Forum Moderators: phranque
Subsequently switched both: 1. IP, 2. URL of popular backlinked page for another of our domains (301 works perfectly). Have not touched any on page content and only gained it a handful of fresh backlinks.
Page was a rock solid G 1st for over 18 months for a relatively competitive 2kw phrase, and performed v well for a host of other phrases.
After change, page dropped to 9th, with Bourbon pushing it back to 5th.
Question is this: Should I sit it out, or ask link partners to update URL?
Am fearing that if I change URL's on link partner sites we'll incur a penalty for changing it.
Hard to know which of G's pathetic filters are the worst. Any advice?
Slow and steady is safer.
As to a 'penalty' for using a 301, I'd look elsewhere (algo changes). Redirection is part of the HTTP protocol.
Jim
Well the only other thing that could have caused it then would be the change in hosting IP address (USA to UK).
Else perhaps the other internal linking page URL changes could hurt it - not read anything on this yet though.
Thoughts?
Not sure what you mean, precisely. If you've changed a bunch of links - internal or external, then you've disrupted Google's familiar 'picture' of the site, and you may lose some backlink PR temporarily.
In the ideal case, domains and URLs never change, and pages never go 404. You risk some temporary rank loss otherwise. IP addresses don't matter, as long as your site does have a domain name and is indexed by that name rather than by IP address (domain-less sites are pretty rare these days).
These are SEO questions, and you'll undoubtedly get more (and conflicting) responses in the SEO-related forums.
Jim
>> page URL changes
Do you mean, you changed the path(s) to pages?
Not sure on this, but the patent application seems to indicate that G determines age by a number of factors now, including the date a page is first discovered... IOW if you changed URL's, your site (or a portion of it) may appear to be new. Especially if you change a large number of pages.
I believe they indicate that a domain's overall age may be determined in the same way, or by comparing the percent of the site that is 'new' pages to the percent of the site that is 'old' pages.
I would suspect you may have 'tripped' one of these filters.
Justin
Yes, I changed from a /folder/page.asp to /folder/ structure.
It's still hurting - yes must have tripped a filter. Have gotten about 25% of my linking partnes to update to the new URL as you advised Jim - and 3 weeks later I'm not seeing a difference - wondering whether it's worth the pain of waiting or whether to switch back and use rewrite to show the old page? Wish I had a clue as to how long it's going to take to reclaim my top SERP positions. Now at bottom of 1st page for comeptitive kw's.
Thanks,
Coburn
Make the change, get it over with, wait two months, and then check again. You will rarely see search engines "move fast" and if you change faster than they do, then they will never catch up.
Step back, and take a look at your site. How do you want it to be structured five years from now? Implement that; plan and execute for the long term.
On a quality Web, domains and URLs don't change. Pages never go 404/410, and servers are never down. These quality factors enter into ranking algorithms to one degree or another, and should never be ignored. So, if you are planning for the long term, and need to re-arrange things for site expansion, maintainability, and/or fundamental SEO, do it, do it now, do it once, and get it over with. Assuming that the change is accompanied by other improvements, you will see a payoff, but it will not be instant.
(I had to do this years ago (AltaVista was the king of search at the time). I knew the changes would tank the site temporarily. Sure enough, they did -- it lost 50% of its traffic for the next few months. But now, the total traffic that it had at the time I made those changes amounts to only one percent of its traffic today, so my changes effectively cost me 0.5% of my current traffic for two months, and the result was a 5000-percent increase over its original traffic. Viewed from this end it was a wise choice, though it *did* hurt at the time.)
Jim
Great to heed the words of wisdom as ever it is reading your posts. All the better when they are written personally for my web challenges.
Yes I'm relieved to say that the changes I've made will pay off in the longer term.
Thx - Coburn
