of reasons)"
Would you elaborate those reasons?
-
If the old URLs are being 301 re-directed to the new URLs, you should not lose much link authority, so that by itself shouldn't be a reason to change back.
If you prefer the two-level structure (which I would, for a couple of reasons) then go ahead and change back, but as Andy says, do it carefully so you are not sending conflicting messages.
-
Two reasons that I see are preserving any link juice from domains linking to old URLs and ensuring no future/current loss of rankings.
I can see no reason not to go back, just take care to ensure any old 301's are removed and that you don't fall into any redirect-chains. That could get messy.
-Andy
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 categorisation effect on SEO
Hi I work on an ecommerce shop & we've discussed changing some of out categories. We have one named cupboards & lockers, but want to split this out, so we have Cupboards then Lockers so customers can browse through our main navigation like this. For SEO I know initially our rankings will be affected, but long term moving categories up a level will be an improvement & will be more relevant - has anyone does this before and could provide any advice? Becky
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | BeckyKey0 -
Effect of Publishing Blog Posts Resembling Classified Advertisements
Our site (www.nyc-officespace-leader.com) markets commercial real estate for lease in New York City. Any potential negative impact in terms of ranking and traffic by using our blog post in an unconventional manner? I am considering publishing a weekly post describing the latest commercial listings for lease. The post would be formatted and resemble classified advertising appearing in such newspapers as The New York Times. The ads are concise and appealing. Property listings drive a high click thru rate, so I believe blogs posts based on property listings and formatted like old newspaper ads might really improve visitor engagement. Each add could have a link to a corresponding listing page. Would using the blog in this manner every week have a detrimental effect or could prove beneficial? Thoughts??? lr6MIiR
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Kingalan10 -
SEO Impacts if changing from https to http (or viceversa)
Hi there, I want to take the benefits (both Google's SEO rewards and increased site speed) from putting on-line my site (it's not yet live) with a SSL certificate and make it use the new HTTP/2 protocol. Now the question is: if in the future I won't renew the SSL certificate (because too expensive, maybe), so the site will run through normal HTTP, do I risk to see changes of my pages on the SERPs? Will I lose all positions that I got? Thanks in advance for your tips!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | valeron0 -
How do I test images in WP migration without Changing URLs?
I'm redesigning example.com on a subdomain of my own site, so at example.mysite.com. As part of the redesign, I am optimizing the site's images. I used Wordpress Importer to get the content to the development site, but I did not import the images. Instead, I added the images to the development site by copying and moving over the contents of example.com's uploads folder. The posts at example.mysite.com are showing the images, but they are pulling them from the original location. I tried adding the following code to wp-config.php under the (misunderstood?) impression that the image URLs would use the development site's domain: 1 define('WP_HOME', 'http://example.mysite.com');
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | kimmiedawn
2 define('WP_SITEURL', 'http://example.mysite.com'); I am not seeing any change and the images are still pulling from the original site. How can I test the images on the current site without actually changing the URLs in the database. (If I understand correctly, I could search and replace, but that is not what I am trying to achieve.) The original domain is not changing with the redesign, so there is no need to actually change the URLs. I just need to test the images, as I will be removing those that are not being used as well as optimizing the remaining images before moving the redesigned site over to the original domain.0 -
Can Anybody Link to my URL to Hurt SEO? Weird URL pointing at my Domaine!
Our ranking has drop since a few weeks. I did not do any major change in my site. Surfing WebMaster Tool, I found lots of new URL linking at our site: url.org linkarena.com seoprofiler.com folkd.com digitalhome.ca bustingprice.com surepurchase.com lowpricetoday.com oyax.com couponfollow.com aspringcleaning.com pamabuy.com etzone.ca How do I find if those was done intentionelly to hurt SEO? Could it be possible? Thank you, BigBlaze
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | BigBlaze2050 -
Language Attribute - does changing it make a difference to SEO and Search?
I am an SEO newbie, but learning fast. 🙂 I am based in London, UK and have a website: www.twofourseven.co.uk. I noticed that the language attribute was set to 'en-US'. I work in London as well in international locations in the Middle East and Asia. Thinking of this I wanted to ask the experts if given that I am based in the UK, would changing the language attribute make a difference to search results? If so, would 'en' be better than 'en-GB', which might be too specific? Thanks in advance!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | twofourseven0 -
Better to optimize page, post or category in WordPress
Hello, This question is for the WordPress experts out there. I've always wondered if it is better for SEO to focus on a particular keyword by writing a page or a post dedicated to it. For example, if I want to rank high for the keyword "Seattle rocks", do you think I'd be better off writing a page titled "Seattle rocks" or a post titled "Seattle rocks". The ideal for me would be to create a category with the URL that includes that keyword for my WordPress blog, but I do not know if I can do a good job in terms of SEO optimizing the keyword. For instance, if we consider the keyword in the example above, I'd create a category which will have the following URL: http://www.seomozthebest.com/category/seattle-rocks Do you think I can still focus on that keyword having such URL? As you know, WordPress would allow me to write some text in the description tag, which will be visible on the site. I guess that I could use the description box to create some optimized content using the keyword "Seattle rocks" and then launch a link building campaign using the anchor text "Seattle rocks" directing to the URL: http://www.seomozthebest.com/category/seattle-rocks Do you think that I can optimize the keyword by creating a category? Thank you for reading such long question. I tried to be as clear as possible. Sal
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | salvyy0 -
Is My Competitor Beating Me With A Better URL Structure?
A competitor is consistently beating my website on non-competitive, long tail keywords. His DA is 32 compared to my 46. His average PA is 23 to my 28. His average On Page Optimization Grade is a C compared to my A. His page speed score using YSlow is a 71 compared to my 78. The only thing I can think of at this point is that he has a better URL structure. We both have the keyword in the URL, but his structure goes like this (keyword: apw wyott parts): www.competitor.com/apw-wyott/parts While mine goes like this (I had nothing to do with this site's architecture; this is what I'm stuck with for the time being): http://www.etundra.com/APW_Wyott_Parts-C347.html It should be noted that the last word in these keywords is always the same - "parts." These keywords are for parts by different manufacturers so they follow a consistent pattern: [manufacturer-name] followed by "parts." Also, the "C347" on the end of my URL is the category number given to this particular category of products in our database. Are his URLs beating me or should I continue to look for other factors? If so, what other factors should I consider?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | eTundra0