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ht tp://www.example.com/?list=M&widget=RED
After reading through all the great posts here at WebmasterWorld, I changed my url structure to be more search engine friendly:
ht tp://www.example.com/list_m/widget_red/
As I was on a learning curve, I didn’t think about the search engines that had already indexed my site. Now, almost 8 months on since the url changed I still find that the vast majority of my cached pages in Googles index (and others) still use the old structure.
This wouldn’t be a huge problem, but the old structure clashes with my new coding and creates a whole bunch of nasty errors when the user comes in through the old url structure (it even stops the main content that they are interested in from being displayed). I guess the reason the search engines still index the old structure is because part of the page is still displayed (Even if it has errors).
To make matters worse, last month (around the time of the latest Google update), I decided to screw things up even more by changing the page titles across the entire website:
From…
Mywebsitename – Widget Information: Red Widgets produced by Acme
To…
Widget Information: Red Widgets produced by Acme
At the time, I thought this would be a good ‘long term’ move. A few days later (around the time of the latest Google Update) – the number of visitors from Google had dropped from 600pd to 70pd. Maybe I’m being impatient but I can’t help worrying.
While digging around today, I noticed that the number of indexed pages from my site’s navigation (Letters A through to Z) is really very low.
E.g
Widget List A has 250 links to a lower level of detail page. Only 20 of the lower level pages are indexed.
……
Widget List Z has 450 links to a lower level of detail page. Only 30 of the lower level pages are indexed.
So where do I go from here?
a)Do I leave the site as it is and start working on other projects in the hope that one day everything with this site will turn good.
b)Get a new domain name (I have an idea for one) and redirect my current site to the new domain. Will I get a duplicate content penalty? Is there a point where a site is so far gone that there’s little that can be done?
Any thoughts on my current situation or explanations of my current state from a search engine pov would be greatly appreciated.
Have I screwed my website?!
[edited by: trillianjedi at 3:32 pm (utc) on May 9, 2006]
On our sites dropped from 180K pages to 38K at most data centers and even down to 300 (notice that there is no "K" at the end of that number!). As a result, traffic has gone to almost nil from Google. Most of teh DCs are showing 155K pages now, although even that's fluctuating.
If you do permanent redirects, it shouldn't be a duplicate content penalty. Although transfering everything to a new domain seems rather drastic.
(1) Set up 301 redirects so that anyone who clicks an old URL is sent to the new equivalent.
(2) Make sure that all links under your control are updated to point to the new URLs. No old links, no exceptions.
(3) Do some research to find other sites linking to old URLs and very respectully ask them to update to the new URLs. Some will, some won't, but the more old links you can get out of circulation, the better.
LifeinAsia - I agree that a new domain is rather drastic! Just looking at my options though. Making the changes at the start of the update wasn't a good idea, but I didn't see it coming :(
buckworks - Any idea how I would go about setting up the 301 redirects based on a url? I've only performed very simple stuff with 301s. I'm pretty sure all links to my site are to the root, is this bad?
See: [webmasterworld.com...]
To make matters worse, last month...I changed the page titles across the entire website.... At the time, I thought this would be a good ‘long term’ move. [But] A few days later... the number of visitors from Google had dropped from 600pd to 70pd.
You talk about how you thought it would be a good long-term move and then in the same breath complain about the results you got in the short term. Wow.
