Need to change my URLs, but am afraid of the impact

[lina]

I use Wordpress for my content site. Currently, my blog post structure is site.com/category/blog-post-title. Unfortunately, many blog posts are in two categories, and Wordpress makes two URLs for each title. The problem is, I only learned about this after two years of blogging.

I plan to change the URL structure to site.com/blog-post-title and remove the category from the URL.

However, due to Wordpress limitations, when I change the URL structure, it will change all of the old URLs, too. I get 95% of my traffic from Google searches and rank #1 for most keywords in my niche. I'm very afraid that if I change my old URLs (I will set up 301 redirects) that it will impact my traffic.

How worried should I be about the impact on old URLs? And for new URLs, will having the category name missing impact SEO? An example category would be the city name, which I assume was positively affecting SEO.

I don't know a lot about this so any suggestions would be appreciated. Thanks!

[aristotle]

I get 95% of my traffic from Google searches and rank #1 for most keywords in my niche.

If it's working so well now, why take the risk of changing it?

[Planet13]

Off the top of my head, you might be able to use one of the SEO plugins and set a canonical tag for your posts.

The canonical tag would tell google, no matter what URL you used to access this page, please just index it at this particular URL.

The thing is, you would have to manually set each post you have to make sure that it only sees ONE canonical tag.

Otherwise, if it is automatically done, they you are just going to have the same problem.

How many posts do you have? If it isn't too many, then doing it manually could work. But if you have hundreds of posts, you might need to come up with a different solution.

~~~

The issue about moving the URL though is only really a concern if you have lots of links to your site, or if you have LOTS of facebook likes and other social media that links to your pages. You can always use 301 redirects to recapture the page rank juice / link juice from those inbound links, but as far as I know, you can't redirect the facebook likes and such from the old page URL to the new ones.

[not2easy]

This happens a lot so there are some easy ways to fix it. I use the Yoast SEO plugin that lets you redirect the old permalinks to the new ones, it will also keep those duplicate content URLs out of your sitemaps. It is free and can be added from you WP plugins page. It is widely used to deal with the exact situation you describe.

[netmeg]

And for new URLs, will having the category name missing impact SEO? An example category would be the city name, which I assume was positively affecting SEO.

Any effect would be miniscule if any. I don't use any categories (which would be cities in my case too) and I don't have any problems. As long as your redirects are properly done, you might see a small dip for a short period, but should ultimately be fine.

I also endorse the Yoast plugin for redirects (although I do mine directly in .htaccess just out of habit) but be careful of other types of redirect plugins; I used one once when I went from a static site to WP and I dunno what happened but it kind of ate itself and caused all kinds of problems (which went away once I got rid of the plugin)

[lina]

Thanks for the suggestions. I have 200 posts which I think I can handle redirecting manually if I have to.

I'll have a look at the Yoast plugin; I've been meaning to switch over to it for a while and just haven't done it. Do you know if I can set up rel=canonical for specific posts with it? I looked at the help materials and it seemed like you could only set a sitewide rel=canonical link rather than individual ones.

So you think if I do this it won't negatively impact my SEO much? I do have inbound links and social shares, but not sure why the 301 wouldn't handle those.

[tangor]

If there is a real need to make the change it doesn't matter if there is any impact: YOU NEED TO CHANGE THEM.

Most times good redirects/plugins mitigate any loss. If it needs be done, do it now, not later!

[roshaoar]

I agree with Aristotle. If it aint broke don't fix it. I know it might sound neater the other way, and be better according to "seo" advice but if it's working for you right now then think twice about changing it.

[not2easy]

Problem here is that "as is" the site has duplicate content, same posts or pages are shown at different URLs. So yes, it is something that needs attention. With Yoast's plugin, it can leave the URLs as they are, leaving all your navigation in place and backinks don't need consideration for redirects. You can redirect if you prefer, but with proper canonical tags and indexing only one version you don't need to redirect. You can set a per post canonical for every page or post and you can noindex all but one URL for each page or post. You can eliminate the extra URLs from your sitemaps.

[Anon]

hi lina, I'm going through the exact same thing. I have the same type of extension but want to make it simpler. I'm just leaving the old articles how they are and then having all new articles in the new format. But then i am rewriting the old articles too and will add them as new again.

[lina]

not2easy, if I do it that way, though, it means for every post I do in the future I will need to set a canonical or noindex for every post. This seems like proceeding on with a broken system...if it's not going to ruin me, I'd like to do it the right way going forward.

[drinstech]

It is not a major fact to change URL structure as you mention here. Anyway, if you change URL structure, then you can use WordPress SEO by Yoast to redirect old URL to new URL automatically.

If your site contains huge pages/post then it may effect search ranking.

[lina]

What do you mean by huge pages?

[not2easy]

not2easy, if I do it that way, though, it means for every post I do in the future I will need to set a canonical or noindex for every post. This seems like proceeding on with a broken system...if it's not going to ruin me, I'd like to do it the right way going forward.

The plugin offers a sitewide setting, it is not required post by post or page by page. All you need to do is set all the duplicates such as:
http://www.example.com/name-of-the-page/
http://www.example.com/category/name-of-the-page/
http://www.example.com/archives/name-of-the-page/
http://www.example.com/tag/name-of-the-page/
to index one version, the other identical pages with different URLs are all there, visible, you can link to them but they are all noindexed and not in your sitemaps.