Changing the URL structure?

Jung · Dec 22, 2020

I'm about to get an expired domain but the URL structure was absolute shite.
xxx.com/category/2013-05/subject-subject

If I recover everything but make the URLs xxx.com/subject-subject
and redirect the previous ones, will it hurt existing rankings and ones I want to recover?

Sandy Joe · Dec 23, 2020

It won't affect ranking but you can expect some ups and downs for few weeks.
Make sure to put 301 only with relevant pages also check the backlinks of the expired domain.

Danezz · Dec 23, 2020

As the guy above says. Is important to use 301 redirect as it tells Google it's the same article with a new url and the backlinks juice is transferred.

FatBee · Dec 23, 2020

Danezz said:
As the guy above says. Is important to use 301 redirect as it tells Google it's the same article with a new url and the backlinks juice is transferred.

Seems like you both comment for post count.

after url structure change, wp automatically 301 the old links.

Danezz · Dec 23, 2020

FatBee said:
Seems like you both comment for post count.

after url structure change, wp automatically 301 the old links.

That's not true. I recently had to add single pages redirects to .htaccess to redirect to new url. The guy is creating a new webiste, he is not changing the permalink. And even if he was, backlinks stil give a 404 error

FatBee · Dec 23, 2020

Danezz said:
That's not true. I recently had to add single pages redirects to .htaccess to redirect to new url. The guy is creating a new webiste, he is not changing the permalink. And even if he was, backlinks stil give a 404 error

What WP are you using? 3? Idk.

svap · Dec 23, 2020

how many url want to redirect? if 5 to 10 that's ok but if you are redirecting 100+ URL then site rank will down.

Jung · Dec 23, 2020

svap said:
how many url want to redirect? if 5 to 10 that's ok but if you are redirecting 100+ URL then site rank will down.

The entire website is in that format .com/category/year-month/subject so yeah pretty much every article I recover.
That will hurt the rankings? Better to stay with the bad format?

svap · Dec 23, 2020

what your site on Wordpress?

Jung · Dec 23, 2020

svap said:
what your site on Wordpress?

Yeah

svap · Dec 23, 2020

Levn said:
Yeah

Go to WordPress dashboard, tap setting section and select permalinks. after that, you can select URL structure

Jung · Dec 23, 2020

Sandy Joe said:
It won't affect ranking but you can expect some ups and downs for few weeks.
Make sure to put 301 only with relevant pages also check the backlinks of the expired domain.

Danezz said:
That's not true. I recently had to add single pages redirects to .htaccess to redirect to new url. The guy is creating a new webiste, he is not changing the permalink. And even if he was, backlinks stil give a 404 error

FatBee said:
What WP are you using? 3? Idk.

svap said:
Go to WordPress dashboard, tap setting section and select permalinks. after that, you can select URL structure

So what's the bottom line because I'm a bit confused,
if the entire website was built with bad URL structure is it better to recover it as it was
or recover it properly and create proper redirects?

svap · Dec 24, 2020

Levn said:
So what's the bottom line because I'm a bit confused,
if the entire website was built with bad URL structure is it better to recover it as it was
or recover it properly and create proper redirects?

you can

GravenJ · Dec 26, 2020

I have done this before in the past. You will be fine

bartosimpsonio · Dec 26, 2020

Levn said:
I'm about to get an expired domain but the URL structure was absolute shite.
xxx.com/category/2013-05/subject-subject

If I recover everything but make the URLs xxx.com/subject-subject
and redirect the previous ones, will it hurt existing rankings and ones I want to recover?

It'll totally fuck up existing rankings even if you 301 it, contrary to what their official docs say.

It'll likely take 3 to 6 months to return to what it was before, if at all.

Jung · Dec 26, 2020

GravenJ said:
I have done this before in the past. You will be fine

bartosimpsonio said:
It'll totally fuck up existing rankings even if you 301 it, contrary to what their official docs say.

It'll likely take 3 to 6 months to return to what it was before, if at all.

Goddamn is there a clear consensus on this? I'm getting the domain in a few days and don't know what to do.
Bart are you saying this from experience?

bartosimpsonio · Dec 27, 2020

Levn said:
Bart are you saying this from experience?

Recent experience in fact. Client site moved this year, 100% followed all their shit, 301, move on GSC and so on and it still got fucked up.

Google has indexing problems. Even tho in theory the 301 should send the authority over, since Google is broken it won't index the new URL right and for some reason your site gets fucked up.

That is, if you're a small and honest webmaster. For big billion dollar sites Google will allow anything, see Quora and Pinterest.

Changing the URL structure?

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