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 I have a site atm which uses links that doesn't really make sense or isn't a word - like on Gooruze it says gooruze.com/questions-and-answers, where as mine would probably say aprilscompany.com/pg=2a or something like that. Ange says that it would be wise to change it so it reads like the Gooruze example i gave above. She also says it may or may not be easier to find on the search engines if i have a link that says eg mycompany.com/compaq-computers instead of mycompany/pg-3sd. Is that true? My site is about 1yr old, and I dont want to slip down in rankings on the search engines cos I've changed it to be more user friendly. What are the pros and cons of changing it? Are there severe repercussions if i do change it? | ||
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April 7th I did this a while ago and it doesn't seem to have adversely affected my rankings. For me, its an organisation thing; I like a clear folder structure, and I want to be able so say "go to mysite dot com slash myproduct" when I'm on the phone to people. Does this factor into your decision? One tip I read was to have all URLs in lowercase so that it's easier for bots ti find their way around. I'm not sure how much truth there is in this, but it does make things look tidy.  Reply
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April 3rd Click through is when they see your link in a search result, or better yet in an e-mail that someone sends them.
When you see a link with keywords in the URL string it's a pretty good indicator of what it's about. I have a blog that ranks pretty well for certain phrases, but I definitely wanted to change to a more search engine friendly URL. Using a 301 redirct (which means permanent) method should not affect you negatively, and even if it does slightly, the drop will only be temporary. Using a 302 redirect, or any other method whatsoever, can and likely will harm your rankings in a big way. Even though I knew it was the right thing to do, I still admit to being nervous when I did it, and in fact I blogged it... http://www.pdxtc.com/wpblog/seo/changing-wordpress-permalink-structure/ It worked out fine, and I had no drop in rankings or traffic, In fact both continue to improve.... Reply
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April 3rd I've been told the same thing - however my problem is that I want to change the domain of my site so rather then westnet.net.au/something/something else it will be something.com/info Reply
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April 3rd As long as you redirect everything, the fact that you're changing domains isn't much different that just changing the name of the pages. One other thing you should do is find people who have linked to your existing site and ask them to update their links.
As for time frame, I always tell clients to expect at 3 months, but it's rarely more than a couple weeks (in my experience). Reply
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