301s Trashed Ranking

We had someone on our team update all the URLs on a site for "SEO" purposes.

ie:
Was domain.com/a/lorem
Now domain.com/b/lorem

While the URL change seemed appropriate, what was overlooked was it being the main source of traffic.


We have
1. Setup appropriate 301s
2. Updated all internal 3xx errors to reflect the new URLs
3. We have done more pointing internally to the new URLS
4. Submitted them to GSC individually

There is probably more on the table which I am not listing (such as lightweight backlinking), but in the end, we are looking for recommendations.

It has been 30 days since the change and we are only just seeing what appears to be the bottom of this drop. The traffic has decreased nearly 75% because of this and we are trying to figure out the best course of action. Juice is being passed on an individual basis, but it is not being passed fast enough and we are worried it might never get passed. We expected a loss, but nothing of this caliber.

We have thought about changing the URLs back to what they were originally but worry it will confuse Google and or cause another window of delay.

What recommendations would you have? What can be done?

If you had asked before doing this I would have advised against it to be honest. Way to much short term impact it takes quite a while for pages to recover from such a transition. An to be honest for the sake of changing one word in the URL I can almost guarantee it will not have been worth it. So many ranking factors these days it just is not worth the change of URL's like what has been done here. Unless it is a new site with little traffic/online sales currently to lose out on.

Assuming you were not hit by the recent Google updates, it will become back to where it was.

I did 301 an entire website to a similar website (same niche). Some pages ranked the same instantly, some dropped completely and came back later. Some in less than 30 days, some at 30 and some took more than 30 days.

Overall, I saw positive impact right away and the ranking climbing after 30 days.

Give it 90 days before you make a decision and do not change the content.

mirrorer said:

Assuming you were not hit by the recent Google updates, it will become back to where it was.

I did 301 an entire website to a similar website (same niche). Some pages ranked the same instantly, some dropped completely and came back later. Some in less than 30 days, some at 30 and some took more than 30 days.

Overall, I saw positive impact right away and the ranking climbing after 30 days.

Give it 90 days before you make a decision and do not change the content.

Click to expand...

This is relatively where we are at. We are also fighting some negative SEO BS which I am sure isn't helping in the downward trend...

Any other feedback or insights would be greatly welcomed.